13 Best Free Flashcard Apps (2026): Anki vs Quizlet & More

Prices and features checked 11 October 2026 on each vendor's site. Every app below was checked on its own website, pricing page, help center or official app store listing on that date: that it still exists, that it has a free plan, and what that free plan includes. Apps that have shut down or announced a shutdown were removed. Prices are in US dollars and can change.

A flashcard app is worth using if it does two things well: it makes you answer from memory before you see the answer, and it brings each card back just before you would forget it. Self-testing beats rereading for long-term recall (Roediger & Karpicke, 2006), and spreading reviews out beats cramming them together (Cepeda et al., 2006). The apps below differ mainly in how much of that scheduling they do for you, how you get cards into them, and what the free plan leaves out.

Free tool: paste your notes into the flashcard generator (our tool) and get a deck back with no account; a free account lets you save it and come back to study it.

The 13 Best Free Flashcard Apps at a Glance

Spaced-Repetition Apps

1. Anki: The Spaced Repetition Powerhouse

Anki is the tool your pre-med friend swears by. It is not the prettiest app on this list, but its scheduler is the reason so many medical, law and language students use it.

What is free: the computer version (Windows, macOS, Linux), AnkiDroid for Android, and the AnkiWeb sync service that keeps your cards in step across devices. The official iPhone/iPad app, AnkiMobile, is a one-time purchase ($24.99 on the US App Store); Anki says sales fund development of both the computer and mobile versions.

Key features:

• SM-2 and FSRS scheduling algorithms
• Images, audio, video and LaTeX/MathJax equations on cards
• Add-ons on the desktop version
• Large shared deck library

Pros: unmatched control; free on every platform except iOS; no subscription.

Cons: steep learning curve; dated interface; some setup (such as changing note types) needs the desktop app.

Best for: long-term memorization where you will review daily for months.

2. Quizlet: The Biggest Library of Ready-Made Sets

Quizlet is where you go when someone has probably already made the set you need. A free account lets you study with flashcards, practice questions, interactive diagrams and activities.

What the free plan leaves out: Quizlet's help center says Learn and Test are subscriber features. Without a subscription you can start a free study session in Learn to try it, and take one free practice test per flashcard set in Test. Students in a teacher's Quizlet class get free Learn and Test access for the sets in that class. AI Practice Tests and Study Guides can be used free with limited access; the paid plans (Quizlet Plus, with monthly usage limits, and Quizlet Plus Unlimited) give fuller access.

Pros: enormous library of student-made sets; very easy to start.

Cons: the most useful study modes are limited on the free plan; the scheduling is not a true spaced-repetition system like Anki's.

Best for: students who want to find a set and start studying in seconds.

3. RemNote: Notes and Flashcards in One Place

RemNote combines note-taking and flashcards: you write notes and turn lines into cards as you go, then review them with its built-in spaced repetition.

What is free: unlimited notes and flashcards on unlimited synced devices, 3 annotated PDFs, 5 image-occlusion cards, 1 exam in the Exam Scheduler and 250 AI credits a month. Pro ($8/month, $96 billed yearly) removes those limits and adds 1,000 AI credits; Pro with AI ($18/month, $216 billed yearly) adds Learn PDF (AI flashcards, quizzes and summaries from PDFs), a lecture recorder and 20,000 AI credits.

Pros: no switching between a notes app and a flashcard app; unlimited cards on free.

Cons: lots of features to learn; PDF annotation is capped at 3 on free.

Best for: students who take detailed notes and want cards to come straight out of them.

4. Brainscape: Confidence-Based Repetition

Brainscape asks you to rate how well you knew each card from 1 to 5. Those ratings drive its spaced repetition: cards you are less sure of come back sooner.

What is free: unlimited typed flashcards, spaced repetition, and AI generation for "100s of flashcards". Pro ($7.99/month on a yearly plan) adds images and sound on cards, reverse-direction study and unlimited AI generation.

Pros: rating your own confidence keeps you honest; simple to use.

Cons: no images on cards on the free plan.

Best for: text-heavy subjects where you want a guided review queue.

5. Knowt: Free Flashcards with Unlimited Learn Mode

Knowt pitches itself as a Quizlet alternative, and its main draw is that its flashcards, including Learn mode, are free: its site says you can "create, share, and study for completely free with unlimited learn mode".

What is paid: Knowt Ultra ($12.99/month billed upfront at $149.99 a year, or $24.99 month to month) adds an ad-free experience, AI summarizers for PDFs, videos, images and PowerPoints, an AI lecture-recording summarizer, an AI podcast generator, an AI voice tutor on all files and full AP, SAT and ACT prep.

Pros: the closest free equivalent to Quizlet's Learn mode.

Cons: ads on the free plan; the AI tools are behind Ultra.

Best for: Quizlet users who want Learn mode without paying.

6. Vaia (formerly StudySmarter): Flashcards Plus Study Planning

Vaia is the same learning app that is still branded StudySmarter on its UK site (studysmarter.co.uk). It bundles flashcards, notes and study plans, with a free account and free iOS and Android apps.

Key features:

• Flashcards with study modes including spaced repetition
• AI that creates flashcards from lecture slides you upload
• Study plans and a to-do list with exam dates
• Community-made study sets and mock exams

Pros: flashcards, notes and planning in one app.

Cons: broader than a pure flashcard app; check inside the app for which AI features are free for you.

Best for: students who want their flashcards and their study schedule in the same place.

7. Mochi: Markdown Flashcards That Work Offline

Mochi is a clean spaced-repetition app where notes and cards are written in Markdown.

What is free: Mochi is "free forever", needs no sign-up and includes unlimited cards and decks, unlimited offline use, and import and export, plus small monthly allowances of its AI and language services. Pro ($5/month billed yearly) adds sync across devices, publishing decks, dynamic fields, API keys, 10 GB of cloud storage and much larger AI allowances. It runs on Mac, Windows, Linux, iOS and Android.

Pros: fast, minimal, no account needed.

Cons: without Pro your cards stay on one device.

Best for: students who like plain-text notes and study on one main device.

8. AlgoApp (formerly AnkiApp): FSRS Scheduling on Every Device

AlgoApp (ankiapp.com now redirects here; it is not the official Anki) makes flashcards from notes, slides, photos, PDFs or a prompt and schedules them with FSRS spaced repetition.

What is free: it is "free to start" on iPhone, iPad, Android, Mac, Windows and the web. The free plan includes unlimited card creation, rich text, images and audio, automatic translation and read-aloud, and standard AI card generation. AlgoApp Unlimited ($29.99/year in the US) adds unlimited daily reviews, unlimited devices and faster AI card generation.

Pros: modern scheduler; text, image and audio cards; synced library.

Cons: daily reviews and the number of devices are capped on the free plan.

Best for: iPhone users who want FSRS scheduling without buying AnkiMobile.

9. Mnemosyne: A Free, No-Frills Scheduler

Mnemosyne describes itself as "a free flash-card tool which optimizes your learning process" and a research project into long-term memory. Difficult cards come back more often; cards you know well are spaced out. The current desktop version is 2.11, and an Android client handles offline reviews and syncs with the desktop app.

Pros: completely free; simple; extensible through plugins.

Cons: plain interface; no iPhone app (mobile review on other platforms is through its built-in web server).

Best for: desktop learners who want a free scheduler without Anki's complexity.

AI Flashcard Generators

10. Jungle (formerly Wisdolia): AI Questions from Your Slides

Jungle (wisdolia.com now redirects here) turns uploaded slides, documents and videos into flashcards and multiple-choice questions, with apps on iOS and Android.

What is free: 2 generations a month, up to 30 pages per document and 30 minutes per video, 5 lecture recordings a month and 8 AI chat messages an hour. Pro ($6/month, $72 billed yearly) adds unlimited generations on documents of any size, unlimited lecture recordings and export to Anki.

Pros: strong multiple-choice questions from lecture slides.

Cons: 2 generations a month is tight on the free plan.

Best for: students who want practice questions built from one lecture's slides.

11. Scholarize Flashcard Generator (our tool)

This is our own tool, so read this entry with that in mind. The Scholarize flashcard generator turns pasted notes, a syllabus or a topic into question-and-answer cards.

What is free: generating and viewing a deck needs no account and no card. Saving decks needs a free account; the free plan covers 2 flashcard sets, 2 quizzes and 10 AI tutor questions a month. Pro is $6.99/month or $39.99/year.

Key features:

• Cards from pasted text or a topic name
• Flip through saved cards to study them
• A quiz generator for multiple-choice practice from a topic or PDF

Pros: no sign-up for your first deck; quiz generator and AI tutor in the same account.

Cons: works from text only (it does not transcribe lectures); the generator can add related facts that were not in your notes, so read the deck once before you study it; 2 saved sets a month on free.

Best for: turning a page of notes into a deck in under a minute.

Simple Web Flashcard Sites

12. StudyStack: Flashcards and Study Games

StudyStack launched in 2002. You can search free flashcards shared by students and teachers, make your own after a free sign-up, and play games generated from your cards (crosswords, matching, word scrambles and more). Its core features are free; StudyStack PRO gives an ad-free version.

Pros: free; games make younger students actually review.

Cons: ads; no real spaced-repetition scheduler.

Best for: quick vocabulary and definition drilling.

13. Flashcard Machine: Classic Online Flashcards

Flashcard Machine is "a free service for creating web-based study flashcards that can be shared with others". It supports images and recorded audio, collaborative editing of sets, two study modes (a standard session and a time-based "4D" session) and games (multiple-choice quiz, Speed and Pop Quiz), with apps for iOS, Android and Kindle Fire. Supporting members get an ad-free version.

Pros: free; collaborative sets suit study groups; printable index cards.

Cons: dated design.

Best for: sharing a set with a class or study group.

Removed from this list: Cram. Cram.com says it is retiring on November 9, 2026, so we no longer recommend starting a new deck there; export anything you have before that date.

How to Choose

• Anki if you are a long-term learner (medicine, law, languages) and will put in setup time.
• Quizlet if you want ready-made sets and do not need Learn or Test beyond the free allowance.
• Knowt if you want a Quizlet-style Learn mode for free.
• RemNote if your flashcards should come straight out of your notes.
• Brainscape if you like rating your own confidence on each card.
• Mochi or Mnemosyne if you want a free, simple scheduler on one device.
• Jungle or the Scholarize flashcard generator if you want an AI to draft the cards for you.

Most students settle on one app after trying two or three. Consistency matters more than which app you pick: a deck you review every day beats a better-designed deck you open once a week.

How to Make Flashcards That Work

• One fact per card. A card carrying three facts gets marked wrong when you miss any one of them, so the scheduler re-shows all three.
• Ask for recall, not recognition. "What does the Krebs cycle produce, and where in the cell?" teaches more than "Which of these is the Krebs cycle?"
• Answer before you flip. Say or write the answer first; a glance-and-flip review is just rereading.
• Use cloze deletions (fill-in-the-blank) for definitions and lists.
• Edit AI-generated cards. Delete anything that is not actually the point of your notes; a deck you do not trust is a deck you will not finish.

Example card:
Front: What process do plants use to convert light energy into chemical energy, and where does it happen?
Back: Photosynthesis, in the chloroplasts.

Flashcards Plus Self-Testing

Flashcards cover facts and definitions well; exam questions often ask you to apply them. If you want multiple-choice practice on the same material, the quiz generator builds a practice quiz from a topic or a PDF with an explanation for each answer (a free account gets 2 quizzes a month), and the flashcard generator makes your first deck with no account.