Memrise vs Wordie: A Course App and a Reading Tool, Compared Honestly

Memrise and Wordie both help you learn words, but they start from opposite ends. Memrise is a language course: it decides what you learn, in what order, with native-speaker clips and AI conversation practice on your phone. Wordie is a Chrome extension that lets you look up, save and review the English words you meet while reading the web. If you are starting a language from zero, Memrise is the better choice. If you already read English and keep bumping into words like ostensibly or idempotent, Wordie fits better.

Quick verdict: who should pick which?

• Choose Memrise if you are a beginner or lower-intermediate learner, you want a guided path, you care about listening and speaking, you study mostly on your phone, or you are learning a language other than English.
• Choose Wordie if you are intermediate or advanced in English, you read a lot in Chrome (news, research, work docs), you want to keep the exact words you encounter, and you prefer a tool that stores data locally with no account.
• Use both if you are building a new language with a course and also reading English online for work or study. They do not compete for the same minutes of your day.

What is Memrise?

Memrise started as a flashcard platform known for mnemonics and huge user-made courses. It has since turned into a structured language app. The current version focuses on official courses built around everyday situations, short videos of native speakers, listening and pronunciation practice, and AI-powered conversation practice with its chatbot, MemBot. It runs on iOS, Android and the web and covers a broad set of popular languages.

One change matters to long-time users: community-made courses were moved off the main app and website in 2024 to a separate community site. Memrise says it has started bringing user-created content back into the main product as word lists in 2026, but the old "any deck for any topic" feel is gone from the core app.

What is Wordie?

Wordie is a small Chrome extension (it also installs in Edge, Brave and Arc) built by an independent maker. You select a word on any web page and a card shows its English definition, part of speech, synonyms and related words, with a Save button. Saved words are then highlighted on every page you visit, so you notice them each time they come up again. A Recall mode turns your saved words into flashcards: you try to remember the meaning, reveal it, and rate yourself Forgot, Hard or Easy, which moves a 0–100% mastery score for each word. A dashboard shows your list, the last 7 days of activity, and exports to CSV or JSON.

Everything stays in your browser's local storage. There is no account and no Wordie server holding your word list.

Memrise vs Wordie at a glance

Learning approach: a curriculum vs your own reading

Memrise decides what you learn. That is a real advantage early on, because the first one or two thousand words of any language are the same for everyone, and a good course teaches them in a sensible order with audio. You do not have to know what you do not know.

Wordie assumes the opposite situation. Once you know the core vocabulary, the words you still need are scattered and personal: a nurse needs different words from a software engineer. Research on lexical coverage (Nation 2006; Hu & Nation 2000) suggests readers need to know around 98% of the words in a text to read it comfortably, and closing that last gap means learning thousands of mid-frequency words that no course can predict for you. Wordie's answer is to capture the word at the moment you meet it, then let you meet it again when it shows up in other articles. That is incidental vocabulary learning with a nudge.

Both tools use some form of review. Memrise schedules practice for words from its lessons. Wordie's Recall mode is lighter: you rate each card and a mastery score moves up or down. It is not a full spaced repetition algorithm like SM-2 or FSRS, so if precise scheduling matters to you, export your words and pair Wordie with a dedicated scheduler or our spaced repetition scheduler.

Daily workflow: what using each one looks like

A typical Memrise session

You open the app on your phone, pick up where you left off in a course, learn a handful of new phrases with audio and video, do a review round, and maybe try a short conversation with MemBot. Ten to fifteen minutes, done on the bus or before bed. The app chooses the content and paces it.

A typical Wordie day

There is no "session" to start. You read an article in Chrome, hit exacerbate, select it, read the definition and synonyms, and click Save. Two days later the word is highlighted in a different article, and you get a second encounter for free. A few times a week you open Recall and run through your saved words. The input comes from whatever you already read; Wordie just keeps track.

Privacy and data

Memrise is a cloud service: you create an account, your progress syncs across devices, and the new app needs a connection to work. That is convenient, and sync is something Wordie simply does not have.

Wordie takes the opposite trade-off. Your vault lives in the browser's local storage, there is no sign-up, and no Wordie server receives your words. The downside is real: no sync between your laptop and your phone, and if you clear your browser data you lose your list unless you exported it. Export to CSV or JSON regularly if you rely on it.

Price: subscription vs one-time

Memrise offers a free tier with limited content and a paid Pro subscription. Prices differ considerably by country, platform and plan length, and the company sometimes offers longer-term or lifetime options, so check the app store in your region before you decide.

Wordie is free for up to 20 saved words with highlighting. Pro costs $12.99 once for an unlimited vault, full Recall mode and analytics. There is also a Student plan at $0.99 a month. Because the two products do very different jobs, price alone should not decide this: a course you use daily can be worth a subscription, and a reading tool you use occasionally probably should not be one.

Where Memrise is clearly better

• Starting a new language. Wordie cannot teach you Spanish or Japanese. Memrise can.
• Listening and speaking. Native-speaker video, pronunciation practice and AI conversation are things Wordie does not attempt.
• Mobile learning. Memrise has full iOS and Android apps. Wordie is desktop Chrome only.
• Structure and motivation. A course with a path, streaks and goals helps many people show up every day.
• Sync. Your progress follows you across devices.

Where Wordie fits better

• Advanced and specialized English. Words from your field, your reading and your work, not a fixed syllabus.
• Learning in context. Highlighting saved words across the web creates repeated encounters, which matter for retention (Webb 2007; Pellicer-Sánchez & Schmitt 2010).
• Privacy. No account, local storage, easy export.
• Cost over time. One payment instead of a recurring fee.

Can you use both?

Yes, and for many learners it is the most sensible setup. Here is a simple split that works:

1. Use Memrise for the foundation. Follow the course on your phone for 10–15 minutes a day to build the high-frequency core with audio.
2. Use Wordie for real reading. When you read English on your computer, save only the words you would actually like to use, about 5–10 a day.
3. Review on a rhythm. Run Wordie's Recall mode two or three times a week, and let highlighting handle the in-between encounters.

If you are learning a language other than English with Memrise, Wordie is still useful for your English reading, but it will not translate your target language for you. For that, look at reading tools built for foreign-language input, which we cover in our Readlang vs Wordie and LingQ vs Wordie comparisons.

The bottom line

Memrise is a course; Wordie is a capture-and-review tool for English you already read. If you need someone to teach you a language, especially on your phone and with audio, choose Memrise. If you are past the basics and want the words from your own reading to stick, choose Wordie. If both describe you, use both: they cover different stages of the same journey. For a wider view of the options, see our guide to the best vocabulary apps and our walkthrough on learning English vocabulary while browsing.

Sources: Nation, I.S.P. (2006), "How large a vocabulary is needed for reading and listening?", Canadian Modern Language Review; Hu, M. & Nation, I.S.P. (2000), Reading in a Foreign Language; Webb, S. (2007), "The effects of repetition on vocabulary knowledge", Applied Linguistics; Pellicer-Sánchez, A. & Schmitt, N. (2010), Reading in a Foreign Language.