Memrise Alternatives for Vocabulary, Flashcards and Custom Decks

Memrise is still running and still updated. Memrise released version 2026.10.21 on October 23, 2026 and holds a 4.8 rating from 218,000 App Store reviews. The current app is a course product Memrise writes itself: vocabulary lessons, short videos of native speakers, AI Buddies for chat practice and role-play scenarios. In the US, Pro costs $24.99 a month, $61.99 a year or $329.99 for life.

The old Memrise is the reason most people search for an alternative. On March 31, 2024, user-made community courses were removed from the app and memrise.com and moved to a standalone archive site, per the Memrise community courses page. The archive is still up in 2026, and Memrise has started bringing user content back into the main app as word lists, beginning with about 800 migrated courses. If you used Memrise for your own decks, or for a niche course nobody else teaches, the seven tools below cover that job better.

Prices below are as of November 8, 2026. Our method is on How we review tools.

Quick comparison

Anki

Anki is the natural home for the decks that left Memrise in 2024. It is a spaced-repetition flashcard program where you control everything: card layout, audio, images, review limits and the scheduling algorithm. Shared decks cover almost any language and subject, including the obscure ones that only existed as Memrise community courses.

The desktop build, 26.09.4, needs Windows 10, macOS 13 or a Linux machine. AnkiDroid for Android is free and built by volunteers. AnkiWeb sync between devices is free too. A CSV of your old Memrise words imports straight into a new deck.

Best for: Learners who want to build or import their own decks and keep them for good.

Pricing:

• Desktop app: free
• AnkiDroid on Android: free
• AnkiMobile on iOS: $24.99 one-time
• AnkiWeb sync: free

Watch out for:

• It ships with no content and a plain interface, so expect setup time that Memrise never asked for.
• The iPhone app is the one paid version, and its App Store rating is 4.0 from 2,400 ratings.

Official site: Anki. Our listing: Anki.

Lingvist

Lingvist, from Estonia's Lingvist Technologies, teaches vocabulary in order of frequency and always inside a full sentence, with audio for every card and speech recognition for pronunciation. Its Custom Decks feature is the closest modern take on Memrise's make-your-own-course idea: submit your own words, images or a block of text and the app gathers related vocabulary into a deck.

Full courses cover 16 languages, including Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Korean and Russian, plus a French verb conjugation course. Lingvist shipped version 2.65.5 on October 9, 2026 and holds a 4.6 rating from 3,700 App Store reviews. The app runs without ads.

Best for: Learners who want custom decks from their own reading without designing cards by hand.

Pricing:

• 12-month plan: $79.99, billed yearly, with a free trial; a $199.99 12-month tier is also sold
• 1-month plans: $9.99, $19.99 or $49.99 a month
• US App Store prices; plans renew automatically

Watch out for:

• Reviews from December 2024 say the app rejects valid alternative answers and that its synthetic Italian voice mispronounces words.
• Only the annual plan comes with a free trial, so testing a month first means paying.

Official site: Lingvist.

Clozemaster

Clozemaster drills words the way you meet them: inside real sentences, with one word missing. You type it or pick it from four options, and the app schedules the sentence for review. With more than 50 languages and 170-plus language pairings, it covers far more language pairs than Memrise's own courses do.

It is best after the first few hundred words, once you can read a short sentence. Paying for Pro brings audio drills for 30-plus languages and lets the phone apps work without a connection, per the Clozemaster Pro page.

Best for: Intermediate learners who want thousands of sentences to fix words in context.

Pricing:

• Free tier on web and mobile
• Pro, US App Store: $8.99 or $12.99 per month, $69.99 or $79.99 per year

Watch out for:

• Pro is sold at two price points for each billing period ($8.99 or $12.99 a month, $69.99 or $79.99 a year), so check which one you are offered before you buy.
• There are no long texts, videos or speaking practice, so it does not replace a course.

Official site: Clozemaster.

Duolingo

Duolingo is the free answer for anyone who used Memrise mainly as a daily habit. The full course in 40-plus languages is free with ads, and streaks and leagues keep you coming back. It also teaches chess, maths and music in the same app.

Since January 2026, Explain My Answer, the AI note on why an answer was wrong, has been free for most learners in seven major courses, per Duolingo's announcement. The paid Max tier adds Video Call with the character Lily and Roleplay for seven major languages.

Best for: Learners who want a free, structured daily course rather than their own word lists.

Pricing:

• Free, with ads
• Super: from $12.99 a month or $83.99 to $119.99 a year (US in-app prices)
• Duolingo Max: about $29.99 a month or $168 a year in the US

Watch out for:

• You cannot make your own course or import a word list, the very thing Memrise community users miss.

Official site: Duolingo.

Busuu

Busuu, part of Chegg, swaps Memrise's video clips for a classic course order and human feedback. Exercises you write or say aloud go to fluent speakers in its community for correction. Subscribers get certificates and the full set of 12 courses.

It suits a Memrise user who learned plenty of words but cannot build a sentence. The Busuu Premium page offers a seven-day money-back guarantee.

Best for: Learners who know words but need grammar and corrected writing.

Pricing:

• US App Store, monthly: $6.99 at the low end, $23.49 at the high end
• Yearly Premium: $70.00 to $138.99, by offer
• Yearly Premium Plus: $139.99

Watch out for:

• Twelve languages is a fraction of what Memrise community courses once covered.

Official site: Busuu.

LingQ

LingQ turns reading into vocabulary building. Open a text with audio, or import your own, tap each unknown word, and it becomes a saved LingQ, translation attached, for later review. Your word list grows from material you actually care about rather than a set course.

The app covers more than 50 languages. Free users hit a ceiling quickly: LingQ's own plan comparison allows 20 saved words and 5 imported lessons.

Best for: Intermediate learners who would rather pick up words from articles and stories than from drills.

Pricing:

• Free plan with the limits above
• Premium: $14.99 per month or $119.99 per year in the US App Store
• Premium Plus, with extra features: $29.99 per month, $269.99 per year

Watch out for:

• There is no course to follow, which leaves beginners without a starting point.
• Twenty saved words on the free plan runs out within a single article.

Official site: LingQ.

Glossika

Glossika trains whole sentences by ear and by mouth, repeated on a schedule, in 60-plus languages, including less common ones such as Uzbek and two kinds of Chinese. That breadth is the closest thing to Memrise's long tail of community courses.

A new app launched on September 2, 2026 with Explore and Train modes, and the old one is now Glossika Legacy, per the Glossika launch post. Basic covers one language and Pro covers all of them.

Best for: Learners of a rarer language who want listening and speaking practice, not flashcards.

Pricing:

• Basic: one language, billed monthly or yearly
• Pro: all 60-plus languages, billed monthly or yearly
• Older Legacy app, US store: Basic from $16.99 a month, Pro from $299.99 a year

Watch out for:

• Pro at $299.99 a year or more costs several times Memrise Pro's $61.99.
• The app explains very little grammar, so keep a reference book open.

Official site: Glossika.

How to choose

When to stay with Memrise

Stay with Memrise if you liked its official courses rather than the community ones. The native-speaker videos are still unusual among big apps, AI Buddies give low-pressure chat practice, and the $329.99 lifetime plan, often offered lower, is one of the few one-time prices around. Your old community courses also still work on the community courses site with the same Memrise login, and a Pro subscription still applies there.

Frequently asked questions