You put real time into Duolingo and it worked. You built a daily habit, learned a lot of vocabulary, and got comfortable reading and following the language. Then, somewhere around the intermediate level, your progress slowed. You still open the app, but your speaking and writing are not catching up to your understanding, and you are starting to wonder whether the streak is doing much for you anymore.

You might need something different, but “different” here does not mean “better.” Duolingo and Dioma are built for different stages of the same journey, and the honest answer to “which should I use” depends on where you are.

What Duolingo is built to do

Duolingo is the most widely used language app in the world, and it earned that. It offers more than forty languages, a free core product that anyone with an internet connection can use, and a daily-practice loop that is genuinely good at one hard thing: getting you to come back tomorrow. Its reward-driven design (experience points, streaks, leagues, and in-app gems) keeps millions of people practicing on days they otherwise would not. For building a habit and a foundation from zero, that is a real strength, and it is not one to dismiss.

The content has been getting deeper, too. As of April 2026, Duolingo announced that nine of its courses, including Spanish and French, now teach through B2 on the CEFR scale, where previously most learners could only complete content up to A2. That expansion added advanced Stories and DuoRadio episodes, which help build reading and listening at the upper-intermediate level. Duolingo’s stated reason for stopping at B2 is candid: it calls B2 “the level of proficiency that allows you to get a job in that language.”

The shape of the product shows up at the higher levels. Duolingo teaches grammar mostly implicitly, through pattern repetition rather than explicit rule explanation, with an “Explain My Answer” feature that gives a short explanation after the fact. Its exercises lean toward receptive skills, reading and listening, more than toward production. Duolingo’s own 2021 research found that learners came away with stronger comprehension than speaking even at the beginner stage, an effect that tends to compound as the grammar gets harder. Its B2 content ceiling also means that for the nine top courses, there is no further structured path once you finish B2, and no C1 or C2 content on the platform at all. For a learner whose goal is producing the language freely at an intermediate-to-advanced level, that is where the habit tool starts to run short of room.

What Dioma is built to do

Dioma starts where that foundation ends. It is built for intermediate and advanced learners (roughly A2 to C1) who already understand a lot and need to produce it. Instead of pattern-matching exercises, you do open-ended speaking and writing, and the system gives you corrective feedback with the rule attached, not just the right answer. It places you against a CEFR-aligned curriculum in the first hour and aims each short session at the patterns you personally keep missing. Across Spanish, French, and Hebrew, the curriculum runs to hundreds of structured grammar and fluency topics sequenced by sub-level, from the present subjunctive up through complex conditional sentences and discourse.

That focus comes with deliberate trade-offs. Dioma is not for beginners and does not pretend to be. It’s a new platform and currently offers three languages where Duolingo offers more than forty. It has no free option and no gamification mechanics. Dioma did recently add more robust tracking of your progress, but if a streak and XP is what keeps you practicing, you will not find one on Dioma. Dioma motivates instead by showing you measurable progress against your level and goals. If you are starting a language from scratch, or you mainly want broad daily exposure across many languages, Dioma is the wrong tool, and Duolingo (or a similar foundation app) is potentially the right one.

How to tell which one fits you

The deciding question is not which product is better. It is what your current bottleneck is.

Choose Duolingo (or stay with it) if: you are building a foundation, you want broad daily exposure across many languages, or a streak and a leaderboard are what keep you practicing. For habit, vocabulary, and comprehension up to the upper-intermediate level in its top courses, it does this well, and the core product is free.

Choose Dioma if: you are past the basics, you understand far more than you can say, and your bottleneck is producing the language accurately under real conditions. If your comprehension keeps growing while your speaking and writing stay stuck, the missing ingredient is output with feedback, which is the specific thing Dioma is built to provide. It also matters if you are working past B2 toward an advanced level, where Duolingo’s structured path currently ends.

Use both, in sequence, if you are like a lot of serious learners: Duolingo to build the habit and the foundation, then Dioma to turn that foundation into the ability to speak and write under pressure. They are less competitors than consecutive stages.

“The question isn’t which app is better. It’s whether your bottleneck right now is exposure and habit, or producing the language accurately with correction. Those need different tools. Geoff Bloom, founder of Dioma”

Where Dioma fits in a serious learner’s toolbox

No single tool makes you fluent, and Dioma does not claim to. Real progress at the intermediate level comes from a variety of inputs: exposure from native content and conversation, a foundation from structured practice, and deliberate output with feedback to build production. Think of it the way a strong athlete still practices with a coach. A skilled player does not get better by playing more pickup games; they improve by working on specific weaknesses with someone who can see what they cannot and correct it in the moment. Duolingo is excellent at getting you onto the court every day. Dioma owns the coaching part: the targeted, corrected output that turns understanding into the ability to actually speak.

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