Disclosure: we make Simply Fluent, one of the apps listed below. We've tried to write this the way we'd want it written about us, including a section on when you should ignore all of these and stay where you are.
Prices and features checked July 2026.
First: are you sure you want to leave?
Most "LingQ alternatives" articles are written by people who want to sell you something, so they open by telling you LingQ is bad. LingQ isn't bad. It's the most complete vocabulary system in this category, and if the thing you want is every word you've ever encountered, tracked, forever, feeding a review queue, nothing here does that better.
So before the list, be honest about which of these is your actual complaint:
- "It's too expensive." Fair. At €14.99/month it's the priciest option in the category. (That's the EUR price as of July 2026; LingQ shows different figures by region.)
- "The interface is too much." Also fair, and common. There's a lot of app between you and the text.
- "I spend more time hunting for things to read than reading." The most interesting complaint, and the one that says something real about what you want.
- "I just want to read a novel." Then you want a different category of tool, not a better LingQ.
Those complaints have different answers. Here they are.
The options at a glance
| App | Price (July 2026) | Import your own books? | The pitch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Simply Fluent | Free; €7.99/mo, €59.99/yr | Yes (EPUB, PDF, text) | Short stories + modernized classics; saved words stay visible on the page |
| Readlang | $6/mo, $48/yr | Web pages + uploads | Translate any page on the web |
| Kindle | No subscription | Yes | You may already own one |
| Beelinguapp | $7.99/mo, $49.90/yr (App Store) | No | Parallel text for beginners |
| Eppika | $49.99/yr (App Store) | No | Bestsellers rewritten to your level |
| Anki | Free (paid iOS app) | n/a | Not a reader, the review half only |
If the problem is price
Readlang, $6/month
Less than half of LingQ, and the core loop is the same: read, tap a word, save it, review it later. The difference is what you're reading. Readlang lives mainly as a browser extension, so it turns any web page into tappable text. News, blogs, articles, whatever you already open.
If most of your LingQ time was spent in imported articles rather than long books, Readlang does the same job for a third of the price.
Free tier gives unlimited single-word translations, capped at 10 phrase translations a day.
Where it's weaker than LingQ: the vocabulary system is simpler. There's no equivalent of LingQ's known/unknown state machine and statistics.
Simply Fluent, free, or €7.99/month
Ours. Roughly half LingQ's price, with a free tier that doesn't ask for a card.
The design difference is deliberate, and it's the whole reason to switch: LingQ puts the system first and the reading inside it. We put the reading first.
Tap a word and you get the meaning that fits that sentence, not a list of every definition to choose from, and it catches expressions and idioms rather than translating word by word and quietly misleading you.
Then the thing that changes how a long book feels: save a translation once and it appears above that word from then on, on every page, in every book. It goes into your flashcards as well, but you don't have to wait for a review session to get the benefit. The word is simply legible the next time you meet it. You never look it up twice.
And when you know a word, you mark it memorized and its translation stops showing. The highlight stays, so you can reveal it again whenever it slips. The page gets cleaner as you go, one word at a time, because you decided so. Early on you save constantly; a few books later you're mostly just reading. Words you save become flashcards from your own books, weighted toward the ones you keep meeting.
LingQ counts what you know. We try to stop you having to stop.
Thirty-seven languages fully supported; ninety-odd more work with translation tools.
Where it's weaker than LingQ: we don't track every word you've ever seen into a statistical model. If that system is why you're on LingQ, we're a downgrade and you should stay.
If the problem is the interface
This is the most common complaint we hear, and it isn't really about buttons. It's about wanting to read a book rather than operate software.
LingQ was built as a system that happens to contain text. If what you want is text that happens to contain a dictionary, you want a different shape of tool, that's Simply Fluent or, at its simplest, Kindle.
Kindle, no subscription
Worth taking seriously, because you might already own one, and a lot of articles misrepresent it.
Kindle's Vocabulary Builder does keep one word list across your whole library. Save a word in one book, see it in another. Some comparison articles claim otherwise; they're wrong, and we're not repeating it just because it would suit us.
For a lot of people, a Kindle plus a foreign-language dictionary is enough, and it costs nothing extra.
The genuine catches, as of July 2026:
- Word Wise doesn't translate. It shows simple English definitions above hard English words, for people learning English. Learning Spanish or French? It does nothing for you, and it never will.
- Vocabulary Builder exists only on Kindle e-reader hardware, not the phone app. If you read on your phone, it's not there.
- Amazon removed the Flashcards feature in late 2024. Reviewing words still works; flashcards don't. Many guides haven't caught up.
- No official export.
If the problem is hunting for content
This one is worth sitting with, because it's diagnostic.
LingQ's model assumes you'll bring or find material, lessons, imports, its library. If you find yourself endlessly browsing for something to read instead of reading, the problem probably isn't the app. It's that you don't have a book you want to finish.
The fix isn't a better content-hunting tool. It's picking one novel you genuinely want to read and reading it. That's the entire premise of a book-first app: you're not assembling a curriculum, you're reading a story, and the vocabulary is a by-product.
If real novels feel out of reach right now, Eppika rewrites bestsellers to your level (A1–C1). You're not reading exactly what the author wrote, which may or may not bother you, but you're reading something with a plot instead of hunting for material. Their App Store listing shows $49.99/year.
If you want the review system, not the reader
Then you don't want a LingQ alternative. You want Anki, and it's free.
Anki is the spaced-repetition engine that most serious learners eventually end up using. It has no reader, you bring your own words. Pair it with any of the above and you've rebuilt LingQ's review half for nothing.
Be warned that Anki is unapologetically utilitarian, and the iOS app costs money.
When to just stay on LingQ
We said we'd write this section, so:
Stay on LingQ if the vocabulary system is the point. Known/unknown tracking across every text you've ever read, statistics, an integrated review queue, nothing else here matches that, including us. If you use those features and they work for you, €14.99 buys something the cheaper options don't sell.
Leave if you're paying for a system you don't use, and what you wanted was to read a book.
Related reading
- The best apps for reading books in another language, the full comparison, including Kindle and Beelinguapp
- How to pick your first book in another language
- How many words do you need to read a novel?
