A complete and biased review of most popular memory training apps.

March 3, 2026 brain training

Hi,
First of all - this is not an AI written article. Yeah, surprising I know. Second of all I created Moadly, which is a memory training app with over 40 games, available on iOS, Android and Web and accessible in over 26 languages - hence why this post will be somewhat biased.

Now that we have that sorted out let's talk memory/brain training apps. There's thousands of them. You don't believe me? Here's a hundred:

Lumosity, Peak, Elevate, BrainHQ, CogniFit, NeuroNation, NeuroTracker, Akili, C366, Art of Memory, Mnemonic, Eidetic, Memory Palace, Ginkgo Memory, Impulse, Mensa Brain Training, MindPal, Dual N-Back, Memorado, Chess.com, Sudoku.com, Wordscapes, NYT Crossword, Brain It On!, Scrabble Go, Duolingo, Memrise, AnkiMobile, Quizlet, Rosetta Stone, Babbel, HelloTalk, Drops, Pimsleur, Mondly, Busuu, Clozemaster, Tinycards, Lingvist, Beelinguapp, 2048, Lumino City, Monument Valley, The Room, 100 Logic Games, Logic Grid Puzzles, Einstein's Riddle, Flow Free, Skillz, Brain Test, Easy Game, Who Is?, Braindom, 7 Little Words, Alphabear, Bonza Word Puzzle, Threes!, Mini Metro, Two Dots, Kami 2, Train Your Brain, Constant Therapy, Alzlife, MindMate, Cognishape, Q4 Active, Recover Brain, Grey Matters, Fit Brains Trainer, Braingle, Happy Neuron, MyBrainTrainer, BrainMetrix, SharpBrains, Queendom, Total Brain, Brainwell, Left vs Right, Brain School, Clockwork Brain, Life Note, Obsidian, Notion, Evernote, Headway, Blinkist, Readwise, Forest, Freedom, Habitica, Todoist, Brain.fm, Endel, Calm, Headspace, Elevate Dash, Peak Kids, Wordle, Connections, Brilliant.org.

Now obviously the more popular ones are Lumosity, Elevate and so on - I tired to start with them when I listed. But anyways, the first takeaway is there's obviously a demand for solutions related to cognitive decline. People want to self improve, and an app is easy to download and test, it doesn't cost much.

There's as many studies done on weather these apps even do anything. Even we have quick survey study we use to track how people feel about Moadly.

Now in this article im not going to focus on weather these apps help or not, that's a post for a different time. As far as we've tracked there's obviously mixed results but as of today our responses show that over 75% of users have noticed at least some form of improvement in memory and out of those about 50% have observed "Moderate" to "Noticeable" improvements.

Our stance on the debate is simple, treat the app as a game, we can't promise anything and we don't want to. We're not experts. If you use it and it end up helping you, that's great - if not, well at least it didn't hurt you.

But anyways, you're here to find out which of the app is the best for you. So here it goes:

Review of most popular memory training apps:

I'm going to be honest, 99% of them have almost identical mini-games, they all push gamified streaks, they all have "cognitive assessments" that don't really mean much - the only purpose of every feature is to improve retention rate and nothing else.

And that's also the case for Moadly. We do the exact same thing, but we try go go out of our way to explicitly have disclaimers that say that you should take all of them with a grain of salt.

But if all apps have identical mini-games which one is the best?

Well, you're looking at it the wrong way. If they are all pretty much the same - then the conclusion is you should probably try the cheapest or ideally the free ones.

Now top apps like Lumosity and Peak, CogniFit, watever - they can afford to paywall their app, which means you can at best try 3-4 games and for anything else you have to buy an expensive subscription.

Moadly on the other hand - well, on the same hand we also have subscriptions, BUT, first of all we are exponentially cheaper than any alternative (about 9 bucks a year). The next best thing about us is that if you hate subscriptions you can buy lifetime access and the even better best thing is if you simply can't afford to pay you can fully unlock all games for free.

That's right, Moadly is 100% free to play. The only downside is you won't be able to get rid of the ads - but again, you're in luck because unlike almost any other memory training app we don't do interstitial or end of game one minute video ads about Clash of Clans or something. We only do banner ads, non intrusive banner ads.

Want to unlock the game, watch a one minute ad

This is the average memory training app (free) experience. It'll take you about one hour of ad watching to unlock all the games.

Now people want to make money, developers can't be working for free and that's fine. Now I have no idea what the average user feels when they have to sit an watch 3 x 20 second ads in a row to unlock a mini-game that takes 10 seconds to play but I bet they're getting pretty frustrated.

The thing is, it's not just one app. It's 99% of them. They all do the same exact thing. So, again - if you want to know what the best memory training app is: it's the one that doesn't have one minute reward ads for every 30 seconds of gameplay.

But even so, not all memory training app are built the same

The ones with lower number of downloads (newer apps) usually let you get away with things - you usually get either less ads, or a more minimalist interface or extremely low prices ($2-3). And, like I said if the games are pretty much identical across them it doesn't make sense to pay $20 for one when you can get the same thing for $2.

Some are better optimized than others (UI/UX wise). Some are translated in different languages, most are not because it's extremely complicated to translate a bundle of 30-40 games.

Take Moadly for example, we have 40 games, IQ tests, forum, a journal that allows you to track your memory over time - translating everything to multiple languages is an enormous task, but anyway enough about us. The point is, yes there are small differences and some apps get the edge and what I've personally noticed is that usually the newer apps with lower downloads are the ones ironically more user experience friendly.

Conclusions, what memory app should you try?

Moadly, try Moadly. Why? Because it's our app, because we are free if you don't mind the ads. Because we have over 40 games in over 26 languages. We are probably among the very few apps that work directly in browser if you don't want to install the Android/iOS app.

We're also among the extremely few apps that allows you to compete with other players, check their stats, ranking - there's an integrated forum, a free to use journal which you can use to track your memory progress over time.

We have comprehensive IQ tests you can take, we even have colorblind modes integrated. So, yeah try Moadly. It's free.