Lovelydeck vs Anki
Anki is the app most of us learned spaced repetition on. Lovelydeck uses the same scheduler and imports Anki decks. The difference is where the cards come from, and what checks them.
Anki is free, open source, and endlessly customisable. Thousands of add-ons, shared decks for most exams, and twenty years of people solving deck problems. If you want a tool that gets out of the way and lets you build exactly the deck you want, nothing else comes close, and Lovelydeck does not pretend otherwise.
What Anki assumes is that you already have cards. Lovelydeck is for the part before that: the lecture becomes cards, each cites its slide, a card whose sentence is not in your file is refused, and the slides that got nothing are listed. Then it schedules them with FSRS, the same algorithm Anki does.
| Anki | Lovelydeck | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A free, open source flashcard app focused on spaced repetition, with a huge add-on and shared deck ecosystem. | A flashcard app for students. Cards come from your slides and chapters, each citing its slide. |
| Making cards | By hand, from shared decks, or through add-ons. Anki does not write cards from your documents. | Cards are proposed from the uploaded lecture with the sentence and slide on each. You add, fix or skip. |
| Checking cards | Shared decks are as good as their authors. Cards you make are checked by you. | A generated card whose sentence is not in your file is refused before you see it. |
| Knowing what was missed | Nothing reports what a lecture did not become. | The slides that produced no card are listed by title before you add anything. |
| Scheduling | FSRS, built in since version 23.10, or the older SM-2. | FSRS. |
| Decks you already have | Anki is the home of the .apkg format. | Imports .apkg files with decks, cards, tags, media and review history. |
| Add-ons and community | Thousands of add-ons and shared decks, and forums that have answered most questions already. | No add-ons. Shared decks are new and small. |
| Platforms and price | Free on desktop, Android and the web. AnkiMobile for iPhone and iPad is $24.99 once. | A web app. The study app is free; Plus is $9 a month. |
Facts checked 2026-09-08. Sources: Anki pricing, including AnkiMobile, FSRS in Anki. Prices change; each company's own page is the authority.
Choose Anki
Choose Anki if you want a free, endlessly customisable tool with the largest add-on and shared deck ecosystem, and you are happy to make the cards yourself.
Choose Lovelydeck
Choose Lovelydeck if you want flashcards written from your own lecture slides, each citing the slide it came from, checked before they enter your deck, with the slides that got no card listed, plus FSRS scheduling and Anki import.
Start freeFAQ
Straight answers.
It can be, for a student whose cards come from lectures. The scheduler is the same, FSRS, and your Anki decks import with their history. What Anki has that Lovelydeck does not is the add-on ecosystem and the shared deck library, and if those are central to how you study, keep Anki.
It uses FSRS, the scheduler modern Anki ships with. Intervals behave the way Anki users expect. Imported review history seeds the scheduler, so a card you have known for two years stays known.
Import your Anki collection into Lovelydeck and it studies there with its history. Lovelydeck is where a new lecture becomes cards; your existing collection can stay in Anki if you prefer.
On Windows, Mac, Linux, Android and the web, yes. AnkiMobile for iPhone and iPad is a one-time purchase of $24.99, and that is what funds the project. Checked 2026-09-08.
Because nothing checks them. A chatbot will write a card about something your lecturer never said, and it has no idea which slides it skipped. Lovelydeck refuses a card whose sentence is not in your file, lists the slides that got nothing, and cites the slide on every card it keeps.