Mahjong Soul, Riichi City, and Tenhou are the three platforms that come up in almost every serious answer to “where do I play riichi mahjong online,” and they’re not interchangeable. One is built to be the friendliest possible on-ramp. One is built to actually teach you. One is built to be taken seriously by players who already know what they’re doing, and doesn’t much care whether you find it welcoming. Picking the wrong one for your situation is the single most common reason people bounce off online riichi in their first week, so it’s worth the five minutes it takes to read the right section below.
Search “play riichi mahjong online” and you mostly get lists that name three apps and shrug. That’s not enough to actually decide with, especially if you don’t yet know the rules well enough to judge a platform’s mahjong on its own. So this article is a decision, not a list: which platform for which kind of player, plus what to reach for if you don’t want to install anything at all yet.
If you just want the answer: install Mahjong Soul. It’s free, it has real English, and it has the largest pool of English-speaking opponents of any riichi platform, so you’ll actually find games at your level instead of waiting in an empty lobby. Everything below explains why, and what to do instead if your situation is a little different.
Quick answer: which platform for which player
| You are… | Play here | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Brand new to riichi, English speaker | Mahjong Soul | Native English, functional tutorial, biggest English-speaking pool |
| A beginner who wants the app to teach you | Riichi City | Best structured lesson system of the three |
| You just want to try a hand for free, no install | Browser/practice options below | Same ranked ladder and opponents as the apps, zero download required |
| Experienced, competitive, and read Japanese | Tenhou | The competitive standard in Japan; no English UI, no tutorial |
If you don’t know the rules yet, read our beginner’s guide to riichi mahjong before installing anything. Every option below assumes you already have a rough idea of what a winning hand looks like.
None of these three platforms is objectively “the best.” They’re built for different players, and the table above is really answering one underlying question for each of them — are you optimizing for the fastest path to a match, the best in-app teaching, or the most respected rank once you’re already good? The sections below go through each platform against that question, in the order most beginners should actually consider them.
Mahjong Soul: the default for English-speaking beginners
Mahjong Soul launched in China in 2018, with its English version following in April 2019 (Cat Food Studio, published overseas by Yostar). It’s the platform with the largest English-speaking player pool in riichi mahjong, and by broad community consensus, it’s the default answer to “where do English speakers actually play this.”
The core game, ranked play included, is completely free. Monetization is a cosmetic gacha: real money buys anime character skins and voice packs, and gameplay stays untouched either way. The free gacha drip is stingy, so don’t install expecting to casually collect characters, but that has zero bearing on whether you can compete. There’s a real tutorial that gets you through your first ranked game, though it underexplains two rules that trip up almost everyone starting out: furiten and the yaku requirement. Look both up before your first session; our beginner’s guide covers them.
It runs in a browser, on iOS, Android, Steam, and a Windows client, all synced to one account, so you can start a hand on your phone and finish it at a desktop without losing your place. The rank ladder — six broad tiers from Novice to Celestial, tracked separately for four-player and three-player (sanma) play — is more forgiving than Tenhou’s and rewards volume of play as much as raw skill. That’s exactly what you want while you’re still learning: you can have a rough week and still see steady upward movement.
The honest downside beyond the gacha stinginess is the aesthetic itself: character portraits, voice lines, and crossover events are core to the experience, baked in rather than bolted on. If that’s not your thing, it’s worth knowing before you install rather than after.
Full breakdown: our Mahjong Soul review.
Riichi City: play here if you want to be taught step by step
Riichi City (Steam launch September 2022) competes directly with Mahjong Soul: same free-to-play shape, same anime presentation, full English support alongside Japanese, Korean, and Chinese, across browser, iOS, Android, and Steam.
What sets it apart is its lesson system, a structured, step-by-step teaching flow that community reviewers have compared to Duolingo. A detailed multi-client review written by the runner-up of Riichi City’s own 2025 Tenkaichi tournament concluded that this makes Riichi City the single best place to send a brand-new player who wants to actually be taught, rather than handed a tutorial and left to figure out the rest.
The free-currency economy is more generous than Mahjong Soul’s, though its top spending bundles run steep — an all-inclusive bundle around $400, plus a $4.99 monthly pass — and none of it buys gameplay power. The real tradeoff is player pool: it’s smaller than Mahjong Soul’s and skews heavily Japanese-speaking, so strong Western players can struggle to find well-matched opponents at the top of the ladder. For a beginner that matters less; you’ll still find games, and the teaching is worth more than a marginally faster queue.
The rank ladder itself is a further tell of the platform’s priorities: it’s closer in spirit to Tenhou’s than to Mahjong Soul’s, with third place treated as effectively half a loss rather than a safe survival. That nudges you toward actively playing to win from your very first ranked games, an arguably healthier habit to build early, even if the climb feels a little less forgiving day to day.
Full breakdown: our Riichi City review.
Tenhou: play here once you already know what you’re doing
Tenhou opened in 2006 and looks it — no characters, no tutorial, no English interface at all. The client, the manual, and the site are entirely in Japanese; English speakers get by with community-made browser extensions and guides instead of anything official.
It’s still worth naming here because in Japan, Tenhou rank is the number people actually reach for when they want to describe how strong someone is. The ladder runs 21 levels from Shinjin to the rare Tenhou-i title, with fewer than 30 players ever having reached the top in nearly two decades. It’s brutal by design: fourth place gets punished hard, and ranks above shodan can slide back down if your points go negative.
Free accounts already get the general and upper tables, replays, spectating, and tournaments, with no gacha anywhere. A subscription unlocks the top Houou table (which also requires 7-dan and an R2000+ rating) and replay downloads. None of that matters if you’re still learning the rules; Tenhou assumes you’ve already cleared that bar. It runs in a browser on Windows and Mac, plus iOS and Android clients, but there’s no onboarding flow on any of them; you’re expected to already know how to read the screen.
Play it once you’re competitive and either read Japanese or are willing to fight the interface with community-made extensions and guides. There’s no shame in staying off it for your first year; the site has barely changed since 2006, and it isn’t going anywhere.
Full breakdown: our Tenhou guide.
Playing completely free, right now, no install
Both Mahjong Soul and Riichi City run in a browser as well as their native apps — so “free, no download” and “the two best beginner platforms” aren’t actually different categories. You can open either one in a browser tab and be seated in a ranked game within a few minutes, without installing anything, and the ladder and opponents you meet there are the same ones the app versions use (the full three-way platform comparison covers rank systems, monetization, and player pools side by side if you want the deeper cut).
But “free” means something slightly different depending on the platform, so it’s worth being precise instead of just saying yes:
- Mahjong Soul: every ranked table and rank tier is free. Money buys cosmetics only, and the free gacha currency is slow, so treat collecting characters as a side hobby you may never fully indulge, not a barrier to playing seriously.
- Riichi City: same shape (free ranked play, cosmetic-only purchases), but the free currency drip is noticeably kinder, roughly a ten-pull’s worth per month for an active free player.
- Tenhou: free accounts get the general and upper tables, spectating, replays, and tournaments. The only thing gated behind payment is the top Houou table (which also requires 7-dan and an R2000+ rating) and replay downloads. There’s no gacha at all — just a flat subscription structured around features you unlock.
On all three, nothing you can buy makes your hands stronger or your opponents weaker. The differences are in generosity and structure, not in whether you’re locked out of competing.
What doesn’t exist, as far as I’ve been able to find, is a serious free browser alternative with an active ranked ladder outside those three. If you’ve come across a random browser mahjong site promising free riichi with no login, treat it the way you’d treat any random web game: fine for killing ten minutes, but not a place to actually learn or track your progress. I haven’t found one worth naming.
Playing on your phone vs. at a desk
If you mostly want to play in short bursts — a commute, a lunch break — Mahjong Soul and Riichi City are both built for that: full mobile apps on iOS and Android, synced to the same account you’d use in a browser or on Steam, so a game started on your phone can be finished later on a desktop without losing progress. One thing to know before your first mobile session: both apps run landscape-only, so plan on holding your phone sideways rather than playing one-handed while standing on a train. Tenhou also has iOS and Android clients, but without a tutorial or English interface, mobile doesn’t make it any friendlier to start on; it just makes the same steep interface portable.
For actually learning the game, a slightly larger screen helps more than it does once you’re experienced: reading your hand, tracking discards, and following Riichi City’s lesson prompts are all easier with some screen real estate. None of that is a hard requirement (plenty of players learn entirely on a phone), but if you have the choice for your first few sessions, take it.
When you want a real table, not a screen
Online play is where you learn the game, but at some point the itch to hear tiles instead of tap them shows up. When it does, our guide to the best riichi mahjong sets covers what’s actually worth buying, from a first budget set to something you’ll keep for years.
FAQ
Where should a complete beginner start playing riichi online? Start with Mahjong Soul if you speak English and want to get into a match fast — it has the largest pool of English-speaking opponents, so you’re not waiting around in an empty lobby. Choose Riichi City instead if you want the app itself to walk you through the rules step by step; its lesson system does more of that work than Mahjong Soul’s tutorial. Either way, hold off on Tenhou for now — no English interface, and it assumes you already know what you’re doing.
Is there a riichi mahjong game I can play free in my browser, no install? Yes, and it’s a real game, not a stripped-down demo. Both Mahjong Soul and Riichi City run at full strength directly in a browser tab, no download required: same ranked ladder, same opponents, same rules as the app versions. Open one, make an account, and you’re seated in a match within a few minutes. There’s no separate lightweight browser option worth naming outside those two; a random no-login mahjong site is fine for killing ten minutes but isn’t where you’d actually track progress or find a real ladder.
Do I need to know the rules before I start playing online? At least the basics, yes. Every platform in this guide assumes you roughly know what a winning hand looks like; none of them teaches riichi from zero as well as a dedicated guide does. Read our beginner’s guide to riichi mahjong first if terms like furiten or yaku are unfamiliar.
Whichever platform matches your situation from the table above, the only step left is to actually take it: make the account tonight, and don’t close the tab until you’ve finished one full hanchan, east and south rounds. That’s the difference between reading about riichi and playing it.