I’m doing something similar for Spanish: listening to News in Slow Spanish podcast, Pimsleur, Memrise and then also paying for a tutor through Italki which has really been helping.
And yes, DL teaches South American Spanish which has a fair few differences to European so that might be the source of the differences.
I wished I'd started with LT, learned the rules, then maybe Duolingo would have been ok for practice (although the gamification sort of annoys me). My Super Duolingo sub is up this summer, I think I might not renew and stick with LT and Dreaming Spanish.
Regarding Latin American Spanish vs European -- in the LT lessons, they cover the differences in pronunciation when applicable and also differences in word usage (Carro vs El Auto) and even later on talks about "Spanish Idiolects" (e.g. the ways individuals speak Spanish).