Babbel Vs Rosetta Stone: What’s The Difference?

Last Updated on July 10, 2025 by Kieran Beckles

Do you want to learn a new language, but you’re unsure whether to join Babbel or Rosetta Stone?

I’ve been a member of Babbel and Rosetta Stone for a few years, continuing my Spanish language learning journey.

Having started with Rosetta Stone lifetime membership before the birth of my daughter in 2021, I discovered Babbel in 2022.

At the time of writing, I use one of these apps regularly, while the other has been rendered obsolete (although I may return to it in the future!).

In this article, I will share my recommendations and discuss some of the pros and cons of both Babbel and Rosetta Stone.

Babbel Vs Rosetta Stone: My recommendation

Let’s cut right to the chase. If you’ve decided to commit to learning a new language or revisiting one you’ve attempted to learn in the past, I recommend starting with Babbel.

I found Babbel to be a more useful tool in my quest to learn Spanish, so I can speak to my wife’s Mexican family and feel comfortable speaking it when I go on holiday to Mexico.

What I like about Babbel is the conversational style of their lessons. You quickly get to grips with key turns of phrase in a variety of situations. These lessons had immediate practical use.

I’m using my Spanish in conversations with family members, which meant I was most interested in being able to hear and understand Spanish, as well as speak it.

I found that Babbel was the perfect learning environment because its lessons usually incorporate listening, speaking, and writing.

Who Are Babbel?

Babbel is a language learning app that gives users the opportunity to learn up to 14 new languages. These include Spanish, Italian and French.

While Babbel focused on grammar in lessons, their app felt more like a conversational with a language tutor rather than a robotic learning tool.

They do a nice job of revising new grammar and vocabulary without too much repetition, as you continue to progress through the different units.

I enjoyed using Babbel’s interface, which felt modern, sleek and uncomplicated. I was easily able to follow the timeline of past, current and future lessons.

In my experience, Babbel’s lessons are longer than Rosetta Stone and Duolingo. It takes around 10 minutes to complete a lesson (I try to do two per night).

Babbel is more expensive than Rosetta Stone (their lifetime membership costs $200 more!). That’s why I’m still on an annual membership.

That being said, Babbel’s monthly membership tends to be slightly cheaper than Rosetta Stone’s monthly plan. So it depends on your budget and needs.

However, I believe Babbel is good value for money and I learned more through their teaching style combined with one-to-one learning through Preply.

Who Are Rosetta Stone?

Rosetta Stone is perhaps the best-known name in the language learning space, and it was the first app I downloaded when I began learning Spanish.

They offer courses on 25 languages, which is 11 more than Babbel. If you’re someone who loves to learn languages, you may appreciate the variety.

Rosetta Stone immerse users in their language of choice, with few translations in the user’s native tongue. This is great, but it can be a little overwhelming.

For instance, I struggled badly when I got to the past tense in Spanish and tried to get to grips with a number of past tenses without much explanation in English.

The other significant drawback was the repetitiveness of the lessons and the images used within them. It drove me crazy and reduced my motivation to persist with my lessons.

These two factors ultimately led me to download Babbel, and I haven’t used Rosetta Stone much since.

Rosetta Stone does offer shorter lessons, which can be useful if you want to dedicate a quick coffee break to your new language rather than committing 10 or 15 minutes.

I also found their speech recognition to be excellent. This is one area where they surpassed Babbel.

Their lifetime membership is more affordable than Babbel’s (which I purchased using my money, cost $299 when I got it on offer – it’s usually priced between $299-399).

Babbel vs Rosetta Stone: Conclusion

So there we have it! I’ve reached the end of my article, examining Babbel and Rosetta Stone.

I’d recommend Babbel based on my successful experience using their app to learn Spanish and communicate with my Mexican family.

I enjoyed my learning experience with Babbel more than Rosetta Stone, but you may have different preferences from mine.