Alternatives
Products that do what Open-source alternative to Duolingo for learning anything does
I built an open-source tool for learning anything using AI: - Type what you want to learn - It creates a full interactive course for you Move from beginner to mastery of any subject, even complex things like Quantum Physics It has three formats: - Explanation: bite-sized lessons that you swipe like TikTok/Instagram - Practice: solve problems in real-world situations - Quiz: test your knowledge in Duolingo-like lessons - Language courses have a different format covering vocabulary, reading, and listening skills It's more hands-on than reading a long textbook or watching a video Plus, it…
- 1IM
The idea is actually quite simple. As a Japanese learner and a coder, I've always wanted there to be an open-source, 100% free for learning Japanese, similar to Monkeytype in the typing community. Unfortunately, pretty much all language learning apps are closed-sourced and paid these days, and the ones that are free have unfortunately been abandoned. But of course, just creating yet another language learning app was not enough - there has to be a unique selling point. And then I thought to myself: why not make it crazy and do what no other language learning app ever did by adding a gazillion…
Sep 2025 · kanadojo.com
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5OO
Hi HN, Nick here. We’re launching OpenKnowledge (https://openknowledge.ai/), a “what you see is what you get” markdown editor that has direct integrations with Claude, Codex, and other agents. Available as MacOS app or Web UI+CLI. Fully free/local and OSS. We built this because we wanted a Notion-like experience for writing and sharing markdown files across our team. Obsidian is the best alternative we tried, but found it doesn’t have a true WYSWIG UI and it didn’t integrate well with Claude/Codex outside of community plugins. So we built OpenKnowledge. It takes…
Jun 2026 · github.com
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9LJ
Hi HN, Just wanted to share a tool i've been working on to help with my own study routine. It’s a browser extension called Lingoku. The idea is simple: we spend hours browsing the web in English every day. This tool replaces some of the english words with Japanese vocabulary based on your japanese level (Similar to Toucan, but with a better user experience). It’s basically an attempt to make the "i+1" method actually passive, you understand the sentence because it's mostly english, but you pick up Japanese words naturally from the context. It uses an LLM in the backend to make sure the…
Dec 2025 · lingoku.ai
- 10LB
Hello everyone. I built an AI-based toolset to help me with language learning. I wanted to be able to easily generate very specific study content and get rapid feedback on my writing. Unlike most language apps, it doesn’t actually try to teach you a language. Instead, it’s a collection of tools for people at an intermediate level who already have a learning process It’s particularly great for Anki users. There a demo video on the login page, and I set up anonymous auth for people who want to test it without creating an account. Feedback and bug reports welcome.
2025 · drillapp.xyz
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14IB
Hi Everyone, I recently wanted to learn Japanese with duolingo but it kept giving me repetitive lessons. So I built an app that gives a variety of lessons from anime. You can try it out here:https://kanjieight.vercel.app/ Thanks everyone.
Nov 2025 · kanjieight.vercel.app
- 15IM
Itsumo is a language learning app that generates short lessons from stories about topics you choose, at your level. Instead of working through a fixed curriculum or another flashcard deck, you can make a lesson about whatever happens to be interesting to you that day, with audio, tappable words, and grammar notes. You can try a language story from the landing page without signing up, and if you want to try full access, no credit card is required at signup, and the premium tier free for 14 days. It supports Japanese, Polish, Spanish, English, Portuguese, French and Italian. I built it because…
Apr 2026 · itsumo.study
- 16IM
Hey everyone! I’ve been learning the Russian language on and off for over 15 years now. I took classes in college, and of course continued my education through apps like Duolingo. I started learning the language because one of my closest friends growing up was Russian, and I thought it would be cool to be able to speak with him in his language. Of all the ways I’ve learned the language, not one of them focused on the modern way we communicate: through text. I decided to make this app to create a text-first language learning experience --mostly so I could keep up with my friends’ groupchat.…
2025 · apps.apple.com
- 17RC
Hi HN, We’ve just launched v1 of Respeakable, an AI-enhanced language tutor. We have two German lessons (Level A2, beginner to complete beginner) designed by a language-teacher friend of ours – feel free to try it out and give any feedback. We (lschneider and I) have been experimenting with learning languages (specifically French) using different vocabulary apps and tools. The issue is that apps like Duolingo are after your attention (their motto is “test everything”) rather than teaching you a language and are therefore hyper gamified and too easy – all about hijacking your dopamine system.…
2024 · respeakable.com
- 18IM
Hey HN! I created Hanasu.ai after my 9-5 job as a side project. Previously I'd used Duolingo to learn Japanese, but failed spectacularly when I actually spoke with my roommate from Tokyo. Now, after OpenAI improved their Realtime audio model in December and reduced pricing, I spent my entire winter break building. So how does it work? Just choose a daily topic and converse with the AI model: (1) Didn't catch a phrase? Double tap to reveal a transcript. (2) Couldn't understand? Double tap for translations powered by Google. (3) Can't recall that intricate Chinese/Japanese character? Just…
2025 · hanasu.ai
- 19CS
Hey! I'm Ali, and I built a tool to help me learn Spanish. There's a good amount of info in the about page, but the short version is that I found apps like Duolingo completely useless. In theory they're designed to help you speak a language but I found it mostly helped my muscle memory tap the right parts of a screen without really learning to say anything. Or more importantly prepare me for how fast a native Spanish speaker speaks! After giving up on Duolingo I tried a few different things; Pimsleur, Paul Noble and Language Transfer. These are all great in different (but similar) ways and…
Jan 2026 · cadencespanish.com
- 20AD
Hi all, I threw together a small prototype I am calling “Notepad.ai”. A new take on UIs for interacting with LLMs. While I enjoy using LLM’s in the chat format I wanted to see what it would be like to do it in a more long form style. It let’s you write in a pretty free form, much like Window’s Notepad, but you can choose to hit ctrl+[ to analyze the text with a preset prompt of your choosing. It has a few other small features. It’s WIP and very experimental. I would appreciate any feedback or thoughts. Video: https://youtu.be/ntdlgFmSxQY Live Demo:…
2024 · github.com
- 21
The Best Google Little Language Lessons Alternative
24d ago · littlelanguagelessons.ai
- 22
- 23
- 24LL
I once went to live for a month in Chile, at a friend's place in Santiago where only a few people spoke English. At first I could hardly follow any conversation. I had studied Spanish for a few months using Babbel, which was a good foundation but also nowhere close to really preparing me for this experience. It was difficult. I choked up, froze, constantly looked for the right words to say – it was impossible to have good conversations and form deeper connections. That’s why for the first few days, I resorted to listening and trying to figure out what people were saying. Most of the time I…
2024 · lingolooper.com
Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Refine with a description →