Shirabe vs Bunpro

Let’s start with the part that decides most of this comparison: Bunpro teaches grammar and Shirabe does not.

Shirabe’s grammar layer is planned and not shipped. Not “lighter than theirs.” Not there. If grammar is what you’re shopping for, Bunpro is the best dedicated Japanese grammar SRS available and you should use it.

So this page isn’t really “instead of”. It’s about which half of the problem each tool solves, and whether you need both.

Grammar and vocabulary are different problems

Grammar is a finite, ordered, teachable set. There are a few hundred points that matter, they build on each other, and a curriculum genuinely helps. That’s what Bunpro is: JLPT and textbook-aligned paths, clear explanations, cloze reviews that make you produce the form rather than recognise it.

Vocabulary is the opposite. It’s effectively unbounded, the order is decided by what you happen to read, and no curriculum can guess which words matter to you. The best vocabulary list is the one generated by the material you actually consume.

That’s why a grammar course and a dictionary-driven SRS aren’t really competitors. They’re solving problems with different shapes.

What Shirabe does with the other half

Shirabe is a dictionary first: free, public, no account, multilingual. The study system grows out of lookups:

• Look a word up while reading.
• Save it. The card comes with reading, pitch accent, audio and an example sentence attached, because the dictionary already knew them.
• Review on an FSRS schedule, so it comes back just before you’d forget.
• Watch known words, kanji coverage and text comprehension move as real numbers.

Bunpro has a vocabulary side, and it’s decent. But it’s a curated set attached to a grammar tool, not a dictionary you’d use as your daily lookup. If your vocabulary is coming from a manga, a game, or the news, that’s the gap.

The realistic setup

Most people we talk to who use both run it like this: Bunpro for grammar, Shirabe for the dictionary and the words. Grammar points come from a syllabus, because that works. Vocabulary comes from what they’re reading, because that works too.

That’s two subscriptions, which is a real cost, and we’d rather say so than pretend a stack is free. Our dictionary stays free either way, so you can run Bunpro paid and Shirabe free for a while and see whether the saving loop earns the upgrade.

Where Bunpro wins

Grammar, comprehensively. Explanations, ordered paths, textbook alignment, and cloze reviews that make you produce the grammar rather than pick it from options. We have nothing comparable and won’t for a while.

Maturity. Years of content refinement and a community that has read every explanation.

Price. $5/month, or a lifetime option, cheaper than most of this category.

Where Shirabe is ahead

• A real dictionary as the front door, free and needing no account.
• Any word, from your own material, rather than a curated vocabulary set.
• FSRS scheduling, self-optimising against your history.
• Anki import with scheduling and review history preserved.
• Spanish at the dictionary level, not English with a translation step.
• Derived progress: known words, kanji, and how much of a given text you’d understand.

Who should use Bunpro alone

• Grammar is the thing you’re stuck on.
• You’re working through a textbook and want reviews aligned to it.
• You’re targeting a JLPT level and want grammar coverage mapped to it.
• Your vocabulary is already handled somewhere you like.

Who Shirabe is for

• Your grammar is broadly fine and vocabulary is the wall.
• You read or watch real Japanese and want the words from it.
• You want a dictionary you’d use daily even without studying.
• You have Anki decks to bring across.
• You want it in Spanish.

The honest summary

Bunpro is the better grammar tool, today and for the foreseeable future. Shirabe is the dictionary and the vocabulary engine.

If you only want one and grammar is your gap, pick Bunpro, genuinely. Come back for the dictionary; it’s free.