italki Alternative for Daily English Speaking: Speakle

Key findings

In brief

italki is best for personal teaching from a person you choose. Speakle is best for the daily speaking between lessons.
Where italki is strong: Choice of real teachers.
Where it puts its weight: The lesson is the unit.
The research: speaking improves by producing language, not only recognising it; the figures below show what the published studies measured.
Sources: 8 references, including italki's own public pages, checked 2026-09-26.

Our verdict

The short answer

Speakle is the daily speaking practice that makes every lesson count. A scored session every day on the free plan, a live AI video coach at any hour on paid plans, real learners on video and a record of every mistake until it stops. italki finds you a human teacher by the lesson; Speakle keeps you speaking on all the other days.

italki is best for: Personal teaching from a person you choose
Speakle is best for: The daily speaking between lessons

Looking for an italki alternative?

Most people looking for an italki alternative still like their tutor. What they want is more speaking between lessons without booking more hours. Speakle is free to start and built for exactly that: a scored session every day, a course from A1 to C2, 49 grammar chapters explained in your own language, and on paid plans a live AI video coach for interviews, debates, travel and IELTS practice. Video calls with learners at your level add real people, whenever you are ready.

Take the free speaking test Start free

italki and Speakle side by side

6 things people compare, answered for each.

italki Speakle

Who teaches youA human tutor you choose from a large marketplaceAn AI coach every day, and your own teacher if your class uses Speakle

How you pay for timeBy the lesson you bookA free plan with a scored session every day, and paid plans with a live AI video coach

Between lessonsitalki Plus adds summaries, vocabulary lists and AI practice from recent lessonsDaily scored speaking, a course step, and the mistakes you keep making brought back until they stop

Exam preparationTutors who specialise in particular examsIELTS practice with the live coach, reported part by part

Real peopleYour tutorOther learners at your level on live video, and clubs of learners who share your first language

Measuring progressDepends on your tutorEvery session scored, with a history, a CEFR estimate and a trend

Before your next lesson, take the free speaking test: one answer, five scores and a level estimate to share with your tutor. No account.

The research: italki, feature by feature

We read italki's own website, help pages and app listings and wrote down what it publicly offers on each of the lines a speaking learner cares about. Each line links to the page it came from. Where we could not find a public statement the table says so, rather than guessing.

What italki and Speakle each offer, feature by feature

Feature	italki	Speakle
How you practise speaking	1-on-1 online lessons with teachers and community tutors focused on conversation, plus small group classes and community language exchange. ^[5]	Every session is spoken: you answer in your own words, and a live AI coach holds whole conversations with you.
AI conversation	italki Plus, a premium subscription used alongside regular lessons, adds AI lesson summaries, practice exercises, flashcards and AI roleplay based on recent lessons. ^[6]	A scored speaking session every day on the free plan; on paid plans, a live AI video coach for interviews, debates, travel, IELTS practice and open conversation.
Pronunciation feedback	Not stated publicly	Every sound scored with rhythm and intonation, on a path ordered by your first language, then checked in your own unplanned speech.
Course structure	Not stated publicly	A course of 109 units from A1 to C2, where every step is a task you say out loud.
Human teachers	Marketplace of professional teachers and community tutors; learners browse and filter profiles, then book trial, scheduled or instant lessons. The English teacher page listed 4,263 English tutors when checked. ^[7]	No tutors to book. Schools and teachers can run their classes on Speakle.
Other learners	A free italki Community section for finding language exchange partners, asking questions and posting writing for corrections by native speakers. ^[8]	Video conversation matches you with another learner at your level for about ten minutes, then coaches you both.
Help in your own language	Learners can filter tutors by the languages they speak and by where they are from. ^[7]	Hints, corrections and explanations in Arabic, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Thai, Vietnamese, Turkish or Portuguese.
Exam preparation	Tutors offer Test Preparation lessons for exams including IELTS, TOEFL, TOEIC, Cambridge exams and the Duolingo English Test; group classes also cover exam practice. ^[8]	IELTS speaking practice under exam conditions with the live coach, with a report for each part (an estimate, not an official score).
Free access	The italki Community (language exchange, questions, writing corrections) is free; lessons are paid per lesson with no subscription required, and teachers may offer discounted trial lessons. ^[8]	A free plan with one scored speaking session every day, with no card.
Languages taught	150+ languages, including English. ^[5]	English only.
Where it runs	Web plus iOS and Android apps. ^[8]	Web, with iPhone and Android apps in early access.

italki: read on its own public pages, checked 2026-09-26. Features change; the numbered sources show where each line came from. No prices are listed because they vary by country and change often.

A tutor and a daily speaking coach are one of the best pairings in language learning, because each covers the other’s blind spot.On using italki and Speakle together

Which one should you choose?

Choose italki if

You want a specific human teacher, perhaps an exam specialist, to plan lessons around you, and you are ready to book and pay lesson by lesson for that personal attention.

Choose Speakle if

You want to speak every day, not only on lesson days. Speakle gives you a scored session daily on the free plan, a live AI video coach at any hour on paid plans, real learners at your level on video, and every mistake kept and re-tested until it is gone, so each lesson with a teacher starts further along.

Start with the free speaking test, which needs no account. Then create a free account: the free plan includes a scored speaking session every day, with no card, and the first one takes five minutes.

What italki is, and what it does well

What italki is

italki is a marketplace of human tutors, both professional teachers and community tutors, whom you book and pay for lesson by lesson. Its italki Plus membership adds lesson summaries, vocabulary lists and AI practice built from your recent lessons.

What italki is genuinely better at

Choice of real teachers. italki lets you pick from a very large range of tutors by background, teaching style and speciality, including teachers who focus on particular exams, and book them around your own week. A good teacher who gets to know you over months is valuable, and italki makes finding that person far easier than it used to be.

Where its design puts its weight

The lesson is the unit. You get the most from italki in the hour you have booked, and the days between lessons are where speaking skill is actually built or lost. italki Plus reaches into those days with AI practice drawn from your lessons, which is a sensible step; how much daily speaking it asks of you is worth checking against what you need.

What you get with Speakle

109course units, A1 to C2
112word collections
49grammar chapters, explained in your language
12world accents to train your ear
9native languages for explanations

One course, every level

A1A2B1B2C1C2

Approximate guided learning hours to reach each CEFR level, counted from the start

Approximate guided learning hours to reach each CEFR level, counted from the start
Item	Value (h)
A1	90 to 100
A2	180 to 200
B1	350 to 400
B2	500 to 600
C1	700 to 800
C2	1,000 to 1,200

Cambridge English estimates that each level takes roughly another two hundred hours of guided learning. The hours vary with the learner and with how much they practise between lessons, which is why a little speaking every day matters more than an occasional long session.

Source: Cambridge English (2026) Cambridge describes these as a guideline only.

Every day in Speakle starts with a short plan: the next task picked for you, today’s mission, your streak and your level. The daily scored session takes about a minute of speaking and returns five scores, a CEFR estimate and the one thing to fix first. Your mistakes build into a list of rules that come back on new topics until you have beaten each one three times. Streak freezes cover the day life gets in the way, and a comeback brings you back without starting from zero. When your next lesson comes round, you arrive with a record worth showing your teacher.

Speakle · the English practice app for fluency and confidence

One app for everything that gets you speaking

Most apps train one piece: words, sounds or a chat window. Speakle puts the whole road to fluent, confident English in one place, and every part of it ends with you speaking.

Live coachFace to face with an AI coach, on videoJob interviews, debates, travel, IELTS speaking or an open conversation. The coach stays in role for the whole call and nothing is scripted.
ReportsA report after every callAn interview ends in a hiring decision, a debate is won or lost, a trip earns a stamp at each stop.
Every sessionYour speaking, measuredPronunciation, fluency, grammar, vocabulary and coherence, with a CEFR level and the one thing to fix first.
PronunciationPronunciation from your first languageSounds your language merges come first; sounds it already gives you are skipped.
PeopleReal learners, on videoTen minutes with another learner at your level, then coaching on what you both said.
CourseA course where every step is spoken109 units from A1 to C2. Each step is a real task you say out loud, not tiles to tap.

Start with the free speaking test See every feature

Using italki and Speakle together

A tutor and a daily speaking coach are one of the best pairings in language learning, because each covers the other’s blind spot. Book your italki teacher for what a person does best: judgement, encouragement, a plan built around your goals and the questions that come up along the way. Use Speakle every day in between, so the easy mistakes are already gone when the lesson starts. Bring your Speakle report to the lesson and ask your teacher about the rule that keeps coming back. That turns an hour you paid for into an hour spent on exactly what you need.

The short version of the argument

Recognising

Tap the right option
Match the pairs
Repeat a sentence you were given

What most practice trains

Producing

Find the words yourself
Say them out loud
While someone waits for you

What speaking needs

Recognising the right answer and producing it are different skills, and most practice trains the first. Tapping the right option, matching pairs and repeating a sentence you were given can all be done without finding a single word yourself, which is why people who understand English well still freeze when they have to speak it. We call this the recognition trap. The way out is spoken practice, short and daily, answered in your own words. The full explanation, with the memory research behind it, is its own page.

Recall of a studied text, five minutes and one week later, by how the time was spent

Recall of a studied text, five minutes and one week later, by how the time was spent
Item	Condition	Value (%)
After 5 minutes	Read once, recalled 3 times	71
After 5 minutes	Read 3 times, recalled once	78
After 5 minutes	Read 4 times	83
After 1 week	Read once, recalled 3 times	61
After 1 week	Read 3 times, recalled once	56
After 1 week	Read 4 times	40

Students who reread a passage four times remembered the most after five minutes, and the least a week later. Students who read it once and then tried to recall it three times forgot far less. Pulling words out of your own memory, which is what speaking asks of you, is what made them last.

Source: Roediger & Karpicke (2006) Experiment 2: university students recalling prose passages; share of idea units recalled.

Words recognised later: read aloud versus read silently

Words recognised later: read aloud versus read silently
Item	Value (%)
Read aloud	76
Read silently	59.8
Never shown (wrongly recognised)	21.9

The same people read some words aloud and some silently. Afterwards they recognised the words they had said aloud clearly more often. Saying something makes it more memorable than only seeing it, one reason spoken practice beats silent tapping for anything you want to say later.

Source: MacLeod et al. (2010) Experiment 1, 44 university students. The benefit appeared when each person read some words aloud and some silently.

How much relearning time a memory still saves, from twenty minutes to a month

How much relearning time a memory still saves, from twenty minutes to a month
Item	Value (%)
20 min	47.2
1 h	37.3
9 h	27.6
1 day	31.7
2 days	23
6 days	16.8
31 days	4.1

A modern replication of Ebbinghaus measured how much faster a list could be relearned after each delay. Most of the benefit is gone within a day or two unless the material is used again, which is why a daily return to speaking matters more than a long session once a week.

Source: Murre & Dros (2015) One adult learning nonsense syllables; "savings" is the share of relearning time saved, not the share remembered.

Questions people ask

Is Speakle an italki alternative?

For daily speaking practice, yes, and it works beautifully alongside a tutor too. Speakle gives you a scored session every day on the free plan, a live AI video coach on paid plans, a course from A1 to C2 and learners at your level to talk to on video. If you want a human teacher, italki is a good place to find one.

Is it worth having both a tutor and an app?

For most learners, yes. Speaking responds to frequency, and lessons with a tutor are usually weekly or less. Daily practice in Speakle keeps the skill warm between lessons, and the mistakes it finds give your tutor something specific to work on.

Can a teacher use Speakle with a class?

Yes. Speakle has teacher and class features, so a teacher can follow each learner’s speaking, set work and see which rules the class keeps missing. It is one more way the daily practice and the lesson can feed each other.

More comparisons

Where to go next

References

Cambridge University Press & Assessment. (2026). Guided learning hours. Cambridge English Support Site. support.cambridgeenglish.org/hc/en-gb/articles/202838506-Guided-learning-hours Checked 2026-09-26.
Roediger, H. L., III, & Karpicke, J. D. (2006). Test-enhanced learning: Taking memory tests improves long-term retention. Psychological Science, 17(3), 249-255. doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01693.x Checked 2026-09-26.
MacLeod, C. M., Gopie, N., Hourihan, K. L., Neary, K. R., & Ozubko, J. D. (2010). The production effect: Delineation of a phenomenon. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 36(3), 671-685. doi.org/10.1037/a0018785 Checked 2026-09-26.
Murre, J. M. J., & Dros, J. (2015). Replication and analysis of Ebbinghaus' forgetting curve. PLOS ONE, 10(7), e0120644. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0120644 Checked 2026-09-26.
italki, public page at company.italki.com. company.italki.com Checked 2026-09-26.
italki, public page at italki.com. www.italki.com/en/blog/italki-plus Checked 2026-09-26.
italki, public page at italki.com. www.italki.com/en/teachers/english Checked 2026-09-26.
italki, public page at italki.com. www.italki.com/en/blog/what-is-italki Checked 2026-09-26.

Speakle vs italki: the italki alternative that gets you speaking

Key findings

The short answer

Looking for an italki alternative?

italki and Speakle side by side

The research: italki, feature by feature