The best app to learn biology, strange parts first

By the edgi team Facts checked October 19, 2026

The best app to learn biology is edgi, which starts with the strange parts: a protein that spreads without any DNA, a body that kills about 50 billion of its own cells a day on purpose. It's free, there are more than 7,000 biology Lessons of about 60 seconds each, and every idea you finish becomes a card on a Map that connects it to medicine and the food on your plate. For school biology, Khan Academy. For a full curriculum you buy once and use offline, Codon.

We make edgi, and we built it to be the most fun way to learn biology, the subject with the strangest true stories.

Competitor details come from the US App Store and the developers' own sites, checked October 19, 2026. The edgi figure counts ideas tagged biology on its Map that have a Lesson.

What learning biology on edgi looks like

Start with the prion: a misfolded protein with no DNA that spreads anyway. The Lesson takes about a minute, checks you with a question at the end, and plays right here:

Prion A prion is an infectious misfolded protein that forces healthy proteins of the same type to fold into its own abnormal shape.

60-second Lesson

Prion

A prion is a protein folded wrong. With no DNA, it spreads by touching normal copies and bending them into its own shape.

Play it here Read about prion

Finish it and the prion is yours. Your Map puts its card beside mad cow disease and protein folding. Kuru and the Fore people sit right next to it, and that's the story you'll want next. Kuru has a Lesson of its own, and so do mad cow disease and protein folding. The more you do with a card, the shinier it gets: Lessons, videos and quizzes about it all add up, foil first, then gold.

The rest of biology on edgi runs the same way. Your body kills about 50 billion of its own cells a day, on purpose. Life invented its own light dozens of separate times. And no moth ever changed its color: birds ate the ones they could see, and the group changed. Every one of those is a Lesson.

There are plenty more where those came from. edgi's Map holds 13,987 ideas tagged biology, and more than 7,000 of them have a Lesson. 111 of its 318 interactive Lessons, which run a few minutes each, are biology too.

On the Map, biology leads most often into medicine. Food and cooking come next. That's where a course and a Map differ: a course keeps you in the unit, and the Map follows the question out of it.

Other biology apps

Khan Academy, the free nonprofit, teaches biology as school science, and its App Store page promises you'll "Discover how the Krebs cycle works." Use it for a class or the AP exam.

Codon is new (it came out August 17, 2026) and built only for biology: "100 lessons across four years, each 15 to 25 minutes, with on-device narration," no account needed. The first ten lessons are free, and one $9.99 purchase buys the other 90, with no subscription. When we asked ChatGPT for a biology app in October 2026, Codon came up first.

By our count, Kinnu's public site has 5 biology pathways with 48 lessons between them, from Core Concepts in Biology to Synthetic Biology. Genetics and Ecology sit in between. The Kinnu app is free to download, and its lessons are written chapters.

Pick something else only if…

• You're studying for a biology class or the AP exam: Khan Academy.
• You want a full four-year course to work through offline: Codon.
• You want a written course on genetics or ecology: Kinnu.
• You need an Android app. edgi's Lessons play in a browser at edgi.tv/learn.

FAQ

What is the best app to learn biology? edgi. It has more than 7,000 free biology Lessons of about 60 seconds each, starting from the strangest true stories in the subject, and each idea becomes a card on your Map.

How long are lessons in biology apps? An edgi Lesson takes about 60 seconds. Codon's lessons run 15 to 25 minutes, by its own description. Kinnu's are written chapters, and Khan Academy mixes videos with exercises.

Is there a free app to learn biology? Yes. edgi is free, and so is Khan Academy. Kinnu is free with optional extras, and Codon's first ten lessons are free before a one-time $9.99.

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.