The best general knowledge apps, by what you want

By the edgi team Facts checked September 30, 2026

The best general knowledge apps are edgi if you want to follow whatever you're curious about, Kinnu if you want a course, Sporcle if you want to be quizzed and the Wikipedia app if you want to read. If general knowledge means math and code, use Brilliant; for school subjects at no cost, Khan Academy. edgi is free, a Lesson takes about 60 seconds, and each idea you finish becomes a card on a Map of what you know.

We make edgi, so weigh this accordingly.

Prices and features are from each app's US App Store listing or its own site on September 30, 2026.

Four things "general knowledge" can mean

Search for a general knowledge app and quiz games come back in the same list as encyclopedias and courses. They do different jobs. A quiz tests what you already know. A course teaches what someone else decided you should know, in their order. An encyclopedia answers whatever you look up.

The fourth job is the one we built edgi for. You see a painting made of dots and wonder how it works. You want the answer while you still care, and then whatever it leads to. A question you have right now doesn't fit a syllabus, so most apps in this category skip it.

edgi: for the question you have now

edgi has more than 104,000 ideas, and 44,000 of them have a Lesson that takes about a minute. When you finish one, the idea becomes a card on your Map, and edgi asks "Where to next?" with a few connected ideas to pick from. There's no course to fall behind in. This one plays on the page, no account needed.

Pointillism Pointillism uses small, separate dots of pure color that blend together in the viewer's eye to create brighter, full-toned images.

60-second Lesson

Pointillism

The green in Seurat's grass is not on the canvas. It is orange dots and green dots, mixed by your eye.

Play it here Read about pointillism

A quiz would ask who painted with dots. The Lesson is about why the trick works. On edgi's Map, Pointillism leads to color theory, color theory to color perception, and color perception to the retina: from a painting technique to the back of your eye in three steps.

Sporcle sorts its quizzes into 15 categories, from Sports to Holiday. On edgi's Map the fields run into each other: 36% of its 296,000 connections cross from one field to another, and any two ideas are typically about seven steps apart.

If you'd rather someone else picked, 37 Sets string ideas into short runs. There's also a feed of short videos from educational creators, and a streak.

Quiz apps: Sporcle and the rest

If general knowledge means having the answer when someone asks, Sporcle is the app. It dates from 2007, its App Store listing says "more than two million quizzes," and its site had counted more than 6.8 billion quiz plays on September 30.

What people play most is geography. By title, 20 of Sporcle's 40 most-played quizzes of all time are geography, mostly countries, US states, capitals or flags. Number two, Countries of the World, gives you 15 minutes to type all 197, and it has been played more than 45 million times. By title, the only science quiz in the top 40 is the periodic table, and the only history one is US Presidents.

A Sporcle quiz is a timer, blanks to fill and a Give Up button, with a score at the end and a link to the next quiz underneath. That's a very good way to find out what you know. Learning mostly runs the other way, from a question you can't answer yet toward the answer. Sporcle has something on that side too: Sporcle Lessons, for things like world flags. The free version limits them; an Orange membership makes them unlimited and removes the ads, from $3.99 a month on Sporcle's site ($5.99 in the iPhone app).

Trivia Crack is for playing alone or against friends and family, from "thousands of questions." It's free and sells lives and credits (10 lives are $3.99). For a whole room at once, Kahoot! is built for hosting a live quiz at school or at work.

QuizUp is gone. Its own team's notice says it left the App Store on January 20, 2021 and shut down on March 22, 2021. Some lists of general knowledge apps still recommend it.

Courses, from Kinnu to Khan Academy

Kinnu is the best free course in general knowledge. It has "General Knowledge" in its App Store name and 100 pathways, including a category it calls "Absolutely Random" that runs from dinosaurs to video games. You read the lessons or listen to them, and a feature Kinnu calls Memory Shield is, in its words, "a new method to never forget what you've learned." Its listing says "Follow your curiosity," but once you choose a pathway, Kinnu picks the next lesson.

GenK gives you a path: two-minute lessons across "28+ topics," a quiz right after each one, and new steps that unlock as you go. It also sells itself as a doomscroll blocker, under the line "earn your scroll."

Nibble and Imprint sell the course idea by subscription. Nibble offers "10-min lessons & quizzes." Imprint draws ideas from psychology to finance as illustrated chapters of "two minutes or less," so if you remember pictures better than paragraphs, try Imprint first.

Brilliant and Khan Academy answer a narrower question. Brilliant is math and coding, learned by solving problems on the screen. Khan Academy is a free nonprofit with "thousands of interactive exercises, videos, and articles," mostly school subjects, though its humanities reach art history and world history. If general knowledge means the school subjects you half remember, start there.

Reading: the Wikipedia app

Wikipedia is general knowledge with nobody choosing for you: "60+ million articles in nearly 300 languages," free and with no ads. The app has a feed and home screen widgets with featured articles and a Picture of the Day. Since June 2026 the iPhone app also has a daily game, "Which came first?" It shows you two events from history and asks which happened earlier, five rounds a day, with links to the article on each one. It's the best place to read the whole story once a Lesson or a quiz has made you curious.

When another app is the better pick

If you want to be tested, Sporcle is better, or Trivia Crack if you want to beat a friend; an edgi Lesson asks a question or two, but edgi isn't a quiz game. If you want to finish a subject in order, take a Kinnu pathway, where Memory Shield promises you'll "never forget what you've learned." edgi has no review schedule, and its nearest thing to a course is a Set. For math practice, use Brilliant, or Khan Academy for free. On Android, every other app in the table has an app, and edgi's Lessons play in a browser at edgi.tv/learn.

FAQ

What is the best general knowledge app? edgi, if you want to follow your curiosity. For a course, Kinnu; for quizzes, Sporcle; for reading, the Wikipedia app. All four are free.

What is the best general knowledge quiz app? Sporcle, for range: its listing says more than two million quizzes, and they play free on the web, with ads. Trivia Crack is better for playing against friends, and Kahoot! for a group in one room.

Which general knowledge apps are free? edgi and Kinnu are free, and so are Khan Academy and the Wikipedia app. GenK and Brilliant have free versions. Sporcle is free with ads, and Trivia Crack is free with lives and credits for sale. Nibble and Imprint are subscriptions.

Is QuizUp still available? No. QuizUp left the App Store in January 2021 and shut down on March 22, 2021.

Is edgi free? Yes. Lessons, cards and the Map are free. A few Sets are open from the start, and the rest unlock with coins you earn by learning. An optional Pro subscription opens two Sets a day without coins, raises the limits on making your own Lessons and adds offline access.

Is edgi on Android? Not as an app. edgi runs on iPhone, and its Lessons play in a browser at edgi.tv/learn with no account.