Price: Busuu vs Duolingo
Both apps give complete courses for free and show ads. Busuu Premium costs €57.99 a year or €9.69 a month in the EU. Premium Plus adds AI Conversations and costs €69.90 a year or €11.90 a month.
Super Duolingo costs €89.99 to €110.99 in the German App Store and €10.49 in the Dutch store, which does not label the billing period. Duolingo tests prices, so stores list several Super items. On a yearly plan Busuu Premium is the cheaper of the two.
Method: community corrections or a daily game
Busuu lessons take 3 to 5 minutes and follow the CEFR scale. Learners send written and spoken exercises to the community, and native speakers of the language correct them. English, French, German and Spanish courses reach C1.
Duolingo turns lessons into a game. Mistakes cost hearts on the free plan, streaks count days in a row, and leaderboards rank learners each week.
Teachers and AI practice
Busuu sells live lessons with tutors only to business accounts. Duolingo has no human teachers. Both sell AI conversation practice in the apps: Busuu Premium Plus for English, Spanish, French, German and Italian, Duolingo Max for English, French, Spanish, Italian, German and Portuguese.
Reviews
Both apps hold 4.7 on the US App Store: Duolingo from 5.5 million ratings, Busuu from 101,000. On Trustpilot Busuu has 4.2 from 19,815 reviews and Duolingo 1.6 from 8,166.