Anki Review
Ugly, free, and unbeatable
Not a course, an engine. Every learner heading for an exam or a large vocabulary should be running it in the background of whatever else they use.
Where Anki shines
- The most effective retention tool in existence, at any price
- Free on Android, desktop and web; shared decks for every language
- Fully offline and syncs across devices
- Endlessly customisable, including AI-generated cards
- Interface is genuinely unfriendly
- You must build or curate decks yourself
- No lessons, grammar, speaking or listening practice
- Easy to over-invest in deck tinkering instead of studying
Anki is the least app-like thing on this list and the one most likely to still be on your phone in three years. It does one thing: shows you a card at the moment you are about to forget it. That is the entire product, and decades of retention research say it is the right one.
Because it is content-agnostic, it goes anywhere the polished apps cannot: JLPT kanji, medical Spanish, Icelandic noun declensions, the two hundred words from the novel you are reading. Shared decks cover most common needs, and AI now makes generating custom cards from your own material trivial.
The costs are the interface, which is unapologetically utilitarian, and the discipline required — nobody sends you a notification with a cartoon owl. Pair it with a course app or a tutor and it quietly does the memory work neither of them does well.
Is Anki free?
Yes on Android, desktop and AnkiWeb. The iOS app is a one-off purchase that funds development.
Do I have to make my own cards?
No — thousands of shared decks exist — but cards you make from your own material work best.
Is Anki a language course?
No. It handles memory only; you need something else for grammar, speaking and listening.
See how Anki stacks up
vs Duolingo
vs Babbel
vs Rosetta StoneTechnology behind Anki
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