edgi vs Kinnu: which learning app is better?

By the edgi team

edgi is the better app for learning the things nobody tests you on, because it lets your curiosity lead. A Lesson takes 60 seconds, the idea becomes a card, and the card lands on your Map next to the ideas it connects to, so the next Lesson is whatever you just got curious about. Kinnu hands you a syllabus instead: pick one of its 100 pathways and read its lessons in order, about 1,500 words each. Both are free.

We make edgi, and we built it to be the best way to learn whatever grabs you.

Kinnu's facts come from its US App Store listing, its website and its public lessons, checked in September 2026. We didn't make an account or open its app, so anything here about the inside of Kinnu's app is Kinnu's own description. Our Kinnu review goes deeper on the lessons, the questions and what reviewers say.

Who decides what you learn next

Kinnu's Hanna Celina made the case against apps like ours in a 2023 interview: "TikTok learning ends at this interest level, and it does not expand."

She's half right. A feed of unrelated clips does stop at interest. An interesting fact with nothing to connect to is forgotten by the next day. But interest is the hard part, and a syllabus skips it: it sets the order before it knows what you care about. Kinnu's answer is the pathway, where someone else picks the order and you follow it. Ours is the Map.

Finish a Lesson and you own its card, the card lights up that idea on your Map, and the Map shows what sits next to it. There are 296,000 connections between ideas, so there is always a next thing, and you're the one who picks it. Dinosaur to theropods to walking on two legs to the foramen magnum: three steps, and you're at the hole in the base of the skull the spinal cord runs through. Another route gets from Dinosaur to black holes in four, through mass extinctions and gamma-ray bursts. That's what learning on edgi feels like: one good answer, then a better question, then a card for each.

Kinnu's App Store listing also mentions a "map based design to explore content." We haven't seen it; it's inside the app. From the description, it maps Kinnu's content. edgi's Map is yours: it shows what you've learned.

Curiosity doesn't move in a straight line, and edgi doesn't ask it to. You lead, and the app shows you where to go next. Start on loss aversion and three steps later you're in game theory, with a card for every stop along the way.

Same idea, two formats

Both apps teach the anchoring effect: a number you know is meaningless still drags your estimate toward it. Kinnu's version is one section of a 2,300-word public lesson that also covers the base rate fallacy and framing, and its example is a pair of pants tagged $200, then marked down to $100. Ours you play. A rigged wheel lands on 65, you predict how far it moved people's guesses at the share of UN countries in Africa, then the same trick works on MIT students bidding for a keyboard and on real estate agents pricing a house.

Anchoring effect The anchoring effect is a bias where people rely too heavily on an initial reference number when estimating values or making financial decisions.

60-second Lesson

Anchoring effect

A wheel lands on 65. Nobody thinks it knows anything about Africa. It moves their guess anyway.

Play it here Read about anchoring effect

Read theirs and play ours. Whichever one you still remember next week is the format for you. We know which one we'd bet on.

What a Kinnu lesson is

Kinnu publishes 899 lesson pages free on its website under the name Kinnuverse, and we counted every one. The shortest runs 321 words and the longest 3,842; the median is about 1,500, or around six minutes of reading. Kinnu said in 2023 that it splits everything into cards of 150 to 200 words, so a lesson in the app is presumably a stack of them.

The lesson on logical intelligence in animals is a short one: about 1,000 words of clear prose with six Wikimedia Commons photos (an orangutan fishing for ants, a New Caledonian crow, an octopus with shells), then four questions. On the web you tap a question to see its answer. The interactive questions and the reviews are in the app, so on the web Kinnu is a well-written encyclopedia with a download button.

A Kinnu lesson is a short chapter you read. An edgi Lesson is one idea you play, use and keep. (The 509 interactive ones, like the anchoring Lesson above, are built to run a few minutes.)

Kinnu's homepage now leads with exam prep

No review we found mentions this. Kinnu's homepage lists two products, and the first, larger one is Exam Prep: the SQE (the qualifying exam for solicitors in England and Wales), the SAT, the CFA and the BCBA. General Knowledge, the app this page is about, is second. Kinnu's own history timeline shows four exam launches since May 2025 (law on mobile, law on the web, the CFA in February 2026, the SAT in July), and all four of its 2026 blog posts are about the CFA. SAT prep costs $19 a month after a 7-day trial. The general-knowledge app is still updated (most recently on September 2, 2026), and its pathways are still free.

Exam prep is the opposite bet from ours. Most people aren't interested in what they're being taught, and an enormous amount of money goes into teaching people things they don't want to learn. That's a bigger problem in education than funding or teacher shortages. A test supplies the motivation from outside. edgi starts with something you already wanted to know, which is why it's fun.

Pick something else only if…

• You're studying for the SQE, SAT, CFA or BCBA.
• You want a fixed syllabus, with old lessons quizzed back to you.
• You need Android. edgi runs on iPhone and in the browser.

FAQ

Is edgi free? Yes. Lessons, cards and the Map are free, and Sets unlock with coins you earn by learning, not money. An optional Pro subscription adds extras like offline access.

Is Kinnu free? The General Knowledge app is. On iPhone you can buy certificates for $7.99 to $19.99. Its exam prep is sold separately; SAT prep is $19 a month.

Which is better if I don't know what I want to learn? edgi. Kinnu asks you to pick a pathway first. edgi starts with one 60-second Lesson, and the Map shows what connects to it, so the next idea comes from whatever caught your attention.

Does edgi use spaced repetition? No. Each Lesson ends with a question or two that make you use the idea, and the card stays on your Map. Review, a game over the cards you own, has you spot each idea in a real-world moment, like a headline or a sign. If you want old lessons brought back on a schedule, that's what Kinnu's Memory Shield and Anki are for.

Can I use edgi on Android? Not as an app. edgi runs on iPhone (iOS 16 or later) and in a browser at app.edgi.tv, and its Lessons play without an account at edgi.tv/learn.

Can I try Kinnu without downloading it? You can read it. All 899 public lessons are on kinnu.xyz, with tap-to-reveal questions; the reviews need the app. edgi's Lessons play in a browser with no account, like the one on this page.