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Duolingo started out as a free app and it has kept its original promise of “Free Forever” by becoming ad-supported and offering a paid membership called Duolingo Plus. Duolingo has infamously persistent notifications that pester user to come back to learn something new on a daily basis. 

The app is better at teaching basic conversational phrases that are useful when you’re traveling. You can definitely learn some things from it, but if you want to become fluent in a language, it may not be enough. Let’s not forget that language apps are not human. The purpose of learning a language is to communicate with another person. You can learn as many words or sentences as you want, but the ultimate test is that you should be able to hold a conversation with another human being. Duolingo should not be used as a stand-alone language course, but it's an excellent addition. 

While Duolingo offers instruction for dozens of languages, one potential problem with the app is too much diversification. Some courses offer a lot more than others. For instance, West European languages offer access to short stories with questions after reading them. And if you're learning Spanish as an English speaker, there are podcasts, interactive short stories available, and even on-line get-togethers with other learners. Duolingo's community guidelines indicate that Duolingo maintains a safe learning environment by removing inappropriate and offensive content, but some personal information may be publicly visible. In that case, Duolingo warns users not to overshare personal information when interacting with others.