10 Free Anki Alternatives

The best free Anki alternative depends on what you start from: Scholarly if your material is already a file, Knowt if you have Quizlet sets, Brainscape for certification decks, RemNote or Obsidian if your notes are your system, and Mochi if you want Anki's control with a simpler card format. All ten below still had a working free tier when we checked on October 23, 2026.

The short answer, by job:

• Your material is already a file (PDF, slides, recording, video): Scholarly. It generates the cards from that source and schedules them with SM-2. The catch: the free plan is one AI creation in total.
• You have years of Quizlet sets: Knowt. Its Chrome extension imports them, and Learn mode is free.
• You are prepping for a professional certification: Brainscape, for the confidence rating and the expert-built decks.
• Your notes are your system: RemNote, so notes and cards are the same document, or Obsidian with the free Spaced Repetition plugin if you want plain Markdown files on your own disk.
• You want Anki's control with a cleaner interface: Mochi. Markdown cards, Anki import, free forever on one device.
• You want AI cards and a phone-first review loop: Gizmo.
• Languages only: Memrise.
• One pre-made set for tomorrow's quiz: Quizlet or Vaia.

Every tool below was re-checked on October 23, 2026: the site is up, the free tier still exists, and the description matches what the vendor currently says. Prices are not quoted because they change; each entry links to the vendor's own plans page instead.

Anki is free, powerful, and genuinely hard to start with. If you want spaced repetition without deck options, template syntax, and three YouTube tutorials before your first card, these ten alternatives all have a free tier you can use today.

The full list:

1. Scholarly for turning a PDF, lecture, or video you already have into cards.
2. Knowt for the free Quizlet-style experience, including a Quizlet importer.
3. Brainscape for confidence-based review and certified decks.
4. Gizmo for AI-generated cards and quick review on your phone.
5. Quizlet for the biggest catalog of pre-made sets, plus Quizlet Live for groups.
6. RemNote when your cards should live inside your notes.
7. Vaia for a free all-in-one study app with community sets.
8. Memrise for languages specifically.
9. Obsidian + Spaced Repetition plugin for open-source cards inside plain Markdown notes.
10. Mochi for Markdown cards and a painless Anki import.

One warning before the list: several apps with "Anki" in the name are not Anki. Skip to the section on knockoffs if you are about to download one.

If Anki is the tool you are replacing rather than abandoning, Scholarly's Anki alternative guide covers the tradeoffs in more depth, and PDF to Anki cards exports into the .apkg format on a paid plan so you can keep Anki's scheduler and skip the typing.

What changed in October 2026

Only verified changes are listed here.

• Cram is off the list. Cram.com's homepage now carries a banner saying the site will retire on November 9, 2026 and stay accessible until then. If you have decks there, export or move them now: Knowt's Chrome extension page says its importer also works with Cram. Gizmo takes the #4 slot.
• Mnemosyne is off the list. On October 23, 2026, mnemosyne-proj.org showed a "hosting account has been suspended" page, so the official downloads and documentation were unreachable. The code is still on GitHub and the last maintenance build, 2.11.1, was published to PyPI on March 13, 2026, but we will not send new users to a project whose website is down. Obsidian with the open-source Spaced Repetition plugin takes the #9 slot.
• Anki itself is now on 26.09. The stable 26.09 release shipped on September 14, 2026, and 26.09.3 followed on September 23, per the official releases page. The release notes ask everyone to upgrade to 26.09 or later because it includes security fixes, update the built-in FSRS scheduler to 6.6.2, and remove the legacy anki.importing and anki.exporting modules, with temporary compatibility wrappers that were only tested against AnkiConnect. If you rely on older add-ons, check them after upgrading.
• Knowt's plans page was rewritten. Knowt's plans page now lists Basic (free) and Ultra. Basic is described as unlimited file creation, live collaboration, and storage; Ultra adds an ad-free experience, AI summarizers, an AI podcast generator, and a voice tutor.
• Learn.xyz no longer loads. Its domain returned a "Site not found" page on October 23, 2026. See the retired-apps section.
• Scholarly's free plan is unchanged: one lifetime AI creation and one upload (8 MB, PDFs up to 32 pages).

#1. Scholarly - Cards from the material you already have

What it does well:

• Generates cards from your actual source. Upload a lecture PDF, a textbook chapter, notes, slides, or a video, and the cards come from that document rather than from a generic topic prompt.
• Keeps everything in one workspace. The same upload can also become quizzes, notes, or a listenable episode through the AI podcast generator, so you are not moving files between five apps.
• Every card stays editable after generation.
• Spaced repetition on every plan. Per-card scheduling uses the SM-2 algorithm, with no ads.

The reality check:

• The free plan is capped at 1 lifetime AI creation and 1 lifetime file upload, with an 8 MB file limit, and PDF-to-flashcards reads up to 32 pages of a PDF. Flipping cards is unlimited, but spaced-repetition study stops at 5 answers. Premium ($30/month or $180/year) allows 15 creations a week; Laureate ($99/month) allows 80.
• The public set library is small. Scholarly assumes you bring your own material, so it is the wrong pick if you want someone else's pre-made deck.
• Exporting a deck to .apkg or PDF requires a paid plan.
• No native mobile app; it runs in the browser.

Best for: anyone whose material starts as a file: professionals prepping for a certification, researchers turning papers into review, students with a 40-page chapter. Start with PDF to flashcards if that describes you, or the general AI flashcard maker if your material is notes, slides, images, or a video instead.

#2. Knowt - The closest thing to old free Quizlet

What it does well:

• Learn mode is free. Knowt's Learn mode page says it is free "for all flashcard sets, unlimited number of times," and practice tests are free too.
• A Chrome extension that copies an existing Quizlet set into Knowt, which makes switching close to costless. Knowt's help center notes that sets over 100 terms need the "See more" button expanded on Quizlet first, and that folders cannot be imported through the extension.
• The free Basic plan covers unlimited file creation, live collaboration, and storage, per the plans page.
• A familiar interface if you are coming from Quizlet.

The reality check:

• AI summarizers, the AI podcast generator, the voice tutor, and an ad-free experience are Ultra features. Generated cards still deserve a read-through before you trust them.
• Published prices for Ultra differ across review sites. Check Knowt's own plans page rather than a comparison article.

Best for: students with years of Quizlet sets who want the free study modes back without retyping anything. If you are weighing it against Scholarly, the Knowt comparison is the head-to-head.

#3. Brainscape - Confidence-based repetition

What it does well:

• After each card you rate your confidence from 1 to 5. Low ratings bring the card back sooner and high ratings push it further out, per Brainscape's own explanation of confidence-based repetition.
• The free tier includes unlimited flashcard creation, importing existing cards, sharing, and spaced repetition, per the pricing page.
• AI generation from uploaded documents such as PowerPoint and Word files, or from pasted text; free accounts get a limited AI allowance.
• Certified expert-built decks for professional exams and standard curricula.

The reality check:

• Unlimited certified decks, images and sounds on cards, reverse flashcards, private content, and unlimited AI generation all sit behind Pro, a paid subscription. See Brainscape's pricing page for current terms.
• Free AI generation is a fixed allowance, not an ongoing workflow.

Best for: professionals studying for a certification where a vetted deck beats building your own, and anyone who finds Anki's four-button rating harder to judge than a 1-to-5 confidence scale.

#4. Gizmo - AI cards and quick review on your phone

What it does well:

• Turns PDFs, notes, PowerPoints, and YouTube videos into flashcards, and its App Store listing says it can convert Quizlet and Anki content too, which makes it a practical landing spot if you are leaving Cram or another app.
• The App Store listing names spaced repetition and active recall as the review method, and lists free flashcards and a library of free public decks.
• It has an iOS app as well as a web version, so a deck you make at your desk is on your phone for spare minutes.

The reality check:

• The app is free with in-app purchases, and the paid tier is Gizmo Unlimited. The listing does not spell out exactly which limits apply on free, and prices vary by store and region, so check the App Store listing or the app itself rather than a review site.
• It is a recall tool. It does less for understanding long or dense source material than tools that build notes or explanations from it.

Best for: students who want AI-made cards and a quick daily review on their phone, and anyone moving decks out of Quizlet, Anki, or Cram. The Gizmo comparison covers where it and Scholarly differ.

#5. Quizlet - The biggest library, a narrower free tier

What it does well:

• The largest public set library there is. For a common course or a standardized test, a usable set almost certainly exists.
• Polished apps and familiar modes: Flashcards, Learn, Match, Test.
• Classmates and teachers already use it, so sharing inside a class takes no setup.
• Quizlet Live turns a set into a classroom game. Per Quizlet's help center, a teacher account starts it from the website, players join from their own devices, and Quizlet Plus for teachers adds extras such as custom teams.

The reality check:

• Learn mode, the feature that made Quizlet famous, is now a Quizlet Plus feature. Non-subscribers get a limited number of free rounds per set, per Quizlet's help center.
• Studying a stranger's set means studying what their class covered, not yours.
• Quizlet Live is useless if you study alone, and it needs an existing Quizlet set, so treat it as a companion to your setup rather than a replacement for it.

Best for: grabbing one pre-made set for tomorrow's quiz, or running a group review. If your real question is Quizlet or Anki, our Quizlet vs Anki comparison breaks that choice down head-to-head.

#6. RemNote - Cards that live inside your notes

What it does well:

• Write a line of notes, mark it as a card, and it enters your review queue. Note-taking and card-making become one action.
• The free tier covers unlimited notes and flashcards across unlimited synced devices, which is unusually generous.
• Spaced repetition, image occlusion, PDF annotation, and AI-generated flashcards and quizzes in one tool.

The reality check:

• It is a knowledge-base tool first, so there is a real learning curve.
• The free tier gives only small allowances of the extras. As of October 23, 2026, RemNote's pricing page lists 3 annotated PDFs, files, or websites, 5 image-occlusion images, and 250 AI credits a month. Pro lifts those limits, and a separate Pro with AI tier carries the large AI allowance.

Best for: heavy note-takers, especially med students, who want their notes and their review queue to be the same document. The RemNote comparison covers where it and Scholarly diverge.

#7. Vaia (formerly StudySmarter) - Free all-in-one study app

What it does well:

• Free to get started, with community study sets and the option to create your own flashcards and notes.
• Spaced repetition is one of the built-in study modes, and AI explanations and exam feedback are built in.
• Works on web, iOS, and Android.

The reality check:

• Coverage is deepest for common school and university curricula. Niche or graduate-level topics thin out quickly.
• Vaia offers a Premium tier alongside the free app, so expect upsells around some content.
• The rename from StudySmarter means older reviews and guides use the previous name, which makes searching for current information mildly confusing.

Best for: school and undergraduate students who want one free app for notes and cards together. Scholarly's Vaia comparison covers the professional-use case it does not.

#8. Memrise - Languages specifically

What it does well:

• Free to start, across a long list of languages.
• Teaches through short videos of native speakers rather than textbook sentences, which is the part Anki decks usually lack. You can record yourself and compare.
• Review scheduling is built in, so vocabulary comes back before you lose it, and there is AI speaking practice on top.

The reality check:

• Languages only. It is not a general-purpose flashcard tool, so it will not help with anatomy or contract law.
• A paid plan unlocks extra features and the free tier nudges you toward it. Plans are listed on Memrise's own plans page.

Best for: language learners who want vocabulary review without building a deck by hand.

#9. Obsidian + Spaced Repetition plugin - Open-source cards in your own notes

What it does well:

• Obsidian is free with no sign-up, per its pricing page, and your notes are plain Markdown files on your own disk.
• The community Spaced Repetition plugin is open source (MIT licence) and actively maintained; its latest release, 1.15.4, shipped in June 2026. Tag a note #flashcards, then write Question::Answer on a line, or a question and answer separated by a ? line, and each one becomes a card. Cloze deletions, images, LaTeX, and code are supported.
• You can schedule cards with either SM-2 or FSRS, and you can also review whole notes, not just cards.
• Obsidian runs on Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, and Android.

The reality check:

• It is a setup project. You install Obsidian, then the plugin, then learn the card syntax. There is no shared-deck library and no AI generation in the plugin itself.
• Syncing between devices needs either Obsidian's paid Sync add-on or your own file-sync setup.
• The plugin is a community project, not made by Obsidian, so features can change between releases.

Best for: people who like Anki's philosophy, want open-source software, and already keep their notes in Markdown.

#10. Mochi - Markdown cards, Anki import

What it does well:

• Cards are written in Markdown, so formatting is plain text rather than Anki's HTML templates.
• The free tier is free forever, needs no signup, and allows unlimited cards and decks with unlimited offline use; import and export are included.
• Mochi's import docs say it imports Anki .apkg files, including review history, and converts Anki's HTML into Markdown on the way in.
• Runs on macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS, Android, and the web. Its site currently lists version 26.9.2.

The reality check:

• Free means local-only. Syncing across devices, publishing decks, and the larger AI allowances are Pro features; see Mochi's pricing page for the current limits.
• Mochi strips Anki's CSS and JavaScript during import, so heavily styled decks land as plain cards and may not look the same.

Best for: Anki users who want the same control over their cards without the template system, and are happy to study on one device or pay for sync.

A warning about Anki lookalikes

Several subscription apps use Anki's name and are not connected to Anki in any way. Anki's official FAQ names them directly: AnkiApp, since rebranded as AlgoApp, and Anki Pro, since rebranded as Noji. The FAQ says they are not related to the rest of the Anki ecosystem and do not work with the other Anki clients.

The practical consequences matter if you download one by mistake. Your decks will not sync with Anki, AnkiDroid, AnkiMobile, or AnkiWeb, and you may end up on a subscription while believing you are using free software. The genuine Anki apps are Anki on desktop, AnkiDroid on Android, AnkiMobile on iOS, and AnkiWeb in a browser, all linked from apps.ankiweb.net.

This is not an argument against paying for a study app. It is an argument for knowing which one you are paying for.

Apps that are no longer worth searching for

Four names still show up in older lists of Anki alternatives and are worth crossing off:

• Cram. Cram.com says it will retire on November 9, 2026. Export what you need before then and do not start new decks there.
• Mnemosyne. Its official website showed a hosting-suspended page on October 23, 2026. The source code is still public, but until the site returns there is no official download page to point new users to.
• StudyBlue. Chegg bought it in July 2018, and StudyBlue.com now redirects to Chegg's own flashcards pages. The standalone app people remember is gone.
• Learn.xyz. On October 23, 2026 its domain returned a "Site not found" page.

Which one should you actually use?

There is no single winner, so pick by what you are starting from:

Your material already exists as files. Start with Scholarly. Upload the PDF or paste your notes, get cards grounded in that source, and start reviewing. The difference from card-only tools is that the upload is a source, not just a deck, so the same file can also become a quiz, a set of notes, or a podcast episode.

You have a pile of Quizlet sets. Knowt imports them and gives the free study modes back.

You are leaving Cram. Move the decks with Knowt's importer or Gizmo, then pick whichever study loop you prefer.

You want a huge existing library. Quizlet remains the safe pick, with Vaia as a free fallback.

Your notes are your system. RemNote, or Obsidian with the Spaced Repetition plugin if you want local Markdown files.

You are prepping for a professional certification. Brainscape, for the certified decks and the confidence rating.

You want maximum control and do not mind the learning curve. Stay on Anki (26.09.3 as of this update, and upgrade if you are older than 26.09), or use Mochi for the same control with Markdown instead of templates. Neither is beaten on power. They are only beaten on setup time.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best free alternative to Anki?

For most people it is Knowt if you are coming from Quizlet, Mochi if you want Anki-style control with simpler cards, and Scholarly if you want cards generated from your own PDFs or recordings (its free plan covers one AI creation in total). All three have a free tier as of October 23, 2026.

Is Anki still free?

Yes. Anki's official site says the computer version is free, AnkiDroid for Android is free, and AnkiWeb sync is free. AnkiMobile on iOS is a paid app, and its purchases fund Anki's development.

Is Cram.com shutting down?

Yes. Cram.com's homepage says the site is retiring on November 9, 2026 and will stay accessible until that date. Export or move your decks before then; Knowt's importer lists Cram among the sites it works with.

Are AlgoApp and Noji the same as Anki?

No. Anki's own FAQ lists AnkiApp (now AlgoApp) and Anki Pro (now Noji) as unrelated apps that do not work with Anki, AnkiDroid, AnkiMobile, or AnkiWeb.

Can I move my Anki decks to another app?

Yes, to some of them. Mochi imports .apkg files with review history, and Gizmo says it can convert Anki content. Going the other way, Scholarly can export generated cards to .apkg on a paid plan, so you can keep reviewing in Anki.

Your next step

The best flashcard app is the one you will still open in week six, so do not spend an evening comparing them. Pick one, bring in your most recent source, and review something today.

The real lever is not the app. It is the habit of retrieval practice on material you actually need to understand. If the part you keep avoiding is building the cards, that is the specific problem Scholarly's generation step removes.

Try Scholarly's AI flashcard generation

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