Language Reactor vs Trancy vs Migaku (2026): Which One Should You Actually Use?
We pulled the pricing pages, changelogs, and store reviews of the three big YouTube language-learning extensions and compared them honestly: free tiers, paywalls, review systems, and where each one falls down.
If you want to learn a language by watching YouTube or Netflix, three browser extensions dominate the conversation: Language Reactor, Trancy, and Migaku. They look similar in screenshots — dual subtitles, click-a-word dictionaries, some kind of flashcard feature — but they make very different trade-offs, and the right pick depends on what actually breaks your learning loop.
Short version: Language Reactor is the stable veteran with the most platforms, but its free plan won't let you save vocabulary anywhere useful. Trancy has the most generous free tier and the lowest price, but carries real quality problems. Migaku has the deepest study system and the only true mobile apps, at the highest price and with no free tier at all.
Here's the detailed comparison, based on each product's own pricing pages, changelogs, and Chrome Web Store reviews (checked June 2026).
The comparison table
| Language Reactor | Trancy | Migaku | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chrome Web Store | ~2M users, 4.2★ | large, mixed reviews | smaller, 4.7 Discord-centric community |
| Free tier | Dual subtitles + basic dictionary; word saving locked to PhrasePump | Very generous: dual subtitles on all platforms, unlimited lookups, subtitle downloads; save cap of 100 words / 50 sentences | None — 10-day trial |
| Paid price | Pro $5.95/mo, or $39.95/yr (≈$3.33/mo) | Premium from ~$2.27/mo (annual promo); AI bundle ~$5.72/mo | $10/mo (annual $8/mo); Lifetime $499 |
| Platforms | Netflix, YouTube, podcasts, web pages, imported books | YouTube, Netflix, HBO, Disney+, TED, Coursera, web translation | YouTube, Netflix, web, plus its own courses |
| Review system | PhrasePump (listening drills) + Anki export | Basic flashcards, no real spaced-repetition scheduling | Full SRS (Migaku Memory) with native iOS/Android apps |
| Languages | 40+ | 130+ claimed | 11, done deeply |
Language Reactor: stable, broad, and older than it looks
Language Reactor (formerly "Language Learning with Netflix") is the incumbent: about two million Chrome users, support for Netflix, YouTube, podcasts, arbitrary web pages, and uploaded books, and a team that still ships small fixes every month.
What holds up well:
- The dual-subtitle experience is mature — it's been refined for years and covers 40+ languages, including transliteration for Japanese and other scripts.
- PhrasePump, its listening-first review mode, is a genuinely good idea: you review saved items by hearing them, not just reading them.
- Anki export with screenshots and audio has existed since 2020 and works.
Where it falls down:
- The free plan locks saving. You can watch with dual subtitles and look words up, but saving vocabulary across features requires Pro. That's the single most important step of the loop — the moment you decide a word is worth keeping — behind the paywall. In practice, free users watch, understand, and forget.
- You can't select a multi-word phrase. You can click one word or save the whole sentence, but not highlight "por si acaso" as a unit. For collocation-heavy languages this is a real gap, and it's a long-standing complaint in reviews.
- The interface is dense. "Overwhelming" is the recurring word in user reviews; the UI hasn't had a real redesign in years, and there's no native mobile app — reviews happen at your desk or not at all.
Pick Language Reactor if: you watch a lot of Netflix, you want the most platform coverage, and you're happy paying ~$3.33/mo (annual) from day one.
Trancy: the price aggressor with quality debt
Trancy is the fast-moving challenger. Its free tier is startlingly generous — dual subtitles on every major platform, unlimited dictionary lookups, even subtitle downloads. Its paid tier undercuts everyone at ~$2.27/mo on the perennial annual promo, and the AI bundle adds sentence explanations, a speaking coach, and pronunciation scoring.
What holds up well:
- The free tier covers what most casual learners need. If you just want dual subtitles and lookups, Trancy free does what Language Reactor Pro charges for.
- It ships AI features fast: per-sentence grammar breakdowns, AI transcription for videos without subtitles (40–60 videos/day on paid), full-page web translation.
Where it falls down:
- Stability is the top complaint. Store reviews repeatedly mention being logged out, subtitles failing to load, and — most damning — ads overlaying the player even for paying users.
- The learning loop is shallow. Saved words go to a flashcard list, but there's no evidence of real spaced-repetition scheduling underneath. It's a translation tool with a study feature attached, not a retention system.
- The permission footprint is wide. Full-page translation means the extension can read every page; if that bothers you, it's structural, not fixable in settings.
Pick Trancy if: you want the cheapest path to dual subtitles across many platforms and you can tolerate rough edges.
Migaku: the deep end, at a price
Migaku comes from the hardcore immersion-learning world — the Anki-and-sentence-mining tradition. It's the only one of the three with a real SRS engine and native mobile apps (iOS/Android/Web, all synced), plus courses, frequency-aware dictionaries, and subtitle generation for videos that lack them.
What holds up well:
- The study system is the product. Cards created from video carry the sentence, audio context, and word data into a proper spaced-repetition scheduler you can run on your phone.
- 11 languages are covered deeply rather than 130 shallowly: real dictionaries, real parsers (its Japanese support is a reference point), Anki compatibility.
- The community is unusually strong — a 20,000+ member Discord and a 4.7 average rating.
Where it falls down:
- There is no free tier. After the 10-day trial it's $10/mo (or $8/mo annual, or a $499 lifetime), for everything — you can't pay less for a lighter subset.
- It's heavy. Courses, custom SRS, browser extension, mobile apps — if you just want to watch YouTube with dual subtitles, Migaku is a lot of machinery.
Pick Migaku if: you're a committed immersion learner, you'll use the mobile SRS daily, and $96–120/yr is worth a complete system to you.
The gap all three leave open
Look at the three failure modes side by side:
- Language Reactor paywalls saving — the entry point of the retention loop.
- Trancy has no real review system — saving leads nowhere.
- Migaku charges $10/mo for everything — the loop exists but behind the highest price and no free tier.
In other words: nobody ships a free "watch → understand → save → actually review" loop with real spaced repetition. That's the gap LingoKeep is built for: dual subtitles and a click-any-word dictionary like the others, but FSRS-scheduled review is free — including on your phone via lingokeep.com/review — with a 100-card free cap and a $4.99/mo Pro tier for unlimited cards and Anki export. We're starting with Spanish and Japanese done properly instead of 40 languages done half-way.
Full disclosure: the extension isn't on the Chrome Web Store yet — we're in the final pre-launch stretch. If the gap above describes your exact frustration, join the waitlist and you'll get one email when it ships. Meanwhile, if you need a tool today, the honest recommendations above stand.
FAQ
Q: Is Language Reactor still maintained? A: Yes. The "abandoned" narrative you'll see on forums doesn't match its changelog — it ships small updates roughly monthly. Big features move slowly because it's a two-person team, but it is actively maintained.
Q: What's the cheapest way to get dual subtitles on YouTube? A: Trancy's free tier, which includes dual subtitles and unlimited dictionary lookups. Language Reactor's free tier also covers dual subtitles on YouTube and Netflix. Expect ads and stability quirks on Trancy; expect a saving paywall on Language Reactor.
Q: Which extension is best for Japanese? A: Migaku has the deepest Japanese support of the three (parsing, readings, frequency data, proper SRS). If Migaku is too heavy or too expensive, that exact combination — Yomitan-style word lookup plus a built-in review system — is what LingoKeep is building for Japanese and Spanish.
Q: Do any of these work on mobile? A: Browser extensions can't run in the YouTube mobile app. Migaku ships native mobile apps for review and study. LingoKeep takes a similar split: capture happens in the desktop browser, review works on your phone as a web app.