You’re paying in other ways (I’ll explain below). Duolingo is a “free” platform and its content is sourced from volunteers.I’ll update these points at a later date when I have time. If you are able to clarify this for your readers, I would greatly appreciate it. While we did this early on, we stopped crowdsourcing translations a few years ago and have instead focused on monetizing through ads and our Duolingo Plus subscription option, which is our biggest source of revenue. Specifically, there is one factual error in the article that I’d like to clarify, which relates to our business model and the crowdsourcing of translations. I work for Duolingo and wanted to reach out regarding your review of us vs. Here’s the email I received from Duolingo for clarification: UPDATE: I’ve been brigaded by Duolingo forum trolls over my points below re: Duolingo’s revenue model (which has changed) and subsequently contacted by Duolingo for a correction. I’ll do it anyway today since people ask. It’s often like comparing apples and oranges when you take two different platforms with different missions and try to draw comparisons. I’ll get into the main similarities and differences in detail in just a moment.īut let me just start out by saying that I’m usually not a fan of writing these kinds of comparisons (see my Rosetta Stone vs Duolingo review for example). I’m sure you’ve seen that bearded hipster who’s in pretty much every Babbel commercial. Babbel and Duolingo are two of the most popular and well-known platforms for language learning.ĭuolingo’s popularity stems primarily from the fact that it’s a “free” service, whereas Babbel is known by its viral marketing campaigns and TV ads.

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