There are so many convenient options these days when you want (and are ready) to learn a new language. Of course, one of the most popular ways is using a language app that you can access on your PC or a smart device, making learning Italian, Spanish, French, or even Klingon super easy.
Two of the most well-known language learning platforms are Babbel and Duolingo. I’ve tried and tested both of these, so if you want to know which of these are the best for your needs, I’ve got the answer for you.
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What Is Babbel? Facts & figures
Babbel is officially named Babbel GmbH, and it’s a German-based language-learning solution that was created in 2007 (though it only officially launched at the start of 2008).
Babbel offers interactive courses in multiple languages. It’s designed to help users quickly gain conversational skills through regular, short lessons that focus on practical vocabulary and grammar. Babbel’s methodology emphasizes real-life dialogue and cultural context, making it useful for travelers, business people, and language enthusiasts.
As the world’s first online language-learning platform, Babbel focuses on using real-life conversations and immersing you, the learner, in your language of choice.
Here are some top statistics about Babbel:
- You can use the desktop and app version of Babbel to learn. Plus, there’s Toucan, the podcasts, videos, Babbel Magazine, and live classes.
- It’s a paid-for language-learning solution.
- More than 50 million people have downloaded the app on the Google Play Store, where it’s a top-grossing education app.
- The website is available in 9 languages, making it very accessible.
- In 2022, its annual revenue totaled €275 million. (Business of Apps)
- The website got around 8.5 million visits in November 2023. (similarweb)
- Most of its traffic comes from the US (27.85%), followed by Germany (17.46%), Italy (7.31%), France (7.22%), and Ukraine (4.41%).
- The app is mostly used by 25 to 34 year olds (24.97%) and more women than men.
PROs
- Good grammar explanations
- Effective vocabulary trainer
- Pronunciation by natives
- Varied exercises progressing from basics to advanced
CONs
- Limited language options
- Not designed for kids
- Not suitable for intermediate or higher levels
- Pricey, with separate subscriptions for each language
What Is Duolingo? Data & facts
Duolingo was created by a U.S.-based company (it’s headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) in June 2012. Within a year of launching to the public, more than 10 million people downloaded the app.
The creators behind Duolingo were inspired by the world of games, and they took cues from games to keep language learners engaged and coming back for more. (Duolingo is quite addictive!).
Duolingooffers courses in many languages through a game-like, interactive app. It uses a combination of reading, writing, listening, and speaking exercises, gradually increasing in difficulty as the user progresses. Duolingo’s approach is centered on bite-sized lessons that are designed to be fun and accessible, making it a popular choice for casual learners and those starting a new language.
Here are some top statistics about Duolingo:
- It’s a free language-learning solution with paid-for subscriptions if you want premium features.
- Learn languages, math, and music with Duolingo. Or teach the little humans how to read and write with Duolingo ABC.
- Immerse yourself in a language and culture by listening to the official Duolingo podcast.
- The website is available in 26 languages, from English, German, and Spanish to Vietnamese, Tagalog, and Turkish.
- The 2023 Duolingo Language Report reveals the most popular languages people were learning in the year were English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Italian, Hindi, Chinese, and Brazilian Portuguese.
- The company generated $369.7 million in revenue in 2022. (Business of Apps)
- In 2022, Duolingo had 54 million monthly active users and 14.2 million daily active users.
- 690 million people downloaded the app in 2022.
PROs
- Free with affordable subscription options.
- Game-like and engaging lessons
- Personalized lessons targeting identified "weak areas."
- Short 5-10 minute daily commitment for language learning.
CONs
- Won't make you fluent in your chosen language(s)
- Grammar is not a priority
- No dedicated customer service team
- Regional pronunciation variations not adequately covered.
Babbel vs Duolingo: What Languages Are Available?
Duolingo has a much bigger language offering than Babbel.
Duolingo
I created a spreadsheet to accurately tally the languages Duolingo offers, and the company offers a total of 42 languages. Of course, you can’t access all the languages because what is available depends on your native language (or a language you are highly proficient in).
English speakers can access 39 languages, while if you speak Hindi, Greek, Thai, or Korean (or a few others), you can only learn English.
You can also learn two fictional languages on Duolingo if you want to impress friends or really get into character when you do LARPing:
- Klingon (Star Trek)
- High Valyrian (Game of Thrones)
Babbel
You can learn only 14 languages via Babbel. The app offers the most popular languages, such as English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish, as well as others, like Polish, Turkish, Norwegian, and Indonesian.
A Price Comparison: Babbel vs Duolingo
Let’s start with Duolingo because it’s less complicated.
Duolingo
Duolingo is a freemium language-learning app, but you have to contend with ads that pop up whenever you finish a lesson. It’s always to promote Super Duolingo, the company’s premium subscription option.
You can use Duolingo for free indefinitely, but if you want to get rid of the ads and benefit from extra features such as unlimited Hearts and more, you’ll have to pay:
- US$7.99 per month
- US$47.99 once-off for an annual subscription
- US$71.99 for a family plan for a year
You also get a two-week trial so you can see how much you like Super Duolingo and if it’s worth it.
Babbel
For Babbel, you can access a free trial, though the company doesn’t exactly tell you about this. For free, you can do the first couple of lessons and two live classes for any language, but to learn more, you have to sign up. Or, sign up for a subscription and request your money back within 20 days if you aren’t happy (read more: “How Much Does Babbel Cost?“).
Choose between Babbel Self-Study, where you get app-based exercises, access to podcasts, videos, games, and planning tools, or Babbel Live, which includes everything in Self-Study, plus access to unlimited live classes.
With either option, you can only learn one language, meaning you need two subscriptions if you want to learn two languages. However, you can opt for the Lifetime subscription at nearly US$600.00 with no limit on the languages you want to learn.
A Babble Self-Study subscription costs US$13.95 per month, while a year subscription is US$6.95 per month (or a once-off US$167.40 – not including a discount).
For Babble Live, a monthly subscription is US$99.00, or pay a monthly US$30.00 for a 12 month subscription.
What approaches do Duolingo and Babbel take?
Duolingo and Babbel’s teaching approaches are science-backed and aligned with the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). This means your language course meets CEFR’s international standards – and that’s a good thing.
Here’s how the teaching approaches of Duolingo and Babbel differs:
Duolingo
Learning a language on Duolingo feels like you are playing a game, yet you are learning by having fun. The interactive lessons focus on what matters and ensures you stay motivated to keep on learning.
The personalization features (with a subscription) ensures you can learn faster as you can practice your listening and speaking skills, review the vocabulary you’ve learned, and also focus on your mistakes (practice makes perfect and all that!).
Duolingo focuses mostly on your reading, listening, and translating skills, though there’s some writing and speaking practice too.
Babbel
Babbel’s focus is to get you conversational within 3 weeks of starting a language course (though that’s not a given and depends on various other factors like how committed you are to learning). The language-learning app is real-life based (and has a grown-up feel to it) with native speakers helping you practice vocabulary and conversation.
The whole idea behind Babbel is to teach you authentically, and while you learn your new language, you get a taste of the local culture too. The platform’s exercises are also geared toward helping you learn, review, and retain, ensuring what you learn moves from your short-term memory to your long-term memory.
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What Special Features Do Babbel and Duolingo Have?
Both Duolingo and Babbel offer some cool features and services.
Duolingo
- The daily quests to keep you motivated.
- Follow friends and encourage each other to complete the friend quests.
- Win the Legendary Trophy by completing the challenges.
- Start at the beginning, take a placement test, or skip ahead if you already know a unit’s material.
- The stories in the level’s help improve your understanding of the language and teaches you extra vocabulary.
- You can specifically practice your learning and speaking skills.
- You can complete a lesson unit, review it, or do the Legendary practice on it for extra points.
Babbel
- You can use Babbel’s podcasts, games, videos, magazine, and live classes to immerse yourself in a language and its culture.
- Use Toucan, a free browser extension to further your learning as you explore the web.
- Set goals to motivate you and keep you on track.
- Download content on your smart device for easy, offline learning.
- There are special lessons if there’s something specific you want to learn or focus on.
- You can start with Newcomer Lesson 1 or do a placement test. Or, you can skip ahead.
Who’s the Target Audience of Duolingo and Babbel?
There is some overlap of Duolingo and Babbel’s target audiences, but in essence, these two language-learning apps cater to different market segments:
Duolingo
Duolingo looks like a game, making it suitable for pretty much anyone to learn a language. The characters are animated, which brings out your inner child, and the weekly competitions can make you super competitive.
Anyone, from an elementary schooler to a senior citizen can start learning a language on Duolingo. However, the app is best if you are a beginner learning a specific language.
Babbel
Babbel’s interface is very different from Duolingo’s. It has a very mature look and feel, making the app – just from that perspective alone – suitable for someone who is more mature. Teenagers and adults will do well using Babbel to learn a language.
Like Duolingo, Babbel is also ideal if you are a complete beginner. And you can use the app to revise what you’ve learned before.
Excited to learn more? Explore my rewievs listed below:
Babbel’s Pros and Cons
There is some overlap of Duolingo and Babbel’s target audiences, but in essence, these two language-learning apps cater to different market segments:
Pros
- The minimalistic user interface which appeals to adults (however, Duolingo’s gaming incentives and color interface is pure fun).
- The varied exercises that start with the basics and advance as you learn more.
- It has a great vocabulary trainer, and you can easily review what you learned.
- Pronunciation is spoken by natives so you are exposed to more natural language usage.
- It has good grammar explanations (better than what you get on Duolingo).
- There’s a free trial (even though this isn’t advertised clearly) or a 20-day money-back guarantee if you are unsatisfied with the language-learning app.
- You can use Babbel on your computer and smart device, making learning convenient.
- It does a better job of improving your speaking skills (since you merely repeat phrases and words in a vacuum on Duolingo).
Cons
- It’s pricey, especially considering that each language requires a separate subscription and Babble Live is much more expensive than Babble Self-Study.
- It’s not ideal if you are at an intermediate or higher level because there’s not enough learning material.
- The live classes aren’t that great. They are limited to 6 students and you can only really start with them further along in the beginner/newcomer course of your chosen language (and not right away, which would be beneficial).
- There aren’t many languages you can learn with Babbel, and not every language has the same amount of courses or features. For example, you can only join live classes if you are learning Italian, French, German, and Spanish.
- It’s not suitable for kids.
Duolingo’s Pros and Cons
Pros
- It’s free with affordable subscription options.
- More languages on offer (40+ compared to Babbel’s 10+).
- The lessons are game-like and fun, keeping you engaged through the learning process.
- There are a wide variety of exercises in every lesson, and while the exercises are quite repetitive, repetition is key in learning.
- It offers personalized lessons on what the app identifies as “weak areas” so you get targeted practice.
- You can learn a language with a 5-10 minute commitment a day.
- It’s super user-friendly with an intuitive platform.
Cons
- You won’t become fluent in your language(s) of choice by learning on Duolingo (only).
- When you learn Spanish, for example, the app doesn’t take into account different pronunciations from various regions. Or rather, it does, because each character pronounces words like “yo” and “llama” differently but you don’t know which to follow.
- Grammar isn’t a priority, and while you can find information about the grammar of the language you’re learning in the level overview, it isn’t extensive.
- No customer service team, but you can use the extensive Help Center to find an answer to your query.
Important Aspects to Consider about Duolingo vs Babbel
While Duolingo and Babbel seem to be great language-learning apps on the surface, there are critical points to note.
- You can’t become fluent in a language with a reliance on either (or both) of these apps. You need to speak to real, living natives, watch native movies and TV shows, read books, magazines, and articles, and listen to music. Immerse yourself in the culture as much as possible.
- You also need to supplement your language learning adventure. Use free resources online, watch YouTube videos, get a tutor or join live classes at a local language school, and buy a dictionary and other books to help you really understand the language (beyond the point of just memorizing phrases and parroting what the apps teach you).
- While Duolingo and Babbel can help develop your listening skills, you can’t really practice speaking, writing, reading, and understanding. For example, when I complete the spoken exercises on the apps, there’s no feedback about how I can improve my pronunciation or what I’m doing wrong.
- It’s easy to progress with the lessons on Duolingo and Babbel by simply memorizing, but do you truly understand what you’ve learned?
- Add while you may feel confident that you can order a burger or buy a cheap, blue jacket in the language you’re learning, can you really? In a real-life situation, anxiety sets in and everything you’ve supposedly learned flies out the window (especially when you don’t have real-life practice in a language).
Begin learning a new language with Babbel! 🌟 Unlock up to 55% OFF your Babbel subscription today!
The Verdict: Which Language-Learning App Is the Best for Me?
Duolingo is way more popular than Babbel. It’s easy to use, has a free version, and the game-like format makes learning fun.
Babbel shines with grammar explanations and sensible lesson plans. It is slightly better for the serious language learner who’s 13+ while Duolingo is great for beginners or those who dabble in learning languages.
While either of these apps are a great starting point to your language-learning journey, you need additional support and resources to really advance and become fluent.
If you enjoyed my article, please feel free to share it. Have any questions? Don't hesitate to email me!
Disclaimer: I select and review independently. If you buy through affiliate links, I may earn commissions that help support my testing at no extra cost to you. Please read my full disclosure for more information.
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