LingQ
Depends
Confidence: Medium
Buy it if you're an intermediate learner who reads daily and will import your own content.
New check
Comparison
LingQ vs Duolingo
LingQ and Duolingo both land on Depends.
Duolingo
Depends
Confidence: Medium
Buy it as a free daily-habit builder for casual learners and beginners.
| Compare | LingQ | Duolingo |
|---|---|---|
| Verdict | Depends | Depends |
| Best for | Intermediate+ readers | Casual daily practice |
| Who it's not for | Absolute beginners needing guided lessons | Anyone needing fast fluency for work or travel |
| Privacy | No known public vulnerabilities for the LingQ app itself; a public security page exists, but Chrome once disabled the official Importer extension over a security issue.15 | 2023 breach affected 2.6M accounts; one 2017 CVE in the discontinued TinyCards app.16 |
| Support quality | No support evidence in reviewed sources. | No evidence in sources |
| Public sentiment | Long-term users credit LingQ with major vocabulary gains, while beginners and price-sensitive users find it confusing or overpriced. | Opinion is polarized: casual users love the streak-driven habit, while serious learners say progress stalls. |
| Biggest gotcha | Free plan tightly limits saved words and imports; serious use needs Premium.⁶ | 2.6M user records circulated on the dark web after the 2023 leak16 |
Pick LingQ when
- Intermediate+ readers
- Multi-language learners
- Self-directed content importers
- Daily consistent users
When LingQ is not a fit
- Absolute beginners needing guided lessons
- Casual learners wanting gamified streaks
- Anyone avoiding a monthly subscription
- Teams needing teacher-led structured programs
Pick Duolingo when
- Casual daily practice
- Complete beginners in popular languages
- Habit-driven streak learners
- Students supplementing a real course
When Duolingo is not a fit
- Anyone needing fast fluency for work or travel
- Intermediate learners past the app's ceiling
- Serious learners wanting conversation practice
- People expecting an app alone to teach a language
Sources
- LingQ Review 2026: Is It Worth It After 6+ Years?lingtuitive.comreview
- LingQ review: probably not worth your timemultilingualmastery.comreview
review
- LingQ is a horrible servicereddit.comreview
- Anyone else find Lingq unusable?reddit.comreview
- Is the free version of LingQ worth it?reddit.comreview
review
- LingQ | Learn Languages - Apps on Google Playplay.google.comreview
- Read Customer Service Reviews of lingq.comtrustpilot.comreview
- LingQ - Learn 42 languages for Androidlingq-learn-42-languages.en.softonic.comreview
official
- Lifetime LingQ Membershiplingq.comofficial
- LingQ - Crunchbase Company Profile & Fundingcrunchbase.comnews
- Product security pagelingq.comsecurity
- LingQ Importer disabled due to security issueforum.lingq.comsecurity
- Duolingo Data Breachhaveibeenpwned.comsecurity