AI · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to DuoBook
After I posted DuoBook on HN a few months ago, a CEO from Denmark gave me very honest feedback: “Nice product, but coming up with a story is a mental effort. I’d rather read real news as short stories.” That stuck with me, so I built URL grounding for stories. Paste any URL → DuoBook turns it into a short, level-adjusted story in seconds. Currently works best with: - Wikipedia - Non-paywalled news/articles - YouTube videos with captions I also implemented most of the feedback I got from HN last time. Would love more feedback on what feels useful vs gimmicky.
Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes.
- 1DS
I've been working on a little side project that combines Duolingo-like listening comprehension exercises with real content . Every video is transcribed to get much better transcripts than the closed captions. I filter on high quality transcripts, and afterwards a LLM selects only plausible segments for the exercises. This seems to work well for quality control and seems to be reliable enough for these short exercises. Would love your thoughts!
2025 · app.fluentsubs.com · its alternatives →
- 2
Hi HN! I have been working on a webapp to keep learning German and today I want to share the first version. In the past, I have used books with "Short stories" to learn the language and I always wanted more stories so I thought I could put that into an app. Short stories are nice because the learner can attempt to understand words from the context of the text and it feels like less effort than a traditional language app. Additionally, the app format allows for practice questions at the end and you can use LLMs to check whether the answers are correct; so the users can check themselves. So…
2023 · webbu.app · its alternatives →
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TL;DR▲199I love Hacker News but I rarely have time to read full articles / comments, so I built a simple site to summarize the top posts & comments to make it easier to get a big picture. A few implementation details: - It pulls the top stories from the HN Firebase API (`/v0/topstories`) - Filters stories with >200 points - Uses Claude Sonnet for post + comment summaries - Tries to capture the sentiment of the comments (still working on improving this) - Refreshes both posts + summaries hourly It has already helped me I hope it helps you! Please let me know if you have any feedback --…
2025 · tl-dr.tv · its alternatives →
- 5IW
Two of my friends recently welcomed their first child and I "wrote" a kid's book for them using ChatGPT for the story and Midjourney for illustrations. The plot was sourced from a group of friends.
2023 · adventure-of-penelope.vercel.app · its alternatives →
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Hi! Wanted to share the project I really wanted to have. TLDR; this app lets you create your own list of words and you get a Duolingo-like experience (kind of, still needs a lot of features) practicing those words in their context. My English is not the best but not the worst either. But I realized I can't boost it up after a certain level! In my belief, in order to truly learn a language, you need to be exposed to that language often. Vocabulary is the key factor here if you really want to improve in any language. My experience is that when I read a book to improve my English vocabulary, I…
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
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I authored and developed an interactive children's book about entrepreneurship and money management. The journey started with Twinery, the open-source tool for making interactive fiction, discovered right here on HN. The tool kindled memories of reading CYOA style books when I was a kid, and I thought the format would be awesome for writing a story my kids could follow along, incorporating play money to learn about transactions as they occurred in the story. Twinery is a fantastic tool, and I used it to layout the story map. I really wanted to write the content of the story in Emacs and Org…
2025 · tendollaradventure.com · its alternatives →
- 11
Toku Reader▲111Read & listen to native Japanese and Chinese, tap any word
Jul 2026 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →
- 12
Our Stories▲87A storytelling tool for raising bilingual kids
May 2026 · readourstories.org · its alternatives →
- 13FA
Made this app because I was tired of not knowing 50 words/book when I read in English. You can try it on the AppStore searching "Quicky app". For Android user please use the web mobile version at https://quicky.app/. The Desktop version has a shitty responsive design. IMPORTANT NOTE: If you are not French, you will want to tell you are to try the features of the app (sorry it's only in French though) I'd love to hear your feedback.
2019 · its alternatives →
- 14IB
Hey HN! I’m Alex, and one of my favorite ways to learn languages is by reading novels. Currently I’m reading 三体 (3 body problem), but one problem I've always had is it takes ages to look up words, and add them to Anki flashcards so I can remember them. 三体 is especially brutal with so much sci-fi vocab. That’s why I built Readly. I snap a pic of the page I’m reading, it loads the text in-app and lets me lookup words, add to Anki-style flashcards, or ask AI questions about the text, all in a single tap. It's a huge time saver. My specific learning strategy, if anyone wants to replicate it: 1.…
2025 · readly.ink · its alternatives →
- 15
Hey HN! I'm excited to share a tool I've been working on - a native Hacker News reader built with Rust and egui. Here's a screenshot: https://github.com/haojiang99/hacker_news_reader/blob/main/s.... As a daily HN reader, I've always struggled with keeping track of interesting posts I want to read later. Browser tabs pile up, bookmarks get forgotten, and I lose track of what I've already read. I needed a way to: 1. Browse HN efficiently (across all sections - hot, new, show, ask, jobs, best) 2. Quickly mark posts as "todo" for later reading 3. Mark posts as…
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 16IW
As hard as I tried, I didn't find a modern language learning book that's either very academic, or like "master a language with my super-magic great method in 3 months". So I dug into the academic research, tried many techniques myself, saw what worked, wrote a book for learners of any language and any level, and made it free without ads. Today, finally, a 2 years-long project ends. I hope it helps anyone. Book's here: https://thehardway.guide/ Cheers
2023 · its alternatives →
- 17MF
Just finished my second year at college studying Computer Science, and wanted to try and gain experience as a full stack dev this summer, so I made a website that allows users to create stories using openai's API, using embeddings for custom terms users can define, and create short stories and chapters alike. I'm mainly just looking for some feedback on how I can improve it or make it more presentable, so any help/feedback is welcome and appreciated!
2023 · plotnotes.ai · its alternatives →
- 18
duoBooks▲8Read anything with translation to your native language
2025 · duo-books.com · its alternatives →
- 19
Practice your language skills with quirky stories (Beta)
2017 · duolingo.com · its alternatives →
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- 21HW
URL: https://hnnoai.readpipe.org/
Aug 2026 · hnnoai.readpipe.org · its alternatives →
- 22
Lexio▲2Beautiful Spanish stories for language learners
Jun 2026 · lexiolanguage.com · its alternatives →
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Hey HN, Over the past 6 months, I've been working on a Spanish language learning app that generates stories for you with your target words. For the last 2, I've been reading with it most mornings and it's really helped me grow my vocab. It generates short stories built around your target words you are learning, and uses vocabulary you already know for the majority of the story (around 95%). As you read along you click any word you don't know and it puts them into a spaced repetition system (SRS) to appear in future generated stories. It does need an account to work. I have a short…
Aug 2026 · readplusone.com · its alternatives →
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Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →