Duolingo review

Duolingo is a language learning app built around short daily lessons, streaks and points. A student can finish a lesson in a few minutes on a phone or laptop, and the app keeps nudging them to come back the next day. For years, schools also had Duolingo for Schools, a free teacher dashboard for setting goals and tracking a class. That is now ending. Duolingo’s help center says Duolingo for Schools will sunset on July 31, 2027, and that teachers can no longer create new accounts or classrooms. The regular app stays available, and Duolingo has added courses in math, music and chess alongside languages.

Who it’s for

Today, Duolingo suits two groups of teachers. The first is world language teachers who already have a Duolingo for Schools classroom. Duolingo says they can keep using it until the July 2027 date, including letting students join, viewing progress and setting XP assignments. The second is any teacher who wants to suggest Duolingo as optional practice at home, with no tracking from school.

It doesn’t suit a teacher starting fresh this year who wants a class dashboard. Duolingo’s help center says that if you never created a Duolingo for Schools classroom, you can’t create one now, and the regular app has no teacher dashboard, classroom assignments or class progress reports.

What it does well

Duolingo is good at getting students to practice a little every day. Streaks, leagues and points work on many teenagers, and five minutes of vocabulary and sentence practice on most days adds up over a term. For a Spanish teacher who sees a class three times a week, that daily contact is hard to get any other way.

The lessons are short and work on a phone, so students can do them on the bus or while waiting for a sibling. The app covers reading, listening, speaking and translation exercises, and it adapts to mistakes by bringing back words a student got wrong.

For classrooms that still have it, Duolingo for Schools keeps the setup light. Students join with their own Duolingo account, the teacher sets an XP goal for the week, and the dashboard shows who did the work. Duolingo says there is no cost to keep using an existing account during the transition.

Where it falls short

The school product is closing, and that is the main problem for anyone choosing tools now. If you have a classroom, plan for the end of the 2026 to 2027 school year. Don’t delete your last classroom to start over with a new group. Duolingo’s help center says deleting your final classroom closes your Duolingo for Schools access for good, and it advises removing old students and adding new ones instead.

Even with the dashboard, Duolingo was never a full course. It teaches vocabulary and sentence patterns well, but it doesn’t teach students to hold a real conversation, write at length or follow your curriculum. You can’t add your own content or match lessons to a textbook unit.

Gamification has downsides too. Some students chase XP by repeating easy lessons, and a streak can turn into a source of stress rather than learning. Without a dashboard, you also can’t see whether a student practiced or just opened the app.

The free version shows ads and limits how much a learner can do in one sitting unless they pay. In a school that restricts phones during the day, most Duolingo practice will happen at home. Our guide to apps in a phone-free school covers how to plan for that.

Pricing

The Duolingo app is free to use, with paid subscriptions, Super Duolingo and Duolingo Max, that remove ads and add features. Duolingo for Schools is free for teachers and students who already have it, and Duolingo says there is no charge during the transition. Subscription prices vary by country and platform, so we don’t list them here.

Privacy and data

Duolingo’s help center says students join classrooms with their own regular Duolingo accounts. That means the consumer app’s privacy policy is the one that applies to your students. Common Sense Privacy rates Duolingo “Warning” and says the app shows personalized ads. The same evaluation says Duolingo obtains parental consent before collecting personal information from children under 13, keeps their profiles private and turns off social features such as search and follow for them. Check these points with your school’s data protection lead, and use our student data privacy checklist before you recommend the app to a class.

Verdict

Duolingo is still a good free habit-builder for language students, and teachers with an existing Duolingo for Schools classroom can keep using it until July 31, 2027. Nobody can start a new class dashboard now, so treat Duolingo as optional home practice and plan your tracking elsewhere. Language teachers who need assignable practice with reports should compare the alternatives in our learning apps rankings, and game-based review tools such as Blooket can cover vocabulary practice in class.

See the best Duolingo alternatives