All three of these platforms are free. All three will happily eat your evenings. The question is which one won’t make you quit in week one.
If you’ve already searched this question, you’ve probably waded through Reddit threads where five people give five confident, mutually exclusive answers. Usually nobody’s wrong. They’re just answering for different players: a grinder who reads Japanese and a newcomer who learned the word “riichi” from an anime last month should not be on the same platform. So instead of another pile of opinions, this article gives you a decision: which platform, for which kind of player, and why.
One thing worth knowing up front: none of these games pays us anything. There are no affiliate links here and no way for us to earn a cent from your choice, which means we can be completely honest about all three.
The short answer
If you’re a complete beginner who speaks English: start with Mahjong Soul. It has native-quality English, the largest English-speaking player pool, and enough hand-holding to get you through your first games.
If learning the game properly is your priority: Riichi City is a serious contender. Its built-in lesson system is currently the best structured teaching tool of the three.
Tenhou is the destination, not the starting point. It’s the competitive standard in Japan, but it has no English interface and no tutorial, and it assumes you already know what you’re doing.
| You are… | Start with |
|---|---|
| Completely new to riichi, English speaker | Mahjong Soul |
| A beginner who wants structured lessons inside the app | Riichi City |
| Experienced, competitive, and can read Japanese | Tenhou |
That’s the conclusion. The rest of this article is the reasoning, so you can check whether your situation actually matches the recommendation.
If you don’t know the rules of riichi mahjong at all yet, you may want to read our beginner’s guide to riichi mahjong first; every platform below assumes at least a vague idea of what a winning hand looks like, and one of them assumes a lot more than that.
How I compared them
This comparison is built from three kinds of evidence, and throughout the article I’ll tell you which claim rests on which.
Verified official specifications. Platform features, pricing models, tutorial systems, and rank structures come from each platform’s official documentation and store listings, checked as of July 2026.
My own play. I’ve spent real hours on Mahjong Soul (and its Japanese-market sibling, Jantama), so that section includes first-hand experience. I also live in Japan and follow the Japanese-language mahjong scene (which is where Tenhou’s reputation actually lives), so I can tell you how these platforms are seen here, even though I haven’t climbed Tenhou’s ladder myself.
Community reviews with named sources. The single most useful document on this topic is a detailed multi-client review written by the second-place finisher in Riichi City’s own 2025 Tenkaichi tournament, a strong player with serious hours on every platform, whose criticisms cut in all directions, including against the platform whose tournament he placed in. Where I cite a judgment from that review or from the wider community rather than my own experience, I’ll say so.
As for judging criteria: spec sheets don’t help a beginner decide, so I ignored most specs and used five questions that actually determine whether you’ll still be playing in a month:
- Free-to-play depth: can you play ranked games seriously without paying?
- Day-one experience: will a rules-shaky beginner reach their first real game without rage-quitting?
- Language and platform support: is there a real English UI, and does it run on your device?
- Player pool: will you actually find opponents at your level?
- Rank system and opponent quality: does the ladder teach you, or crush you?
Mahjong Soul: the friendliest on-ramp
Mahjong Soul launched in China in 2018 and brought its English version to the rest of the world in April 2019 (developed by China’s Cat Food Studio, with overseas publishing by Yostar). It is, by broad community consensus, the default answer to “where do English speakers play riichi online,” and the platform where the largest English-speaking player pool lives.
Free-to-play depth: Genuinely good where it counts. The core game, ranked play included, is free. The monetization is a cosmetic gacha: you spend real money on anime characters and decorations that have zero effect on gameplay. The catch is that the free currency drip is famously stingy: free players get very few gacha pulls. If you can shrug at cute characters you’ll never own, your wallet is safe. If gacha mechanics hook you easily, be honest with yourself before you install.
Day-one experience: There’s a proper tutorial that walks you through the basics, and the interface actively helps new players. It’s not perfect; player reviews consistently note that it under-explains some genuinely confusing rules, like furiten (the restriction that can block you from winning) and the requirement that a hand needs a yaku to win. Expect to look those two up separately; our beginner’s guide covers both.
It’s also worth restating here: of the three platforms in this comparison, Soul is the one I actually play (my own games happen on it), so this section’s judgments are first-hand in a way the Tenhou and Riichi City sections can’t be.
Language and platform: Native-quality English, and this is a bigger deal than it sounds; as you’ll see in the Tenhou section, it’s not the baseline. It runs in a browser, on iOS, Android, Steam, and a Windows client, with the same account synced everywhere.
Player pool: The largest English-speaking population of the three. Its App Store rating is near-perfect across thousands of reviews, and it’s the platform you’ll see English-language streamers and content built around. For a beginner, a big pool means faster matches and more opponents at your own level.
Rank system: Six broad tiers from Novice up to Celestial, tracked separately for four-player and three-player games. The community’s honest assessment: the ladder is more forgiving than Tenhou’s, and rewards volume of play as much as skill; “grind over skill” is the standard criticism. For a beginner that’s a feature, not a bug. You can lose a lot while learning and still feel progress.
The honest downsides: The anime aesthetic is loud, and you don’t get a vote. Some players love the characters and voice lines; others find it embarrassing to have open on a work laptop. And the stingy free gacha means the meta-game of collecting is effectively paywalled, even though the mahjong itself never is.
Tenhou: the hardcore standard
Tenhou is the oldest of the three by a wide margin: it opened in 2006, built by a tiny Japanese operation (C-EGG), and it looks like it. No characters, no voice acting, minimal animation. Just tiles.
Here’s the thing an English-language article needs to say plainly, because older comparison posts often dance around it: Tenhou has no English interface. None. The client, the manual, the site — all Japanese. English speakers who play it rely on community-made browser extensions and guides to patch over the language gap. There is also no tutorial of any kind. The platform’s design philosophy assumes you’ll learn by playing against AI and studying game records. One reviewer put it memorably: it won’t even highlight the dora for you.
So why does anyone recommend it? Because in Japan, Tenhou isn’t just a mahjong site — it’s the measuring stick. Living here, I can tell you that when Japanese players want to communicate how strong someone actually is, Tenhou rank is the number they reach for. The ladder runs 21 levels from Shinjin (newcomer) to Tenhou-i, the top title, and fewer than 30 players have ever reached Tenhou-i in the site’s nearly two decades of operation. The rank system is brutal by design: a points structure that punishes fourth place hard, a high-level Tokujou table gated behind 4-dan rank and an R1800+ rating, and the legendary Houou (Phoenix) table gated behind 7-dan, R2000+, and a paid account. Nothing about it flatters you. That’s exactly why serious players trust it.
Free-to-play depth: Surprisingly good, and structurally the cleanest of the three. Free accounts get the general and upper tables, game replays, spectating, private rooms, and tournaments. There’s no gacha at all; the paid tier is a straightforward subscription that unlocks the Houou table, replay downloads, and other features. Community sources put it at around ¥500 per 22 days, but that’s secondhand, so check the official site for current pricing. It’s also the most straightforward deal of the three: you pay, you get features, that’s the whole transaction.
Player pool: Still substantial and skews strong, though the community consensus is that Mahjong Soul has pulled away a large share of the casual and international population over the years. What remains on Tenhou is disproportionately the competitive core — which is great for your growth and terrible for your win rate.
Who it’s actually for: Players who already know the rules cold, want the most credible competitive ladder in the world, and either read Japanese or are willing to fight the interface with extensions and guides. If that’s you in a year or two, Tenhou will still be there. It’s barely changed since 2006; it’s not going to start now.
Riichi City: the newcomer with the best classroom
Riichi City is the youngest of the three (its Steam version launched in September 2022), and it competes most directly with Mahjong Soul: same free-to-play model, same anime-styled presentation, full English support (alongside Japanese, Korean, and Chinese) across browser, iOS, Android, and Steam. If you’re searching “Riichi City vs Mahjong Soul,” the honest one-paragraph answer is: very similar shape of product, smaller and more Japan-centered player base, more generous gacha economy, and — this is the interesting part — a much stronger built-in teaching system.
Day-one experience: This is Riichi City’s standout feature. In recent updates it added a structured, step-by-step lesson system that community reviewers have described as a kind of Duolingo for mahjong, and the multi-client review linked in the methodology section concluded that this feature now makes Riichi City the single best place to send a brand-new player who wants to be taught rather than just tutorialized. That’s a notable claim from a reviewer who still had plenty of criticism for other parts of the platform. App Store reviews are more mixed, with some players still filing improvement requests, so temper expectations: it’s the best classroom of the three, not a flawless one.
Free-to-play depth: Free core game, cosmetic gacha like Mahjong Soul, but with a more generous free-currency flow (roughly a full ten-pull per month for active free players). The flip side: the top of its spending menu is steep, including an all-inclusive bundle around $400, plus a $4.99 monthly pass. As with Mahjong Soul, none of it buys gameplay advantage.
Player pool: The real weakness. The player base is smaller and skews heavily toward Japanese-speaking players; the same comparison review notes that highly ranked Western players struggle to get matched against each other. Steam reviews sit at “Mixed” overall, though the English-language subset is notably warmer, mostly positive. For a beginner this matters less than it does for a competitive player (you’ll still find games), but it’s why Riichi City is my “strong second choice” rather than the default.
Rank system: Structurally similar to Tenhou’s ladder, with one philosophical difference the community flags: it doesn’t reward bare survival the way Tenhou does. Finishing third is treated as half a loss. That nudges you toward playing to win rather than playing not to lose, arguably a healthier habit for a developing player, though it makes the climb feel harsher.
Side-by-side: the comparison table
| Mahjong Soul | Tenhou | Riichi City | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free ranked play | Yes | Yes (top Houou table requires paid account) | Yes |
| Monetization | Cosmetic gacha; stingy free pulls | Feature subscription; no gacha | Cosmetic gacha; generous free pulls but bundles up to ~$400 |
| Tutorial | Yes, with gaps (furiten, yaku) | None | Structured lesson system; best-in-class for beginners |
| English UI | Native-quality | None (community extensions only) | Full English support |
| Platforms | Browser, iOS, Android, Steam, Windows | Windows (paid tier), web, mobile | Browser, iOS, Android, Steam |
| Player pool | Largest English-speaking pool | Competitive core, Japan-centered | Smallest of the three; Japan-leaning |
| Rank ladder | 6 tiers, forgiving, grind-friendly | 21 levels, brutal, the competitive gold standard | Tenhou-like, punishes 3rd place; no reward for mere survival |
| Since | 2018 in China (English version April 2019) | 2006 | 2022 |
| Best for | English-speaking beginners | Competitive players who read Japanese | Beginners who want to be taught in-app |
Which should you pick?
Most of this decision comes down to one thing: how much friction are you willing to put up with while you’re still learning?
Never played riichi before → Mahjong Soul. The combination of real English, a functional tutorial, and the biggest pool of players at your level is unbeatable for a first year. Every weakness it has — gacha stinginess, anime maximalism, a soft ladder — is irrelevant to whether you learn the game.
Beginner, but you want the app itself to teach you → Riichi City. Its lesson system is currently the best structured teaching of the three, and its economy is kinder to free players. Accept the smaller pool as the price.
You know the rules, you’re competitive, and you read Japanese (or will) → Tenhou. It is the chess.com-rating equivalent of the riichi world: the rank that other players actually respect. Go there when you want the truth about your level, not before.
You’re learning Japanese anyway → this is the sneaky good reason to pick Tenhou early. The all-Japanese interface is a form of forced immersion: you learn the app and the game at the same time. Just know you’re signing up for two curricula at once.
And if you genuinely can’t decide: they’re all free. Install two, give each an honest week, and keep the one you open without thinking.
FAQ
Is Tenhou free? Yes: free accounts can play ranked games on the general and upper tables, watch games, use replays, and join tournaments. The paid subscription unlocks the top-level Houou table and extras like replay downloads. There’s no gacha; pricing is covered in the Tenhou section above.
Can you play Mahjong Soul on PC? Yes: in a browser, through Steam, or via the Windows client, with your account synced across all of them plus iOS and Android.
Is Riichi City pay-to-win? No. Like Mahjong Soul, all purchases are cosmetic: characters and decorations. Money buys you nothing at the table. The gacha is actually more generous to free players than Mahjong Soul’s, though the biggest spending bundles run steep.
Do I need to know Japanese for any of these? For Mahjong Soul and Riichi City, no; both have full English support. For Tenhou, effectively yes: there’s no English interface or manual, and English speakers get by with community-made browser extensions and guides.
From screen to table
Whichever platform you pick, something odd happens a few months in: you start wanting to hear the tiles. Online play teaches you the game, but riichi was built for a table — the weight of a tile snapping onto felt, building your wall by hand, the silence before someone calls ron. None of the three apps can render that. When the itch arrives, our guide to the best riichi mahjong sets covers what to buy at every budget, from first set to forever set.
For tonight, though, the assignment is simpler: pick your platform from the table above, make an account, and play one full game (a hanchan, east and south rounds) before you go to bed. Everything in riichi starts from there.