The best BaZi and saju apps in 2026, compared
Published 10 August 2026 by Pacefyx, Inc. We make Gilsung, which is one of the apps below. We have tried to write the comparison we wanted to read.
There is no single best BaZi app, because these apps are not trying to do the same job. If you want your chart computed with the calendar rules the tradition uses and kept on your own phone, Gilsung is built for that.
Below is what each of the well-known apps and sites is good at, and how each one makes its money. There is also a thirty-second way to check any app's privacy for yourself. Four Pillars is one tradition with four sets of names: BaZi 八字 in Chinese, saju 사주 in Korean, Shichu Suimei 四柱推命 in Japanese, and Four Pillars of Destiny in English.
Which BaZi or saju app should you use?
| App or site | Good for | How you pay | Sign-in? |
|---|---|---|---|
| 포스텔러 Forceteller | The widest range of Korean fortune content in one polished app | Free to start, with paid readings | Yes |
| 점신 Jeomsin | A free daily saju in Korean, and a manseryeok most Koreans have used | Free, with paid reports | Check the listing |
| 헬로우봇 Hellobot | Making fortune feel light and friendly, especially for younger readers | Free, with paid items | Yes |
| Japanese 四柱推命 sites unkoi.com, rensa.jp.net and similar | A free 命式 in the browser with nothing to install | Free chart, paid detailed readings | No, for the free chart |
| Chinese fortune portals 科技紫微網 and similar | Depth and range in Chinese, built up over decades | Free samples, paid reports | Yes, to buy |
| Free web calculators Master Sean Chan, MingDecode | A chart in ten seconds, and a second opinion to check any app against | Free in a browser | No |
| Gilsung | Calendar rules done properly and stated, your details kept on your phone, and no upsell next to a hard reading | Free every day, extras are one-time, no subscription | No |
Prices, plans and sign-in rules change. Check the app's page in the store before you install, and read its privacy section while you are there.
What is Forceteller good at?
Forceteller is the app that made saju feel modern in Korea, and its reach shows it: the company reports around nine million users. It covers saju, tarot, Western astrology and dream readings in one place, and the writing is better than the category average.
If you want range, and you want the reading handed to you rather than the chart handed to you, Forceteller is the strongest of the Korean apps.
What is Jeomsin good at?
Jeomsin is the free saju app most Korean readers have tried at least once, and the daily fortune is the part it does best. It also carries a manseryeok, the perpetual calendar tool that Korean practitioners actually use to look a chart up.
If you want a daily reading in Korean at no cost, this is the default, and it has been for years.
What is Hellobot good at?
Hellobot took the part of fortune telling that is supposed to be fun and built the whole product around it. Answers arrive as short messages from characters you pick, which is a much gentler way in than a wall of stems and branches.
It has been one of the most downloaded fortune apps in Korea, and the reason is design rather than depth. If saju has ever felt intimidating, start here.
What are the Japanese 四柱推命 sites good at?
Japan has both: well-established 四柱推命 websites and a real set of apps. The free 命式 tools on sites like unkoi.com are genuinely good. You get a chart in a browser with nothing to install, in Japanese, using Japanese vocabulary.
The detailed write-ups are usually sold one at a time, which suits someone who wants one careful reading rather than an app they open every day.
What are the Chinese fortune portals good at?
Sites like 科技紫微網 have been publishing Chinese fortune content since the early web, and the catalogue is enormous. For 紫微斗數 in particular, which Gilsung does not do at all, they are the deep end.
If you read Chinese and you want a long, specific report written by people who have been at this for decades, this is where that lives.
What are the free web calculators good at?
Master Sean Chan's calculator and MingDecode both give you a clean BaZi chart in a browser for nothing, in English. English-language BaZi is thin on the ground, and these two carry a lot of it.
They are also the best second opinion you can get. If two apps disagree about your chart, a third source settles which rule each one is using.
What is Gilsung good at?
Gilsung computes your Four Pillars on your own device, states the calendar rules it used, and never sells you a fix for something it just told you to worry about. We make it, so read this section with that in mind and check the claims.
The calendar math done properly, and said out loud
Gilsung turns the year at lichun, not at Lunar New Year. Months follow the sectional solar terms. The hour pillar uses true local solar time, and a birth after 23:00 rolls the day pillar. Those four rules are where charts differ between apps, and Gilsung names the one it used.
It tells you what a reading came from
Every reading in Gilsung has a control called "Show what this reading came from", which names the pillars, stems and branches behind it. Most apps in this category will not tell you, so you either believe the reading or you do not.
Nobody is waiting to sell you a reading
Gilsung has no fortune tellers, no per-minute billing, no coins, no hearts and nothing to recharge. It also sells no talismans, charms or remedies. That is deliberate. An app that can make you worry and then sell you the cure has a reason to make you worry.
A hard season is named, and then left alone
A demanding luck pillar in Gilsung is called demanding. A reading that only ever says pleasant things is not reading your chart. It is written as pace and as what a season asks of you, never as doom, never as a verdict on you, and never followed by something to buy.
Free every day, and no subscription
Free in Gilsung: your four pillars, the day master reading and your daily reading. The daily is built from your actual chart, not from your animal sign. Ten gods, hidden stems and your luck pillars are there to read. Compatibility between two people and auspicious-day guidance are one-time purchases. Nothing renews and there is nothing to cancel.
Seven languages, each in its own words
Gilsung is written in English, 한국어, 日本語, 简体中文, 繁體中文, ไทย and Bahasa Indonesia. Each one uses its own tradition's vocabulary rather than a translation of the Chinese. Japanese readers get 日干 and 通変星. Korean readers get 일간 and 십신. Traditional Chinese is written for Taiwan and Hong Kong rather than converted from Simplified.
Why does my chart differ between two of these apps?
Because they use different calendar rules, not because one is broken. Four rules cause nearly all of it. Does the year begin at lichun or at Lunar New Year? Do months follow the solar terms? Does the hour use true local solar time, and does a birth after 23:00 roll the day?
Which pillar disagrees tells you which rule they disagree about. We wrote a separate explainer with a test case you can run on any calculator, including the free ones above.
Why is birth data a special case?
You can change a password. You cannot change where and when you were born. Those three details stay true about you for life, and together they point at one person quite precisely.
A Four Pillars app also holds more than your own details. Compatibility means typing in someone else's birth date and time, usually a partner or a family member who never agreed to anything. That is a second person's permanent data sitting in an app they have never opened.
If a company never received your data, they cannot sell it. Nobody can buy it. Not even by buying the whole company.
How do you check any BaZi app's privacy yourself?
Open the app's page in the store and read the privacy section, which is what the developer told Apple or Google about their own app. It takes about thirty seconds and it is better evidence than any marketing page, including this one.
- Find App Privacy on the App Store, or Data safety on Google Play.
- Read Data Used to Track You and Data Linked to You. Those two matter most.
- An app that collects nothing shows one line: Data Not Collected. Gilsung's says that.
- Check whether it needs a sign-in. A sign-in means a copy of your details on someone else's computer.
- Turn the internet off and open it. An app that still draws your chart is doing the work on your phone.
The one thing the labels will not tell you
There is no label category for "this app sends your chart to an outside service to be written up." A privacy label can look modest whether the app does that or not. The label is the first check, not the last one.
Read the privacy policy and look for named outside companies, then run the internet-off test. In Chinese app stores some fortune apps have started advertising that they collect nothing. That is good for everybody. The label is still where you go to confirm it.
The longer guide to checking a BaZi or saju app's privacy walks through the same steps with the limits stated in full.
Common questions
Which saju app is best if I do not read Korean?
Gilsung is written in English, Japanese, Simplified and Traditional Chinese, Thai and Indonesian as well as Korean. The free English web calculators are the other option and they cost nothing. The large Korean apps are excellent and are written for Korean readers.
Do I have to talk to a fortune teller to get a saju reading?
No. Several popular apps are built around paid readings from a person, which a lot of people specifically want. Gilsung is the other kind: it computes and reads your chart itself, with no fortune tellers and nothing to recharge.
Which BaZi app works offline?
Gilsung works with the internet turned off, because every calculation and every reading happens on your device. The internet-off test is the quickest way to judge any app here. An app that cannot draw your chart on a plane is having it drawn somewhere else.
Are there BaZi apps without a subscription?
Gilsung has no subscription. Your four pillars, your day master reading and your daily reading are free, and the extras are one-time purchases. Most of the large fortune apps are free to start and then charge per report, which is a different model rather than a worse one.