Pleco flashcards or a dedicated SRS app?
Wordbrush is a free app for iPhone, iPad, and Android that drills the complete Mandarin Chinese HSK 1-3 vocabulary, 2,199 words, into long-term memory. Every word arrives with native-speaker audio, an example sentence, and a breakdown of its characters into components, scheduled by FSRS so you review each word just before you would forget it. It works entirely offline, needs no account, and has no paid tier.
Short answer: this is not really a choice between two apps, because they do different jobs. Pleco is a dictionary, and it is the one most serious Mandarin learners keep installed for life. Wordbrush is a review app with a fixed HSK 1-3 curriculum already built. Pleco's flashcard system is a paid add-on that expects you to build your own cards as you look words up; Wordbrush's cards already exist, with recorded sentences and character breakdowns, for free. Keep Pleco. The real question is whether you want to assemble your own deck inside it or have one handed to you.
Pleco details below were checked against pleco.com and its app-store listing on 3 September 2026. Prices and features change, so confirm anything that matters to you at the source.
The reason this question comes up at all is that Pleco's flashcard add-on is good enough that it feels like it should be the only study tool you need. For some people it is. The friction is that a dictionary-first workflow makes your deck a by-product of whatever you happened to look up, which is excellent for words you met in the wild and patchy for covering a syllabus like HSK.
Side by side
| Wordbrush | Pleco | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is for | Memorising HSK 1-3 vocabulary | Looking up any Chinese word, reading texts, and studying cards you make |
| Price | Free, in full, with no paid tier | App and two dictionaries free; one-time add-ons, no subscription. Flashcard System $9.99, Basic Bundle $24.99, Professional Bundle $49.99 |
| Platforms | iPhone, iPad, Android | iPhone, iPad, Android |
| Account | None, ever | No sign-in to use the dictionary; purchases restore through the app store |
| Vocabulary | Fixed: all 2,199 words of HSK 1-3 | Dictionaries of 110,000+ and 125,000 entries; built-in HSK vocabulary list |
| Word lookup | None. There is no dictionary or search | The core feature, with handwriting input and camera OCR in the paid version |
| Spaced repetition | Built in and central, on by default | In the paid Flashcard System add-on; algorithm not published |
| Cards ready to study | All 2,199 words already made, ordered, and voiced | You build them, usually while looking words up |
| Audio | Native-speaker recordings on every word and every sentence, included | Free text-to-speech for words and sentences; native-speaker recordings of 34,000 words sold as an add-on |
| Offline | Fully offline, no network calls in a session | Pleco's FAQ says all features work offline after the initial download |
| Character set | Simplified only | Simplified and traditional, plus Cantonese |
| Best for | A done-for-you HSK 1-3 review habit | Reference, reading real Chinese, and looking things up |
Choose Pleco if
- You need to look words up. This is the whole point of Pleco and Wordbrush cannot do it at all. If you are reading real Chinese, you need a dictionary.
- You are studying beyond HSK 3, or traditional characters, or Cantonese. Pleco's coverage is enormous; Wordbrush's is deliberately tiny.
- You want your deck to come from your own reading. Making a card the moment you meet a word in the wild is a genuinely strong way to study, and Pleco is built around exactly that loop.
- You want camera lookup, a document reader, or licensed dictionaries. Pleco sells Oxford, Longman, Tuttle and others as add-ons. Wordbrush has none of this.
- You already paid for the flashcard add-on and it is working. Then it is working. There is no reason to switch on principle.
Choose Wordbrush if
- You want the HSK 1-3 deck to already exist. All 2,199 words are loaded in frequency order, with audio and sentences, before you open the app. Nothing to build, nothing to maintain.
- You want recorded sentences, not just recorded words. Every example sentence in Wordbrush is read by a native speaker, included at no cost.
- You want the scheduler to be something you can look up. Wordbrush uses FSRS, an open-source algorithm benchmarked in public. Pleco does not publish what its flashcard system uses.
- You want characters broken into components automatically, with the semantic radical marked, on every card rather than through cross-reference lookups.
- You want to spend nothing. Wordbrush is free in full, so it is not competing with Pleco for your money.
The obvious answer is both
These two tools barely overlap. Pleco answers "what does this word mean," Wordbrush answers "how do I stop forgetting the words I have already met." Wordbrush is free, so adding it to a Pleco setup costs nothing, and skipping Pleco's paid flashcard add-on may save you more than the price of it. If you would rather keep everything in one place and you enjoy building cards, buy the add-on and ignore us with our blessing.
If you want the HSK vocabulary in a form you can take anywhere, the HSK 1-3 word lists and free Anki decks on this site are open to anyone.
Try Wordbrush free →Questions
Should I use Pleco flashcards or a dedicated spaced-repetition app?
If you already own Pleco's flashcard add-on and like building cards as you look words up, it is a genuinely capable system and there is no need to change. A dedicated app makes more sense if you want a ready-made HSK course you do not have to assemble, native audio on example sentences as well as words, and a published scheduling algorithm. Many learners use both: Pleco as the dictionary they reach for constantly, and a separate app for structured daily review.
Is Pleco free?
The Pleco app and two dictionaries are free, and Pleco says it does not nag you to upgrade. Features beyond that are one-time in-app purchases rather than a subscription. As listed on store.pleco.com on 3 September 2026, the Flashcard System add-on is $9.99, the Basic Bundle is $24.99, the Professional Bundle is $49.99, and native-speaker Mandarin audio is $4.99 per voice.
Does Wordbrush replace Pleco?
No, and you should not try to make it. Pleco is a dictionary: you look up any word, read documents, and scan text with the camera. Wordbrush has a fixed set of 2,199 words and no lookup at all. Almost every serious Mandarin learner keeps a dictionary installed, and Wordbrush is not one.
Does Pleco have spaced repetition?
Yes, in its paid Flashcard System add-on, which studies cards in several modes including handwriting and tone drills. Pleco does not publish which scheduling algorithm it uses. Wordbrush uses FSRS, which is open source and publicly benchmarked.
Which has better audio?
It depends what you need audio on. Pleco includes free text-to-speech for words and sentences, and sells native-speaker recordings covering 34,000 Mandarin words as an add-on, with sentence audio synthesised. Wordbrush includes native-speaker recordings of both every word and every example sentence, at no cost, but only for its 2,199-word HSK 1-3 set. Pleco covers far more words; Wordbrush covers its smaller set with recorded sentences.