Anki vs Quizlet: pick by how long you need to remember it

At a glance

We checked prices and features at the vendors' own pages and the US App Store in October 2026. Prices change, so the links are in the sections below and the sources at the end. The last row is my opinion, and Top of Class is my own app.

How each app decides when you see a card again

Spaced repetition shows a card again after a delay that grows as you keep remembering it. It combines two well-tested findings. Testing yourself beats rereading on delayed tests (Roediger and Karpicke, 2006), and spreading practice out beats doing it all at once, with the best gap growing as the exam gets further away (Cepeda et al., 2006).

Anki gives every card its own schedule, lets you set the recall rate it aims for, and gives you a daily queue of cards that are due. Quizlet offers spaced repetition as one study mode among several.

Since version 23.10 Anki includes FSRS, which improves on its older SM-2 scheduler (release notes). FSRS schedules each card for the moment your chance of recalling it drops to a target you set, called desired retention. The manual says it defaults to 90%, that above 90% the workload rises very quickly, and that FSRS is something you enable in the deck options (Anki manual). If you start with Anki, check that setting first. You grade each card with one of four buttons: Again, Hard, Good or Easy (Anki manual).

In Quizlet's spaced repetition mode you rate your recall and Quizlet decides when to show the card again; Repeat brings it back within minutes and Easy in four or more days. For larger sets the mode may already be on (Quizlet help). That help page still says the mode is website only, but it also runs in the iPhone app, which describes it as resurfacing what you need to review when you need it (App Store). Learn is different. It builds a study path from the goal you choose. It is a Quizlet Plus feature, but anyone can try a free session (Quizlet help).

So the daily routine differs. In Anki you open the queue, review what is due, and stop. In Quizlet you pick a way to study a set.

What Anki and Quizlet cost

Anki is free on computers, in a browser through AnkiWeb (Anki manual), and on Android through AnkiDroid, which contributors build (Anki). The official iPhone app, AnkiMobile, is a one-time $24.99 on the US App Store, and purchases help fund Anki's development (App Store). Syncing between devices through AnkiWeb is free (Anki).

Quizlet is free to start, with limits. Quizlet Plus adds Practice Tests, Study Guides, Learn and Expert Solutions with monthly usage limits, and Plus Unlimited is the higher tier, with more study controls. Both are billed monthly or yearly (Quizlet help). In October 2026 the US App Store listed Quizlet Plus at $9.99 a month or $44.99 a year, and Plus Unlimited at $44.99 (App Store). Prices vary by country, so check the upgrade screen before you pay.

Making cards in each app

Anki imports text and other files (Anki manual) and lets people share decks (Anki), so for a common exam someone may have made the deck already. Quizlet imports text where each row becomes a card (Quizlet help), and it can generate a study guide with a flashcard set from notes you upload, with limited access on the free plan (Quizlet help).

Writing the cards can take longer than studying them, whichever app you use. One student on Reddit, taking a fast summer economics course with a 20-page slide deck per chapter, asked whether it was normal to have an AI chatbot turn each deck into a spreadsheet to import into Anki, because typing every front and back took too long.

Whether you or an AI writes the cards, the same rules apply. Piotr Wozniak, the creator of SuperMemo, wrote twenty rules of formulating knowledge. The first says not to learn what you do not understand. The fourth says to keep each card to the smallest piece of information you can ask about, and the ninth and tenth follow from it by warning against cards that ask for a set or a list (Wozniak, 1999). A card that asks for a whole list gets missed again and again, whichever app schedules it.

Which one to pick

Pick by how long you need to remember the material, then by who makes the cards. A semester course with a midterm and a cumulative final counts as long, because what you learn in week two comes back in the final.

• For a cumulative final, a licensing exam or a language, use Anki. Its per-card schedule is built for remembering a lot of material over months, and the desktop and Android apps are free.
• For a quiz this week, or a set your teacher or classmates already share on Quizlet, use Quizlet.
• If you have your own notes and never get around to turning them into cards, try Top of Class. Atlas drafts the cards from pasted notes and the app schedules the reviews.
• If you study mostly on an iPhone and do not want to pay $24.99, Anki's free option is AnkiWeb in the browser. Quizlet's iPhone app is free to start and includes its spaced repetition mode.

Where Top of Class fits

I build Top of Class, so read this with that in mind. It is for students who keep putting off making cards. You paste lecture notes or a textbook passage, Atlas drafts the questions and explains why each one is worth keeping, and you decide what stays. Reviews use spaced repetition with two buttons, Again and Good, and the app decides when each card comes back. It runs on iPhone and in the browser, and on iPhone you can import an existing Anki deck.

Atlas drafting, Tend repairs and sync between devices need a Scholar subscription; the free plan covers writing cards by hand and reviewing them. There is no shared library of ready-made decks like Anki and Quizlet have, no Android app, and Atlas reads pasted text only, not PDFs. If you already have a working Anki deck you enjoy maintaining, keep it.

You can see what it does and try it free at Top of Class.

How this article was made

Researched and drafted with AI assistance from the vendors' own documentation, app store listings and the studies linked above, then fact-checked against those sources. I read and approved it before it was published.

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