Hello! I’m Liv, and I’m looking to get back into Japanese learning. For reference, I took four years of Japanese in college (undergrad) and studied abroad my third year in Tokyo at Waseda. However! For all that study, my vocabulary and grammar are still (in my opinion) quite low. I currently live in Japan as an ALT, which means I’m able to communicate decently well with the other faculty at my school, but am not necessarily expected to know the finer details of everything.
All that to say essentially I’m trying to find a solid online platform where I can study grammar. WK has been really helpful so far for kanji, and I plan to get the lifetime subscription soon, but I’d like to have something for grammar and (more) vocabulary where I can study more.
I’ve been looking at Bunpro and MaruMori lately, so does anyone have a strong preference for one or another? Or is there a secret third thing (platform) that you recommend over those two? Any advice appreciated! Thank you c:
I personally am very happy with MaruMori - it does a better job than WaniKani at exposing you to more vocabulary, though I think WaniKani’s consistency in the mnemonics is useful. I actually when I unlock new kanij take a few minutes to copy over the mnemonics from WK so once I get to it here it’s already well known. The vocab usually I have to come up with my own.
Grammarwise, which is more important (for me), I’m also happy with how they have the adventure tiles with the reading and unlock tiles. Plus the earlier levels also have the conjugation practice tiles, which is great for early reinforcement and the conjugation trainer extra tool is really good as well (though I rarely use it). I really like the sentence creation grammar exercises, despite for some dumb reason having been only fill in the blank on it for way too many months. (Like I need another fill in the blank SRS!) 
I know other people swear by bunpro, and while it didn’t really click for me, that doesn’t mean it might not be right for you. If you had four years in college plus study abroad for a year you’ll probably find a whole lot of either platform as review early on, but sometimes review is needed. Either way, though, I’d recommend giving both a trial run and see if one seems to suit you better than the other (warning: if you have strong opinions on whether pineapple belongs on pizza or not, that is something that comes up frequently in the MaruMori reading exercises down the line so you have been warned) 
That’s actually really helpful, thanks for your reply! I’d been looking at the MaruMori interface and it seems to me like I’d have more fun with it than other options, but you’re right, I’ll have to try out both 
Strong opinions on pineapple on pizza…!? I’ve genuinely never tried it so I guess I’ll have to for the first time so I can be prepared if I end up going with MaruMori, LOL!
I started Last year with Bunpro for Grammar and vocabulary. I’m still using it for learning vocabulary but I stopped learning Grammar with Bunpro. It took me a Long Time to find an App that I’m able to Stick with for vocabulary. In the First year of learning Japanese I didn’t use any flashcards at all. I learned the words by using them for Grammar exercises (genki + JFZ).
At the beginning i learned a lot of Kanji with wanikani, but my Japanese was not good enough to understand whole sentences so I stopped learning Kanji and payed more Attention to vocabulary and Grammar.
I bought the lifetime abo for marumori in April because there was a Sale. And I Hope that it’s better for learning Grammar than Bunpro.
Thanks for the reply, this is super helpful too! From what I’ve experienced, I think Bunpro’s reviews (and especially the hints) are already getting a little too muddled for a subscription to be worth it for me personally. I’d rather explore other options than feel irritated every other review because there are multiple points I know that fit the example sentence. I’m trying out MaruMori now and I really like the smoothness of what I’ve done so far for review. We’ll see how it goes!