Anki alternatives: 11 flashcard apps tools compared
Anki is loved for its scheduling and its price, and people still leave it. Some find the desktop-first design heavy, some want cards made from notes or sources, some want a polished phone app without paying for the iPhone version, and language learners often prefer a course that supplies the material. The options below range from plain card editors to notes workspaces and language courses.
Short answer: The first three alternatives to Anki in our flashcard apps ranking are Memcode, Mochi and Noji. We open the ranking with smaller vendors and put the established brands from fourth place onward. Choose Memcode if you study code or formulas and want a light, open source site. All 11 alternatives below are ranked products from Best Flashcard Apps in 2026, and each says where it differs from Anki.
Vendors can pay for more visibility on this website, for example a higher place in a ranking or more room on a page. Commercial relationships can also affect which products we feature and how prominently. Every vendor link is marked the same, whatever the arrangement behind it. How that works.
Pricing: Free desktop app and AnkiWeb sync; Android port funded by donations; iOS app sold as a purchase
Established in: Not stated by the vendor
Built for: Self-directed learners who want unlimited decks on their own devices at no licence cost
Not for: Teams wanting a vendor with stated plans and support terms
01
Why buyers look past Anki
01
The iPhone app is paid, the rest is free
Anki's site lists the desktop program for Windows, macOS and Linux and AnkiDroid for Android as free, with AnkiDroid funded by donations. AnkiMobile, the official iPhone and iPad app, is the paid piece, and the page we read does not state its price. Households with mixed phones feel that split first.
02
Card building is manual and detailed
The manual describes note types with their own fields and card templates, and each note creates one card per card type. That gives control, and it also means a newcomer designs templates before studying. The manual itself suggests starting from a deck somebody else shared, which has to be imported into an app, not into AnkiWeb.
03
Sync has housekeeping rules
AnkiWeb sync is free but needs one account per profile, and the manual warns that syncing several profiles into one account can lose data. Data on AnkiWeb may be deleted after six months without access, and edits to an existing media file only sync if you add, remove or replace the file. Some changes force a one-way upload or download.
you want a commercial scheduler with finished courses and an AI tutor
#11
03
What each one does differently
1
Memcode
Not stated by the vendor · See profile
Memcode is a small site whose source sits on GitHub, built around a scheduler derived from SM2. You write question and answer cards or cloze cards where you type the missing word, with LaTeX, code highlighting, images and text-to-speech. Courses can be edited offline. The page names no company, plan or price, so continuity is something to weigh.
Switch from Anki if you study code or formulas and want a light, open source site.
Mochi Cards, LLC keeps cards and decks offline on its free plan, with unlimited counts, and caps dictionary lookups at 20 and text-to-speech at 200 characters a month. Pro adds 10 GB of cloud storage, sync, publishing, API keys and AI integration. The editor uses dynamic fields, so one template can fill many cards. Its pricing page words annual billing in two ways.
Switch from Anki if you like building templated cards in a clean editor and can pay a monthly fee for sync.
Noji runs on iOS and Android and ships with a library of more than 50,000 pre-made decks, published by Vedas Apps Ltd. Its free version covers essentials, while Premium adds pictures, rich card editing, custom spaced-repetition presets and generated pronunciation audio. Decks can be shared with friends. The site shows no Premium price.
Switch from Anki if you study on a phone and would rather download a deck than design one.
Flashcards Deluxe comes from OrangeOrApple.com and runs on iOS, Android and the Amazon Appstore. Decks live on the device and move through Dropbox, Google Drive or the vendor's server, which it describes as temporary storage. Besides spaced repetition there is a Leitner mode, speech output in 20+ languages and three answer levels. A Lite version lets you try it first.
Switch from Anki if you want a phone app that keeps decks on the device and moves them by Dropbox or Drive.
StudyStack LLC says the site launched in 2002. Its sets convert on their own into crosswords, matching games, multiple-choice tests, word scrambles and a timed guessing challenge. Browsing the library, creating sets and sharing them with classmates are free. Paid ad-free PRO, PRO-Teacher with progress reports and district licences carry no prices on the page.
Switch from Anki if your learners are students who respond better to games than to review queues.
RemNote Inc. puts notes and flashcards in one workspace. Its free tier allows unlimited notes and flashcards with 250 AI credits a month, 20 file uploads a day and files up to 8MB. Pro lifts those to 1,000 credits, 600 uploads and 300MB, and Pro with AI lists 20,000 credits. Billing is monthly or yearly.
Switch from Anki if you take lecture notes and want the cards to come out of them.
Brainscape is operated by Bold Learning Solutions. Basic limits study to 2,500 pre-loaded flashcards while listing your own cards as unlimited. Pro bills yearly, drops the numeric caps and lists AI-made and Certified flashcards as unlimited. A group plan is quoted individually, with savings of up to 70% off consumer Pro.
Switch from Anki if a class or team needs one subscription and curated certified content.
Clozemaster, from Language Innovation LLC, trains vocabulary through fill-in-the-blank sentences across 170+ language pairings and 50+ languages. The free plan is promised to stay free. Pro adds unlimited sentences, listening practice for 30+ languages, 90-day stats and offline mobile play. Its content is language-only, and prices did not load when we read the page.
Switch from Anki if you used Anki mainly for vocabulary in context and want ready sentences.
Lingvist sells one subscription across 50+ language courses and places learners by level using spaced repetition and AI. Custom Decks turn your own words or a text into a course, and a Classroom section in beta serves educators. A trial comes with the Annual plan. Prices are not displayed on the pages we read, and the product is course-led.
Switch from Anki if you want a guided language course instead of assembling your own decks.
Pleco Inc. makes a Chinese dictionary with OCR, handwriting lookup, a document reader, licensed dictionaries and stroke-order diagrams for about 27,000 characters. Its flashcard module builds cards from dictionary entries or imported vocabulary lists on iPhone, iPad and Android. It covers Chinese only, and the home page shows no price.
Switch from Anki if you learn Chinese and want cards created straight from dictionary lookups.
SuperMemo World sp. z o.o. built its own spaced-repetition algorithm, aimed at about 15-minute daily sessions. The site lists nearly 300 courses in 25 languages plus AI features called Live mode, MemoChat, an AI Assistant and MemoTranslator. A first month is offered at no charge, but prices are absent and the courses, not your decks, are the product.
Switch from Anki if you want a commercial scheduler with finished courses and an AI tutor.
Memcode: It uses an SM2-based scheduler with cloze, LaTeX and code highlighting, and its source is on GitHub.
02
You want cards to come out of your own notes
RemNote: Notes and flashcards share one workspace; the free tier lists unlimited notes and cards with 250 AI credits a month.
03
You study on your phone from ready-made decks
Noji: It runs on iOS and Android with more than 50,000 pre-made decks; the site shows no Premium price.
04
You are learning a language through sentences
Clozemaster: It drills fill-in-the-blank sentences across 50+ languages, and the free plan is promised to stay free.
05
You are learning Chinese
Pleco: Cards are built from dictionary entries or imported lists, beside handwriting lookup and OCR.
04
When Anki is still the right choice
Anki remains the practical choice when you want a free desktop program, fine control over how cards look and are scheduled, and a large collection of shared decks. Its site says it handles decks of 100,000+ cards without problems, supports audio, images, video and scientific markup, and lets add-ons extend it. If the only irritation is the iPhone price or the template work, try a shared deck and the built-in Cloze and Image Occlusion note types before leaving.
05
What moving off Anki involves
01
Scheduling history rarely travels
Your review history and due dates live in Anki's own collection. Most other tools start every card as new, so plan a short period of relearning and decide which decks are worth moving. Export the collection first and keep it as a backup, because AnkiWeb data can be deleted after six months of inactivity.
02
Templates and media need rebuilding
Cards that rely on several card types per note, custom fields or edited media files rarely map one to one. Move one small deck first, check images, audio and cloze markup, and only then move the rest.
06
Questions about replacing Anki
6 answers
Is Anki really free?
Anki's site lists the desktop app for Windows, macOS and Linux and AnkiWeb sync as free, and AnkiDroid for Android as funded by donations. AnkiMobile for iPhone and iPad is the paid app, and the page we read gives no price.
Which Anki alternatives work on a phone only?
Noji targets iOS and Android, Flashcards Deluxe runs on iOS, Android and the Amazon Appstore, and Pleco covers iPhone, iPad and Android. Mochi, RemNote and Brainscape also offer their own apps or sites; check each page for platforms.
Can another app make flashcards for me?
RemNote counts AI credits in its plans, and Brainscape lists AI-made flashcards as unlimited on Pro. Mochi lists AI integration under Pro. Allowances differ by plan, so read the live pricing before counting on them.
Is there an open source option besides Anki?
Memcode has its source on GitHub and uses a scheduler based on SM2. Anki's own site links to its GitHub repository but does not name a licence on the page we read.
What suits language learning best?
Clozemaster drills sentences, Lingvist offers courses with placement and custom decks, SuperMemo sells courses on its own algorithm, and Pleco is a Chinese dictionary with cards. Anki gives more freedom but supplies no course.
What happens to my AnkiWeb data if I leave?
Local copies on your devices stay as they are. AnkiWeb says data may be deleted after six months without access, and that deleted data cannot be recovered from AnkiWeb, so export before you stop using it.
—
Sources
Checked 6 November 2026
Anki home: Desktop platforms, free desktop app and sync, AnkiDroid donation-funded, AnkiMobile for iOS without a stated price, 100,000+ card decks, add-ons, Ankitects Pty Ltd trademark.
Anki manual: syncing: Free account, one account per profile, six-month deletion, media sync behaviour, forced one-way sync.
Anki manual: getting started: Note types, card types per note, Cloze and Image Occlusion, shared decks and import.
Mochi pricing: Free offline plan, 20 dictionary lookups, 200 characters text-to-speech, Pro 10 GB, API keys, AI integration.
RemNote pricing: 250, 1,000 and 20,000 AI credits, 20 and 600 uploads, 8MB and 300MB files.
Brainscape pricing: Basic 2,500 pre-loaded cards, Pro yearly, group plan up to 70% savings.
Founder of The Knowledge Engineers and of 2 Steps Ahead, an AI search visibility agency. Editorially responsible for every page on this site; research and drafting are AI-assisted.
Checked and edited by Sebastiaan Smits, last on 6 November 2026. The editorial process explains the method.
