12 ms·

Anki ownership transferred to AnkiHub

573 points by trms 8mo ago

embedding-shape 8mo ago
In a nice and controlled manner, so seemingly no reason to panic just yet: > I ended up suggesting to them that we look into gradually transitioning business operations and open source stewardship over, with provisions in place to ensure that Anki remains open source and true to the principles I’ve run it by all these years. > This is a step back for me rather than a goodbye - I will still be involved with the project, albeit at a more sustainable level. From AnkiHub: > No enshittification. We’ve seen what happens when VC-backed companies acquire beloved tools. That’s not what this is. There are no investors involved, and we’re not here to extract value from something the community built together. Building in the right safeguards and processes to handle pressure without stifling necessary improvements is something we’re actively considering. Relieved at that part where they say there are no investors involved, makes the whole thing a whole lot less risky. Good for everyone involved, and here's to many more years with Anki :)
- sivers 8mo ago
  Yeah my first thought on seeing the headline was “Uh-oh. Time to replace Anki.” But finding out there are no VCs, no investors, I’ll stay with Anki for now. But still, these HN comments - after an announcement like this - are usually a good place to find out about replacements.
  - sodality2 8mo ago
    Might as well give a recommendation then: I've been using hashcards [0] for a few weeks now and have enjoyed its simplicity and the fact that it all stays forever in raw markdown files and versioned git. A simple justfile has also been helpful. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46264492 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46264492
- hermanzegerman 8mo ago
  Well every company claims no enshittification when they get acquired, in the end that's rarely the case. It's like Private Equity buying a company out and say "Nothing will change"
  - embedding-shape 8mo ago
    The key difference is the outside investors, who more times than not has no interest in what's best for users ultimately.
    - KPGv2 8mo ago
      Outside investors want profits. A company with thirty-five employees wants profits. I don't see a meaningful difference.
      - watwut 8mo ago
        Owner of the thirty-five employees company wants long term income and sort of security. They usually do not want huge peek in short term followed by death. They are also less comfortable with strategy that has 95% chance of destroying the company and 0.5% chance is earning a lot with 5% in between. Outside investors are the exact opposite. Also, smaller owners do not have that billionaire mindset of "any unethical or illegal action goes". It is not like they would be saints, but there is range of personalities and value systems among them. Billionaire became billionaires because not caring about any of that gives them advantage.
      - embedding-shape 8mo ago
        Give it a try to work in both, see what work gets prioritized VS not in each of them. Makes a huge difference, in my experience. Investors are counting on eventually getting paid 10x or nothing, employees generally expect a monthly salary and a Christmas bonus, this massively change what direction they think the company should be on.
- glfharris 8mo ago
  Sadly, their entire business is built on paywalling content the community built and distributed for free.
bingobangobungo 8mo ago
Good on him, 19 years is a long time to carry the flame. Thanks for getting me through school!
infotainment 8mo ago
On the plus side, the actually good mobile Anki client, AnkiDroid, remains out of the hands of this potentially questionable new entity. (AnkiDroid has always been run independently, which is good, considering the state of the iOS client, which has always been neglected.)
- __float 8mo ago
  The (paid!) iOS client has always been a disappointment to me, and I've long been jealous of the open source Android one. I don't mind so much that it's paid, given how much use I get for the price, but it sucks knowing it sucks and not being able to help make it better.
  - 3D30497420 8mo ago
    Agreed. I’m particularly excited that they’ll be investing in the UI/UX.
  - hermanzegerman 8mo ago
    I've just bought it to support the developer, as it was according to his website his preferred way to support him.
  - divan 8mo ago
    Is it still 25$ price? Makes it impossible to recommend Anki to friends/students to "try spaced repetition".
    - Larrikin 8mo ago
      Just have them use it on their computer or the web? It improved my grades so much in college that I spent the 25 bucks as a broke student so I could have it on my second hand iPad. This was before AnkiDroid even existed so it's amazing the price is still the same.
      - divan 8mo ago
        That works for people who already convinced that they want to use it. I'm talking about people who've heard it for the first time and they're not going to spend 25$ for some new app just to try. 25$ is unusually high price for an AppStore app and it's just doesn't work unless you're really determined to use it. I don't understand why people are downvoting this.
siva7 8mo ago
It was a fascinating symbiotic between nerdy med students from all over the world and an obscure open source flashcard app that originally targeted language learners. I've been part of that community for many years and would have never foreseen this outcome but in hindsight it seems the best path forward for anki.
- readthenotes1 8mo ago
  I don't think it's just for nerdy med students nowadays. Who studied for Step I without it? And How? (And Why? :)
  - hermanzegerman 8mo ago
    Amboss
    - hobom 8mo ago
      [flagged]
  - NewsaHackO 8mo ago
    Step 1 is pass/fail now. If I had to redo it and just pass, I don't think it would be necessary to use anki now (except maybe for something Sketchy).
  - dogmatism 8mo ago
    If one is of a certain age, of course they studied for step I without it and the classic method was the inspiration for Anki to begin with: making your own flashcards on index cards! You could do a version of spaced repetition by shuffling the deck. Not sure the digital version is actually easier or more effective
    - oaktrout 8mo ago
      At one time I had more than 20,000 cards that I had >85% recall on after 21 days... Hard to do that without the digital version.
deleted 8mo ago
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GaggiX 8mo ago
Even in the worst-case scenario, Anki is already perfect for me as is.
DoctorOetker 8mo ago
At a fundamental level the algorithms predict the probability of a learner to correctly recollect a factoid at a given point in time given a history of sampling that recollection / presentation. It would be interesting to have machine learning predict these probability evolutions instead. Simply recollecting tangential knowledge improves the recollection of a non-sampled factoid, which is hard to model in a strict sense, or perhaps easy for (undiscovered) dedicated analytic models. Having good performing but relatively opaque (high parameter counts) ML models could be helpful because we can treat the high parameter count ML model as surrogate humans for memory recollection experiments and try to find low parameter count models (analytic or ML) that adequately distill the learning patterns, without having to do costly human-hour experiments on actual human brains.
- azeirah 8mo ago
  This is being actively researched (in the open!). https://github.com/open-spaced-repetition/srs-benchmark https://github.com/open-spaced-repetition/srs-benchmark
- flexagoon 8mo ago
  Isn't FSRS (the new algorithm used in Anki since a few years ago) already based on machine learning?
  - runarberg 8mo ago
    Yes. Stochastic gradient descent, to be precise. https://github.com/open-spaced-repetition/fsrs4anki/wiki/The-Algorithm https://github.com/open-spaced-repetition/fsrs4anki/wiki/The...
  - dragontamer 8mo ago
    Too old school and too effective. FSRS just works, even without a GPU so it's not the cool kind of AI / machine learning these days. No joke though: the FSRS model is marvelous, and Anki remains one of the best free + open source implementations around. I've been learning German recently and Anki (in FSRS mode) is one of the most important learning tools I have. No joke. ------ Every card remembers every rating you give it, as well as the time / date. This allows for Anki to solve for a 'forgetting curve', and predict when different cards have a chance to be forgotten. There is furthermore the machine learning / stochastic descent algorithm to better fit the assumed forgetting curves to your historical performance. This is the FSRS Optimize parameters button in the settings panel.
NormenKD 8mo ago
Possible alternative to check out (not affiliated): https://mochi.cards/ https://mochi.cards/
- crumbo 8mo ago
  Looks nice but being an Electron-based app is a huge dealbreaker for me.
  - arjie 8mo ago
    I imagine it's for Anki users and Anki already embeds a HTML engine (for the cards).
    - Gormo 8mo ago
      I don't think the main objection that people have to Electron is that it includes HTML rendering functionality. A proper desktop application that includes an HTML renderer for content formatting is a very different thing from a framework that implements an application entirely as an encapsulated webapp.
- cvhc 8mo ago
  I've been paying for the pro version for a while. It's templating is really powerful and easy to use. For my vocab deck, I set up a input field (e.g., word) and a bunch of derived fields (dict definition, AI-generated example, TTS audio). To add a new card, I just input the word and other fields will be automatically populated. Technically this can be implemented in Anki as an addon. But only the desktop version supports addons and the default UI is a bit too complicated.
- treetalker 8mo ago
  Mochi has really come a long way and has some wonderful built-in functionality. The automatic text-to-speech template options are high quality and randomize a variety of voices in each language. It's also doing some cool things with dynamic cards and LLMs. Impressively, Mochi now offers FSRS (beta but still available in the app's main settings) and both the type of scheduler (Mochi default or FSRS) and the schedulers' settings are configurable on a deck-by-deck basis. The developer is very responsive to folks on the forum and often quickly adds requested features. Overall the app is well-designed and fun to use. I appreciate the swipe left/right to fail/pass cards on iOS. My one complaint is that the web clipper only works with Chrome and Firefox, but not with Safari (surprisingly). It would also be useful to have a global hotkey/palette to quick-add cards to various decks, similar to how OmniFocus lets you quickly add items to the OF Inbox.
deleted 8mo ago
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surrTurr 8mo ago
> What We Don’t Know Yet > Governance and decision-making: How decisions are made, who has final say, and how the community is heard > Roadmap and priorities: What gets built when and how to balance competing needs > The transition itself: How to bring in more support without disrupting what already works In other words: they have no clue what to do next (https://forums.ankiweb.net/t/ankis-growing-up/68610/2#p-190509-what-we-dont-know-yet-2 https://forums.ankiweb.net/t/ankis-growing-up/68610/2#p-1905...)
- JoshTriplett 8mo ago
  Knowing what they don't know puts them ahead of many organizations.
- CGamesPlay 8mo ago
  From the posts, it sounds like the original maintainer was approaching the point where they'd just abandon it, so this overall seems like a better outcome than either abandonment or sale to a PE firm.
  - account42 8mo ago
    That remains to be seen. Many things are much worse than "abandonment" for completed software.
- nsilvestri 8mo ago
  Community focused organizations like this are hard to run without governance transitions. I think Anki brings value to the world and anyone willing to take on a leadership role in keeping it going should be given trust and grace to make the best decisions they can with the knowledge they have. I wish them luck.
- iterance 8mo ago
  Many community-oriented programs have failed after acquisition because they came out too firm, too decided, and too purposeful, only to realize the community is still skeptical and turning against them six months in. Honestly, for a program like Anki, starting out by saying "we need to figure out what good governance looks like, as well as what might be agreeable and possible for everyone involved" is a much stronger positioning than coming up with something that may or may not fly to try make a strong first impression. Communities do not follow the conventional rules of American business.
maximgeorge 8mo ago
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Aachen 8mo ago
I'm an Anki user, on and off since 10 years or so, but was still confused. If I understood correctly, the entities here are: - Anki, as set up by dae aka Damien, is like the brand name and desktop implementation with the spaced repetition algorithm - AnkiWeb is what I thought this hub thing was. It's where you download decks - AnkiHub is a third party (started by "AnKing", now 35 employees) who sells decks as a monthly subscription and has their content on the deep web (you need to create an account and agree to terms to even see a listing of what's there besides a few featured parts). This is who is getting ownership of the former two. Because they write that Anki will remain open source at its "core", I presume that means that things will, at best, stay stable rather than anything (like AnkiWeb the deck sharing platform) becoming open - AnkiDroid is a separate open source project (an Android app). The corporation is hiring the main developer, but it's not yet clear to me whether they're just going to get paid to work more on AnkiDroid or if they're also getting other tasks
- eudamoniac 8mo ago
  This sounds concerning. Someone ought to back up the public AnkiWeb decks while we still can.
- Aachen 8mo ago
  (Same person as above but felt that this part had a separate purpose so I've moved it into its own comment) The ecosystem is currently such that it seems hard to enshittify it. They say they have no intention of doing that and I believe it, but their vision of a healthy and good product might involve a fair price (for rich countries at least) whereas it was always free so far Time will tell; it sounds like there's currently no plans either way, but it's also simply open enough that users can always just install the open source software and share decks with each other by whatever file transfer/sharing means. Everything that's already there won't simply go away. I'm going to keep using AnkiDroid and building the language deck I am working on
  - runarberg 8mo ago
    Worth mentioning too is the FSRS algorithm for scheduling cards is implemented in separate libraries which are released under MIT license.
hermanzegerman 8mo ago
Oh for fucks sakes. No please no. AnkiHub was already annoying with shoving AI into their Add-On without anyone asking for it. I don't think this will go well
- cosmic_cheese 8mo ago
  Can't help but wonder if it might not be time to start a FOSS alternative just in case Anki begins to decline. It might not be the worst idea to do that anyway. Anki is great, but there's plenty of room for improvement. Off the top of my head, an architecture that doesn't involve fragile and finicky python bits and is designed to support multiple independent clients would be a nice step up (Telegram is a good model here — make a core lib with all the nuts and bolts which devs build clients around).
  - pityJuke 8mo ago
    > make a core lib with all the nuts and bolts which devs build clients around That is modern Anki. The core is a Rust library, which all the clients (desktop, web, Android and iOS) use. [0] [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46299897 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46299897
    - cosmic_cheese 8mo ago
      I learned something today, thank you. Even so, I believe there's room for another open competitor or two in this space.
  - knubie 8mo ago
    It's not FOSS but Mochi [0] is a pretty good alternative. [0] https://mochi.cards/ https://mochi.cards/
    - hermanzegerman 8mo ago
      I don't think anyone will comfortable pour 1000 hours into a closed source app. Especially because Anki is what it is today due to the numerous add ons
mpawelski 8mo ago
I always though Damien earns well with the iOS mobile version. Does he also pass it to AnkiHub too so they can earn from the app sales?
jaco6 8mo ago
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pityJuke 8mo ago
As someone who has used Anki for a decade, a thank you to dae for everything. Best of luck in your future endeavours. With that out of the way, some thoughts: - Anki is in a really good position to work around enshitification. The app, at least to me, is "complete" - the only additional features that might pique my curiosity is a different scheduler (at the moment, they're integrating a newer one, although I don't follow enough to know the state of it). Additionally, modern Anki is really well architected: the core of it is a Rust library, that is used by all of the platforms [0]. You can write new front ends using that, or just fork the existing FOSS ones. Maybe dae does a gorhill and gives us Anki Origin. - Really the only service-y part of Anki I use is AnkiWeb, which is basically a backup and sync system. Wonder how that'll evolve (if they do end up charging for it, I hope it is "Obsidian" reasonable). EDIT: Ooo, Anki has public server software for running your own version. Awesome! [1] - The idea outcome in my opinion would have been some form of charitable organisation (Linux Foundation?), with people donating to support Anki. - So, AnkiHub is a company that produces Anki flashcards, and they've scaled that quickly? Jeez. Obviously Quizlet proved there was a market for flashcards, but I didn't realise this was possible for Anki. - No outside investment is... hopeful. Not quite sure what indicates that this company has the technical know-how to maintain it. - I've heard too many stories of a maintainer or creative being "hopeful" about their new acquirers, only to regret it years down the line. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46299897 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46299897 [1]: https://docs.ankiweb.net/sync-server.html https://docs.ankiweb.net/sync-server.html
kyorochan 8mo ago
AnkiHub people seem kind of slimy in my experience (at least their leader, "The AnKing"). I hope they figure out a good leadership situation, and make stronger commitments to openness. Anki is in a very solid position to be forked if anything happens, so even if this is bad news I have faith in the larger community.
- KPGv2 8mo ago
  I have this vague sense that this is the opinion of many people in the Anki community many years ago when I last used it (to improve my German vocabulary before my first child was born—with whom I speak German). I was reminded that AnkiHub's business model is selling Anki add-ons. So it seems clear they would decline to add competing features to Anki, but instead create an add-on to sell instead, and never add it as a feature to Anki.
greenburger 8mo ago
I've used Flashcards Deluxe for years and been very happy (no affiliation): https://orangeorapple.com/flashcards/ https://orangeorapple.com/flashcards/ Easy to import and export my cards, plenty of options for tweaking the algorithms for my use.
deaux 8mo ago
> Absolutely. Anki’s core code will remain open source, guided by the same principles that have guided the project from the beginning. Already caveating with the "core" code. Even without PE and VC, it's clear that a company with 35 employees is bound to take this in a different direction than 1 guy, and not a good one. If there comes a day where those 35 employees can't be sustained anymore by revenue, and the choice is between enshittification and shutting down/firing everyone, we'll see what happens. That's the big difference - such a decision was never on the cards, or at least much less likely, when run by a single person. Now it will be. Big conflict of interests too. AnkiHub makes money from selling paid addons. No chance any of those will ever end up in Anki now. Also not a good look that they immediately locked the thread in their most popular community.
tpoacher 8mo ago
I love anki. But upon reading this I think it's high time I exported all my notes in simple text format, just in case. Maybe also try Fernando Borretti's flashcard app I saw (and dismissed) recently here
- dddddaviddddd 8mo ago
  Anki uses a SQLite database for all its data, so it's already an open format.
  - EE84M3i 8mo ago
    Anki also regularly takes local backups.
  - deleted 8mo ago
    [deleted]
Timpy 8mo ago
I discovered Anki 12 years ago while living in Japan. I was trying my hardest and absolutely failing to remember any of the Japanese I was studying. Maybe I was due for a learning-style renaissance for myself and Anki was just the catalyst, but it really made a positive impact on my life. More than just memorizing kanji on AnkiDroid during my commute, I just started to believe I could learn anything. I was starting to take my coding hobby more seriously at the time and hacking on Anki was a big part of that too. Thanks for all the hard work Damien and David Allison. I'm so grateful for the software you've worked on.
- tetris11 8mo ago
  Same for me. I was doing my PhD in another country and was just overwhelmed and disoriented at the sheer scale of information I suddenly had to remember and digest. Anki was on again/off again for me at first, but once I learned to edit and update the cards and add my own, I really began to understand how to boil concepts down into something I could remember, i.e. I could structure it to my own personal chaotic mode of thinking, and I've flourished with it since then
  - igleria 8mo ago
    I've been barely keeping my head above water (ok, much better than that honestly) for 35 years intellectually due to lack of more methodical learning. Your post might convince me of trying Anki...
    - tetris11 8mo ago
      The real trick is not realising that its working until you stop using it :-)
- romes 8mo ago
  I think Anki, originally, was for studying Japanese too. And I recently wrote about making my own Anki Japanese cards in my blog[1] [1] https://alt-romes.github.io/posts/2026-01-30-from-side-project-to-kickstarter-a-walkthrough.html https://alt-romes.github.io/posts/2026-01-30-from-side-proje...
krick 8mo ago
I feel like there's a lot of confusion, so not sure if anyone can clear up mine, but I'm really struggling to see a significance of this. Obviously, like all ignorant people do, I am going to oversimplify things here. But still, to me, the "platonic idea" of Anki seems a dead simple thing. All what I care about when using Anki is what's on the 2 sides of a Card, a question + answer, which can only be some visual image (possibly encoded as text, possibly just JPEG, I really don't care as long as it fits in my mobile device memory) + optional sound. That's really it. If it should be bi-directional or uni-directional card is a detail of how the deck is generated/encoded, and the spaced repetition algorithm is a detail of the app that I use to study (so, usually AnkiDroid, I imagine — an unaffiliated 3rd party; who even uses desktop apps nowadays?). So, I imagine there can exist (and do exist) some minor additional features, like an ability to require a typed answer for a card, but it seems pretty minor, and I really don't see a lot of room for the app to evolve. So, ultimately people need only a common .apkg format, which exists and is relatively simple (although I suppose it could've been even simplier), and a place like AnkiWeb, where people can share their decks, so Spanish top-2000 or basic integrals deck isn't re-invented over and over again. It's a pity that AnkiWeb isn't more open and will be even less open from now on, but as long as someone is willing to just host it (which is ultimately just paying for downloads traffic) it's easy to replicate, so no super-valuable IP here. Of course, a primary use-case for Anki is a tool to make decks, but you could really do with pretty simple python script + YAML/JSON/CSV/whatever metadata file to convert it to AnkiDroid-compatible .apkg file. So, basically, who cares? What is to "own" there?
- golem14 8mo ago
  IMO, the add-on value is the repository of decks that exist (and may or may not be free). So an app-store of sorts. As others have said, there are some provisions in place that make it allegedly harder to do a hard landgrab and keep people from freely sharing decks, to to me, even if it were so, I would not be too concerned. In my opinion, the very act of creating one's deck is a key part of the learning. Maybe it's different for larning vocabulary, but as you said, it will be very hard to make those hard to share. Learning a deck generated by someone else has never been as effective with me, so I think it's a false sense of time saving to use those.
- 8mo ago
gwilikz 8mo ago
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Shank 8mo ago
The community has been in a deadlock over making FSRS the default (https://github.com/ankitects/anki/issues/3616 https://github.com/ankitects/anki/issues/3616), and I wonder if this will lead to some resolution. It seems like the core things that Anki needs are new user experience improvements, and algorithm updates. SM2 really shows its age as compared to other algorithms.
- SpaceManNabs 8mo ago
  Is there that much of a difference?
  - Ifkaluva 8mo ago
    As a user, it’s a HUGE difference. FSRS leads to an incredibly reduced workload.
    - watwut 8mo ago
      Yes, because intervals on some cards become absurdly large (4 years after seeing the card twice) .
      - sambapa 8mo ago
        If the algorithm says so, so it is.
        mchaver 8mo ago
        Our data in the cloud, hallowed be thy computation, your kingdom come, your will be done, on our devices as it is in the cloud. Give us today our daily feed.
        cwnyth 8mo ago
        And forgive us for our typos, as we forgive those typo [sic] against us.
clbrmbr 8mo ago
Andrew (the CTO of AnkiHub) is smart as a whip and has built an impressive and seemingly sustainable business. Seems like the ideal steward for Anki!
- michaelcampbell 8mo ago
  Ideal for Andrew, maybe. For the users? The jury is out.
user3939382 8mo ago
Ugly over complex app for what it does. never saw the appeal
treenode 8mo ago
As a person with really poor memory, the entirety of my learning depends on this app. I'm worried :/
- guerrilla 8mo ago
  Worrying won't help. Find alternatives. Make a plan.
deleted 8mo ago
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trms 8mo ago
When a popular, free and open source passion project led by a single dev moves into the hands of a company that needs to sustain its 30-people team [0], you know what happens next. AnkiHub's modus operandi has been to take over communities or projects where free exchange happens and monetize/paywall them. If you've been a part of the /r/medicalschoolanki subreddit, you know exactly what I mean. It's been hollowed out completely. In the post, AnkiHub mentions how Anki is "sacred" to them. Yet, they have had no qualms entrenching themselves into Anki's settings menu as the only third-party ever to do so. [1] I am sure more is to come. And the language used in their post almost never helps their case, especially in the pricing and OSS sections. I understand why Damien felt he was being a bottleneck in Anki's development. This is similar to what was happening with Bram and Vim. Ultimately, the community forked and built Neovim. Gorhill had also similarly transferred uBlock, but then came back and built uBlock Origin. So the precedents are there for a successful community-run or leader-run spinoff. Syncing is sure to become a paid feature, and access to shared decks too. Creating a fork pointed to a hosted version of Sync Server [2], and an alternative hub where people can share decks other than AnkiWeb [3] is paramount. As well as saving and preserving all of the decks there, as they are sure to go behind a paywall. I, and I am sure many other HNers, would be willing to support that with our time and financially. [0] https://www.ankihub.net/about-us https://www.ankihub.net/about-us [1] https://github.com/ankitects/anki/pull/3232 https://github.com/ankitects/anki/pull/3232 [2] https://docs.ankiweb.net/sync-server.html https://docs.ankiweb.net/sync-server.html [3] https://ankiweb.net/shared/decks https://ankiweb.net/shared/decks
- stuxnet79 8mo ago
  This is the correct take. It's over for Anki. Even assuming a best case scenario where the status quo remains and AnkiWeb continues to be "free", all the valuable data collected in AnkiWeb is now ripe for paywalling & potential abuse. The AnkiWeb privacy policy is likely to undergo a change quite soon - https://ankiweb.net/account/privacy https://ankiweb.net/account/privacy A really disappointing development all around & I hope it galvanizes the community to fully disassociate itself from AnkiHub & dae.
  - oaktrout 8mo ago
apparent 8mo ago
Spaced repetition seems like an ideal candidate for vibecoding. Sure, it gets complicated if you want all sorts of multimedia support, but for a lot of people, that's not necessary. How hard is it to build something like this, especially in 2026?
- kyorochan 8mo ago
  You could fit the most basic version of a spaced repetition program on the back of a napkin. Why would you want to vibe code yet another program lacking a bunch of useful features though?
  - fragmede 8mo ago
    Why would you want to install someone else's bloated mess that includes a ton of crap you'll never use?
    - kyorochan 8mo ago
      Tell me about your custom browser you're reading HN on!
      - fragmede 8mo ago
        I'd love to! So I used AI to help me write this, I gotta be honest, but I have this TUI I use over SSH to access HN. I call it Nitpick! It's GPL, athttps://github.com/fragmede/nitpick https://github.com/fragmede/nitpick It uses the HN API and algolia and golang with the bubble tea libraries. I'm parsing/scraping the threads page though, because reconstructing that from the API was proving to be a hassle. It even supports logging in and commenting and reply notification! I'm not totally sure where I land on using libraries (bubble tea) as they do bloat the program with unnecessary features, but I do like its simple text interface over using a web browser and a whole javascript engine for just rendering text. Anyway, patches welcome! :)
  - apparent 8mo ago
    Probably because I've seen so many people complaining about the issues with so many of the common apps. I don't want to pay a subscription for SR, and I don't really understand what the useful features are that I'd be missing out on. Can someone clue me in?
ThouYS 8mo ago
Anki is and was truly a blessing. Not sure I would have gotten through my studies without it. Thank you dae!
calpaterson 8mo ago
Longtime anki user here. I think the thing people never appreciate with flashcards is that deck maintenance is real work. And in many cases, it's not work that you can do yourself as a learner of the material: the deck really needs to be created by someone who knows the material. Commercial decks, where the deck maintainer is paid for his efforts, make a lot of sense. And I suppose if they are making money out of the ecosystem, it also only makes sense that commercial deck makers make a contribution to the technology that makes it possible. I suppose I would prefer that be a contribution rather than ownership and custody, but I suppose Anki's license terms (it is AGPL3+ - I think without a CLA) prevents them closing it. So cautiously optimistic
- motbus3 8mo ago
  No one is appreciating cheap working solution from good folks and prefer to accept the free spy-me stuff going around. I see lots of people also moving stuff with AI that will clearly be biased and force products down your throat. This might be the end of the internet as we know, but the next thing, although sometimes looks exciting, will be controlled by faceless greedy monsters. I guess the fact that we all didn't prioritise those small businesses is getting somewhere
- nickkell 8mo ago
  Is it really beneficial to use a deck created by someone else? I thought part of the learning process is really engaging with the cards - by writing them, thinking about them, and making mental associations with things you already know.
  - lkos 8mo ago
    I would also like to second that. For me, making Anki cards was 50% of the learning.
  - pbmonster 8mo ago
    Just as an example: I learn languages using Anki, and I always do it the same way: I use decks that * exclusively quiz entire sentences * introduce around 500 new words (a nice mix of nouns, verbs and adjectives) * use a wide variety of grammatical constructs (including all conjugations of the new verbs), * and that have audio of a native speaker reading the entire sentence after I "flip" the card Such a deck needs to be thoroughly designed, and while I could choose the new words and then write software to make sure they are all used equally in sentences and no conjugations are missing, I actually can't easily make sure they are correct and I can't record the audio of the text.
teruakohatu 8mo ago
The best thing that can happen is a fork. There is no way this will make the app worse, at least if you use a phone to do the reviewing. Syncing is sure to become a subscription.
- bigDinosaur 8mo ago
  I still haven't quite understood how Anki can apparently be profitable when the web sync with Ankiweb apparently supports an unlimited amount of data (surely some people heavily abuse this - but one never hears about fair use being applied?). Even legit and honest use can mean massive collection sizes since you can have any rich media in an Anki collection.
  - stuxnet79 8mo ago
    A few things. Up until now Anki was not a business and was not meant to be profitable. AnkiWeb also does not support an unlimited amount of data. It's evident that their storage requirements aren't infinite. They aggressively cull content. Not syncing for 6 months results in automatic deletion last I checked.
    - bigDinosaur 8mo ago
      I would still expect ingress and egress costs to be significant - as well as storage for content that isn't culled. And while it was not 'meant to be profitable' my point is that it was profitable, apparently exclusively from revenue from the iOS app which I still find surprising that it would cover the Ankiweb costs.
colin_jack 8mo ago
I've started using LLMs to help with card creation, and reviewing historic cards. Its been increasingly successful, I still end up with cards tailored to me, and the card quality has gone up (as I've asked the LLM to look for other views/sources and to do associate research to produce high quality cards). Having ability to bake some of that into the tool in a configurable way would be ideal, and I hope thats sort of path they go down. I realise in meantime plugins are an option, but I've found the quality of plugins very mixed.
p0w3n3d 8mo ago
I learned about Anki recently, and as I was told, this is somehow a standard on medical studies, where a whole bunch of knowledge must be memorised
krintfu 8mo ago
Ankihub is bunk. Why don’t they let us play Darbot games here?
zelphirkalt 8mo ago
I have had a bad experience with Anki so far. Maybe someone can chime in, clearing things up for me: When I search for HSK vocabulary Anki decks or whatever they call it, I found almost exclusively sets of words that are the wrong way around. They showed me the Chinese characters and asked me what the English translation is. I was incredulous about how many wrong decks there are and that I could not find good decks. I was starting to wonder, if people are actually just using Anki to learn to read Chinese characters, one-way learning basically, only recognition not writing. Only for reading subtitles and such, instead of writing with friends. Or perhaps they have the illusion, that they are able to write, because they can type in the Pinyin, and will get a selection of characters, which they then can recognize. But I, I want to be able to properly write the characters myself. The crucial issue was, that I did not find a simple setting to invert the direction of translation of a deck. How can such a simple thing not be among the most easy to find actions to perform with a deck? I read something about it not being possible on mobile phone, but somehow being possible on computer, but not as simple as flipping a switch. Ultimately, I abandoned Anki and recently proceeded made my own tool for learning the characters, that is highly configurable and that can change the direction with the change of one config attribute.
- throw-the-towel 8mo ago
  Could you share your tool please?
  - zelphirkalt 8mo ago
    I could, but as you can see in this thread in sibling comments, even stating that I couldn't find a way to invert the direction easily already attracts ire of Anki evangelists, who assume bad intentions and try to dismiss personal experiences of others. Anki must be perfect! If you want to take a look, you can check out my recent comments, or my git repos.
- david_allison 8mo ago
  > They showed me the Chinese characters and asked me what the English translation is. I was incredulous about how many wrong decks there are and that I could not find good decks. You can edit the structure of the card templates so they're the 'right way around' for you: https://docs.ankiweb.net/getting-started.html#card-types https://docs.ankiweb.net/getting-started.html#card-types
SuperNinKenDo 8mo ago
>Will Anki remain open source? >Absolutely. Anki’s core code will remain open source, guided by the same principles that have guided the project from the beginning. >Anki’s core code will remain open source Hmmmmmm. Could be benign, but... hmmmmmm...
lovestory 8mo ago
Considering that anki can always be forked if development goes being hostile towards users I think this is a net positive. The most common complaint among new users is the learning curve and the UI. Both can be solved and Anki can flourish to the bigger level. I say this as someone who does 300+ cards every day.
hermanzegerman 8mo ago
Looks like it's already going in the wrong direction. "Our agreement with Damien stipulates that the current AGPLv3 code remains open source" It sounds like a very specific dementi.
- digiown 8mo ago
  There's no CLA on Anki. Even dae does not have the right to relicense it.
  - hermanzegerman 8mo ago
    They still have the closed source AnkiWeb Backend to do some annoying fuckery
blayme 8mo ago
The way AnkiHub answers the questions in the FAQ in that non-answer corporate way sure gives me bad vibes.
quijoteuniv 8mo ago
People usually say they want to change the world, then there are people that just change the world. Thank you for Anki (heart)
Ajedi32 8mo ago
Always a bit scary when an open source project changes stewardship like this, but I'm quite relieved to see all involved parties seem to be aware of the dangers and very much on the same page about not screwing this up. Done right, commercial interests can often have a very positive symbiotic relationship with open source. Almost all the largest and best open source projects out there have substantial involvement from commercial interests. I do think though that from a structural/governance perspective it's not a good idea for Anki to be owned by AnkiHub. Anki is a community project, not a corporate product, and while it sounds like the license will continue to reflect that, I personally think it would be best if the corporate structure did too. If Anki were spun out as an independent foundation (like Blender, Linux, etc) receiving most of its support and development work from AnkiHub, rather than owned outright, I think that would allow a much more robust governance structure than just having everything be under AnkiHub's direct control with some pinky promises about listening to the community.
guluarte 8mo ago
One of the apps that should be worth billions of dollars and the founder billionaire
- david_allison 8mo ago
  That's not the way the world works. I'm not in it for the money. In the past 12 months, I've made £65.79 from GitHub Sponsors (no fees, thank you GitHub/Microsoft) and $87.89 from Patreon (pre-fees, I'll probably see ~$50), and a split of the Open Collective [below] AnkiDroid GitHub Sponsors: https://github.com/sponsors/ankidroid https://github.com/sponsors/ankidroid and finances/sponsorship: https://opencollective.com/ankidroid https://opencollective.com/ankidroid (with immense help from dae).
jsLavaGoat 8mo ago
I have peer-reviewed research on the efficacy of SRS in second-language acquisition and this should be everywhere for everyone and the fact that it isn't is both a scandal and an opportunity for learners who do use it to leverage that advantage. I use it extensively in my teaching. The problem is deploying Anki on locked down networks can be difficult so I've built alternatives and hacks to let you deploy decks and school accounts, but making a full-featured web client would change all of this. So maybe it's a good time for me to have also started one of my own that I'm temporarily calling libreSRS because I'm not sure of the new direction here. The goal is to have a multi-user, multi-algorithm-capable, web-based system that exposes everything (especially uploading!!) to the web client.
eduFreedom 8mo ago
I shared my thoughts as a veteran user and contributor to Anki, as well as a former AnkiHub team member https://youtu.be/13p0t8Tv-jw https://youtu.be/13p0t8Tv-jw

573 points by trms 8mo ago

In a nice and controlled manner, so seemingly no reason to panic just yet: > I ended up suggesting to them that we look into gradually transitioning business operations and open source stewardship over, with provisions in place to ensure that Anki remains open source and true to the principles I’ve run it by all these years. > This is a step back for me rather than a goodbye - I will still be involved with the project, albeit at a more sustainable level. From AnkiHub: > No enshittification. We’ve seen what happens when VC-backed companies acquire beloved tools. That’s not what this is. There are no investors involved, and we’re not here to extract value from something the community built together. Building in the right safeguards and processes to handle pressure without stifling necessary improvements is something we’re actively considering. Relieved at that part where they say there are no investors involved, makes the whole thing a whole lot less risky. Good for everyone involved, and here's to many more years with Anki :)

sivers 8mo ago
Yeah my first thought on seeing the headline was “Uh-oh. Time to replace Anki.” But finding out there are no VCs, no investors, I’ll stay with Anki for now. But still, these HN comments - after an announcement like this - are usually a good place to find out about replacements.
- sodality2 8mo ago
  Might as well give a recommendation then: I've been using hashcards [0] for a few weeks now and have enjoyed its simplicity and the fact that it all stays forever in raw markdown files and versioned git. A simple justfile has also been helpful. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46264492 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46264492
hermanzegerman 8mo ago
Well every company claims no enshittification when they get acquired, in the end that's rarely the case. It's like Private Equity buying a company out and say "Nothing will change"
- embedding-shape 8mo ago
  The key difference is the outside investors, who more times than not has no interest in what's best for users ultimately.
  - KPGv2 8mo ago
    Outside investors want profits. A company with thirty-five employees wants profits. I don't see a meaningful difference.
    - watwut 8mo ago
      Owner of the thirty-five employees company wants long term income and sort of security. They usually do not want huge peek in short term followed by death. They are also less comfortable with strategy that has 95% chance of destroying the company and 0.5% chance is earning a lot with 5% in between. Outside investors are the exact opposite. Also, smaller owners do not have that billionaire mindset of "any unethical or illegal action goes". It is not like they would be saints, but there is range of personalities and value systems among them. Billionaire became billionaires because not caring about any of that gives them advantage.
    - embedding-shape 8mo ago
      Give it a try to work in both, see what work gets prioritized VS not in each of them. Makes a huge difference, in my experience. Investors are counting on eventually getting paid 10x or nothing, employees generally expect a monthly salary and a Christmas bonus, this massively change what direction they think the company should be on.
glfharris 8mo ago
Sadly, their entire business is built on paywalling content the community built and distributed for free.

bingobangobungo 8mo ago

Good on him, 19 years is a long time to carry the flame. Thanks for getting me through school!

infotainment 8mo ago

On the plus side, the actually good mobile Anki client, AnkiDroid, remains out of the hands of this potentially questionable new entity. (AnkiDroid has always been run independently, which is good, considering the state of the iOS client, which has always been neglected.)

__float 8mo ago
The (paid!) iOS client has always been a disappointment to me, and I've long been jealous of the open source Android one. I don't mind so much that it's paid, given how much use I get for the price, but it sucks knowing it sucks and not being able to help make it better.
- 3D30497420 8mo ago
  Agreed. I’m particularly excited that they’ll be investing in the UI/UX.
- hermanzegerman 8mo ago
  I've just bought it to support the developer, as it was according to his website his preferred way to support him.
- divan 8mo ago
  Is it still 25$ price? Makes it impossible to recommend Anki to friends/students to "try spaced repetition".
  - Larrikin 8mo ago
    Just have them use it on their computer or the web? It improved my grades so much in college that I spent the 25 bucks as a broke student so I could have it on my second hand iPad. This was before AnkiDroid even existed so it's amazing the price is still the same.
    - divan 8mo ago
      That works for people who already convinced that they want to use it. I'm talking about people who've heard it for the first time and they're not going to spend 25$ for some new app just to try. 25$ is unusually high price for an AppStore app and it's just doesn't work unless you're really determined to use it. I don't understand why people are downvoting this.

siva7 8mo ago

It was a fascinating symbiotic between nerdy med students from all over the world and an obscure open source flashcard app that originally targeted language learners. I've been part of that community for many years and would have never foreseen this outcome but in hindsight it seems the best path forward for anki.

readthenotes1 8mo ago
I don't think it's just for nerdy med students nowadays. Who studied for Step I without it? And How? (And Why? :)
- hermanzegerman 8mo ago
  Amboss
  - hobom 8mo ago
    [flagged]
- NewsaHackO 8mo ago
  Step 1 is pass/fail now. If I had to redo it and just pass, I don't think it would be necessary to use anki now (except maybe for something Sketchy).
- dogmatism 8mo ago
  If one is of a certain age, of course they studied for step I without it and the classic method was the inspiration for Anki to begin with: making your own flashcards on index cards! You could do a version of spaced repetition by shuffling the deck. Not sure the digital version is actually easier or more effective
  - oaktrout 8mo ago
    At one time I had more than 20,000 cards that I had >85% recall on after 21 days... Hard to do that without the digital version.

deleted 8mo ago

[deleted]

GaggiX 8mo ago

Even in the worst-case scenario, Anki is already perfect for me as is.

DoctorOetker 8mo ago

At a fundamental level the algorithms predict the probability of a learner to correctly recollect a factoid at a given point in time given a history of sampling that recollection / presentation. It would be interesting to have machine learning predict these probability evolutions instead. Simply recollecting tangential knowledge improves the recollection of a non-sampled factoid, which is hard to model in a strict sense, or perhaps easy for (undiscovered) dedicated analytic models. Having good performing but relatively opaque (high parameter counts) ML models could be helpful because we can treat the high parameter count ML model as surrogate humans for memory recollection experiments and try to find low parameter count models (analytic or ML) that adequately distill the learning patterns, without having to do costly human-hour experiments on actual human brains.

azeirah 8mo ago
This is being actively researched (in the open!). https://github.com/open-spaced-repetition/srs-benchmark https://github.com/open-spaced-repetition/srs-benchmark
flexagoon 8mo ago
Isn't FSRS (the new algorithm used in Anki since a few years ago) already based on machine learning?
- runarberg 8mo ago
  Yes. Stochastic gradient descent, to be precise. https://github.com/open-spaced-repetition/fsrs4anki/wiki/The-Algorithm https://github.com/open-spaced-repetition/fsrs4anki/wiki/The...
- dragontamer 8mo ago
  Too old school and too effective. FSRS just works, even without a GPU so it's not the cool kind of AI / machine learning these days. No joke though: the FSRS model is marvelous, and Anki remains one of the best free + open source implementations around. I've been learning German recently and Anki (in FSRS mode) is one of the most important learning tools I have. No joke. ------ Every card remembers every rating you give it, as well as the time / date. This allows for Anki to solve for a 'forgetting curve', and predict when different cards have a chance to be forgotten. There is furthermore the machine learning / stochastic descent algorithm to better fit the assumed forgetting curves to your historical performance. This is the FSRS Optimize parameters button in the settings panel.

NormenKD 8mo ago

Possible alternative to check out (not affiliated): https://mochi.cards/ https://mochi.cards/

crumbo 8mo ago
Looks nice but being an Electron-based app is a huge dealbreaker for me.
- arjie 8mo ago
  I imagine it's for Anki users and Anki already embeds a HTML engine (for the cards).
  - Gormo 8mo ago
    I don't think the main objection that people have to Electron is that it includes HTML rendering functionality. A proper desktop application that includes an HTML renderer for content formatting is a very different thing from a framework that implements an application entirely as an encapsulated webapp.
cvhc 8mo ago
I've been paying for the pro version for a while. It's templating is really powerful and easy to use. For my vocab deck, I set up a input field (e.g., word) and a bunch of derived fields (dict definition, AI-generated example, TTS audio). To add a new card, I just input the word and other fields will be automatically populated. Technically this can be implemented in Anki as an addon. But only the desktop version supports addons and the default UI is a bit too complicated.
treetalker 8mo ago
Mochi has really come a long way and has some wonderful built-in functionality. The automatic text-to-speech template options are high quality and randomize a variety of voices in each language. It's also doing some cool things with dynamic cards and LLMs. Impressively, Mochi now offers FSRS (beta but still available in the app's main settings) and both the type of scheduler (Mochi default or FSRS) and the schedulers' settings are configurable on a deck-by-deck basis. The developer is very responsive to folks on the forum and often quickly adds requested features. Overall the app is well-designed and fun to use. I appreciate the swipe left/right to fail/pass cards on iOS. My one complaint is that the web clipper only works with Chrome and Firefox, but not with Safari (surprisingly). It would also be useful to have a global hotkey/palette to quick-add cards to various decks, similar to how OmniFocus lets you quickly add items to the OF Inbox.

deleted 8mo ago

[deleted]

surrTurr 8mo ago

> What We Don’t Know Yet > Governance and decision-making: How decisions are made, who has final say, and how the community is heard > Roadmap and priorities: What gets built when and how to balance competing needs > The transition itself: How to bring in more support without disrupting what already works In other words: they have no clue what to do next (https://forums.ankiweb.net/t/ankis-growing-up/68610/2#p-190509-what-we-dont-know-yet-2 https://forums.ankiweb.net/t/ankis-growing-up/68610/2#p-1905...)

JoshTriplett 8mo ago
Knowing what they don't know puts them ahead of many organizations.
CGamesPlay 8mo ago
From the posts, it sounds like the original maintainer was approaching the point where they'd just abandon it, so this overall seems like a better outcome than either abandonment or sale to a PE firm.
- account42 8mo ago
  That remains to be seen. Many things are much worse than "abandonment" for completed software.
nsilvestri 8mo ago
Community focused organizations like this are hard to run without governance transitions. I think Anki brings value to the world and anyone willing to take on a leadership role in keeping it going should be given trust and grace to make the best decisions they can with the knowledge they have. I wish them luck.
iterance 8mo ago
Many community-oriented programs have failed after acquisition because they came out too firm, too decided, and too purposeful, only to realize the community is still skeptical and turning against them six months in. Honestly, for a program like Anki, starting out by saying "we need to figure out what good governance looks like, as well as what might be agreeable and possible for everyone involved" is a much stronger positioning than coming up with something that may or may not fly to try make a strong first impression. Communities do not follow the conventional rules of American business.

maximgeorge 8mo ago

[dead]

Aachen 8mo ago

I'm an Anki user, on and off since 10 years or so, but was still confused. If I understood correctly, the entities here are: - Anki, as set up by dae aka Damien, is like the brand name and desktop implementation with the spaced repetition algorithm - AnkiWeb is what I thought this hub thing was. It's where you download decks - AnkiHub is a third party (started by "AnKing", now 35 employees) who sells decks as a monthly subscription and has their content on the deep web (you need to create an account and agree to terms to even see a listing of what's there besides a few featured parts). This is who is getting ownership of the former two. Because they write that Anki will remain open source at its "core", I presume that means that things will, at best, stay stable rather than anything (like AnkiWeb the deck sharing platform) becoming open - AnkiDroid is a separate open source project (an Android app). The corporation is hiring the main developer, but it's not yet clear to me whether they're just going to get paid to work more on AnkiDroid or if they're also getting other tasks

eudamoniac 8mo ago
This sounds concerning. Someone ought to back up the public AnkiWeb decks while we still can.
Aachen 8mo ago
(Same person as above but felt that this part had a separate purpose so I've moved it into its own comment) The ecosystem is currently such that it seems hard to enshittify it. They say they have no intention of doing that and I believe it, but their vision of a healthy and good product might involve a fair price (for rich countries at least) whereas it was always free so far Time will tell; it sounds like there's currently no plans either way, but it's also simply open enough that users can always just install the open source software and share decks with each other by whatever file transfer/sharing means. Everything that's already there won't simply go away. I'm going to keep using AnkiDroid and building the language deck I am working on
- runarberg 8mo ago
  Worth mentioning too is the FSRS algorithm for scheduling cards is implemented in separate libraries which are released under MIT license.

hermanzegerman 8mo ago

Oh for fucks sakes. No please no. AnkiHub was already annoying with shoving AI into their Add-On without anyone asking for it. I don't think this will go well

cosmic_cheese 8mo ago
Can't help but wonder if it might not be time to start a FOSS alternative just in case Anki begins to decline. It might not be the worst idea to do that anyway. Anki is great, but there's plenty of room for improvement. Off the top of my head, an architecture that doesn't involve fragile and finicky python bits and is designed to support multiple independent clients would be a nice step up (Telegram is a good model here — make a core lib with all the nuts and bolts which devs build clients around).
- pityJuke 8mo ago
  > make a core lib with all the nuts and bolts which devs build clients around That is modern Anki. The core is a Rust library, which all the clients (desktop, web, Android and iOS) use. [0] [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46299897 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46299897
  - cosmic_cheese 8mo ago
    I learned something today, thank you. Even so, I believe there's room for another open competitor or two in this space.
- knubie 8mo ago
  It's not FOSS but Mochi [0] is a pretty good alternative. [0] https://mochi.cards/ https://mochi.cards/
  - hermanzegerman 8mo ago
    I don't think anyone will comfortable pour 1000 hours into a closed source app. Especially because Anki is what it is today due to the numerous add ons

mpawelski 8mo ago

I always though Damien earns well with the iOS mobile version. Does he also pass it to AnkiHub too so they can earn from the app sales?

jaco6 8mo ago

[dead]

pityJuke 8mo ago

As someone who has used Anki for a decade, a thank you to dae for everything. Best of luck in your future endeavours. With that out of the way, some thoughts: - Anki is in a really good position to work around enshitification. The app, at least to me, is "complete" - the only additional features that might pique my curiosity is a different scheduler (at the moment, they're integrating a newer one, although I don't follow enough to know the state of it). Additionally, modern Anki is really well architected: the core of it is a Rust library, that is used by all of the platforms [0]. You can write new front ends using that, or just fork the existing FOSS ones. Maybe dae does a gorhill and gives us Anki Origin. - Really the only service-y part of Anki I use is AnkiWeb, which is basically a backup and sync system. Wonder how that'll evolve (if they do end up charging for it, I hope it is "Obsidian" reasonable). EDIT: Ooo, Anki has public server software for running your own version. Awesome! [1] - The idea outcome in my opinion would have been some form of charitable organisation (Linux Foundation?), with people donating to support Anki. - So, AnkiHub is a company that produces Anki flashcards, and they've scaled that quickly? Jeez. Obviously Quizlet proved there was a market for flashcards, but I didn't realise this was possible for Anki. - No outside investment is... hopeful. Not quite sure what indicates that this company has the technical know-how to maintain it. - I've heard too many stories of a maintainer or creative being "hopeful" about their new acquirers, only to regret it years down the line. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46299897 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46299897 [1]: https://docs.ankiweb.net/sync-server.html https://docs.ankiweb.net/sync-server.html

kyorochan 8mo ago

AnkiHub people seem kind of slimy in my experience (at least their leader, "The AnKing"). I hope they figure out a good leadership situation, and make stronger commitments to openness. Anki is in a very solid position to be forked if anything happens, so even if this is bad news I have faith in the larger community.

KPGv2 8mo ago
I have this vague sense that this is the opinion of many people in the Anki community many years ago when I last used it (to improve my German vocabulary before my first child was born—with whom I speak German). I was reminded that AnkiHub's business model is selling Anki add-ons. So it seems clear they would decline to add competing features to Anki, but instead create an add-on to sell instead, and never add it as a feature to Anki.

greenburger 8mo ago

I've used Flashcards Deluxe for years and been very happy (no affiliation): https://orangeorapple.com/flashcards/ https://orangeorapple.com/flashcards/ Easy to import and export my cards, plenty of options for tweaking the algorithms for my use.

deaux 8mo ago

> Absolutely. Anki’s core code will remain open source, guided by the same principles that have guided the project from the beginning. Already caveating with the "core" code. Even without PE and VC, it's clear that a company with 35 employees is bound to take this in a different direction than 1 guy, and not a good one. If there comes a day where those 35 employees can't be sustained anymore by revenue, and the choice is between enshittification and shutting down/firing everyone, we'll see what happens. That's the big difference - such a decision was never on the cards, or at least much less likely, when run by a single person. Now it will be. Big conflict of interests too. AnkiHub makes money from selling paid addons. No chance any of those will ever end up in Anki now. Also not a good look that they immediately locked the thread in their most popular community.

tpoacher 8mo ago

I love anki. But upon reading this I think it's high time I exported all my notes in simple text format, just in case. Maybe also try Fernando Borretti's flashcard app I saw (and dismissed) recently here

dddddaviddddd 8mo ago
Anki uses a SQLite database for all its data, so it's already an open format.
- EE84M3i 8mo ago
  Anki also regularly takes local backups.
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]

Timpy 8mo ago

I discovered Anki 12 years ago while living in Japan. I was trying my hardest and absolutely failing to remember any of the Japanese I was studying. Maybe I was due for a learning-style renaissance for myself and Anki was just the catalyst, but it really made a positive impact on my life. More than just memorizing kanji on AnkiDroid during my commute, I just started to believe I could learn anything. I was starting to take my coding hobby more seriously at the time and hacking on Anki was a big part of that too. Thanks for all the hard work Damien and David Allison. I'm so grateful for the software you've worked on.

tetris11 8mo ago
Same for me. I was doing my PhD in another country and was just overwhelmed and disoriented at the sheer scale of information I suddenly had to remember and digest. Anki was on again/off again for me at first, but once I learned to edit and update the cards and add my own, I really began to understand how to boil concepts down into something I could remember, i.e. I could structure it to my own personal chaotic mode of thinking, and I've flourished with it since then
- igleria 8mo ago
  I've been barely keeping my head above water (ok, much better than that honestly) for 35 years intellectually due to lack of more methodical learning. Your post might convince me of trying Anki...
  - tetris11 8mo ago
    The real trick is not realising that its working until you stop using it :-)
romes 8mo ago
I think Anki, originally, was for studying Japanese too. And I recently wrote about making my own Anki Japanese cards in my blog[1] [1] https://alt-romes.github.io/posts/2026-01-30-from-side-project-to-kickstarter-a-walkthrough.html https://alt-romes.github.io/posts/2026-01-30-from-side-proje...

krick 8mo ago

I feel like there's a lot of confusion, so not sure if anyone can clear up mine, but I'm really struggling to see a significance of this. Obviously, like all ignorant people do, I am going to oversimplify things here. But still, to me, the "platonic idea" of Anki seems a dead simple thing. All what I care about when using Anki is what's on the 2 sides of a Card, a question + answer, which can only be some visual image (possibly encoded as text, possibly just JPEG, I really don't care as long as it fits in my mobile device memory) + optional sound. That's really it. If it should be bi-directional or uni-directional card is a detail of how the deck is generated/encoded, and the spaced repetition algorithm is a detail of the app that I use to study (so, usually AnkiDroid, I imagine — an unaffiliated 3rd party; who even uses desktop apps nowadays?). So, I imagine there can exist (and do exist) some minor additional features, like an ability to require a typed answer for a card, but it seems pretty minor, and I really don't see a lot of room for the app to evolve. So, ultimately people need only a common .apkg format, which exists and is relatively simple (although I suppose it could've been even simplier), and a place like AnkiWeb, where people can share their decks, so Spanish top-2000 or basic integrals deck isn't re-invented over and over again. It's a pity that AnkiWeb isn't more open and will be even less open from now on, but as long as someone is willing to just host it (which is ultimately just paying for downloads traffic) it's easy to replicate, so no super-valuable IP here. Of course, a primary use-case for Anki is a tool to make decks, but you could really do with pretty simple python script + YAML/JSON/CSV/whatever metadata file to convert it to AnkiDroid-compatible .apkg file. So, basically, who cares? What is to "own" there?

golem14 8mo ago
IMO, the add-on value is the repository of decks that exist (and may or may not be free). So an app-store of sorts. As others have said, there are some provisions in place that make it allegedly harder to do a hard landgrab and keep people from freely sharing decks, to to me, even if it were so, I would not be too concerned. In my opinion, the very act of creating one's deck is a key part of the learning. Maybe it's different for larning vocabulary, but as you said, it will be very hard to make those hard to share. Learning a deck generated by someone else has never been as effective with me, so I think it's a false sense of time saving to use those.
8mo ago

gwilikz 8mo ago

[dead]

Shank 8mo ago

The community has been in a deadlock over making FSRS the default (https://github.com/ankitects/anki/issues/3616 https://github.com/ankitects/anki/issues/3616), and I wonder if this will lead to some resolution. It seems like the core things that Anki needs are new user experience improvements, and algorithm updates. SM2 really shows its age as compared to other algorithms.

SpaceManNabs 8mo ago
Is there that much of a difference?
- Ifkaluva 8mo ago
  As a user, it’s a HUGE difference. FSRS leads to an incredibly reduced workload.
  - watwut 8mo ago
    Yes, because intervals on some cards become absurdly large (4 years after seeing the card twice) .
    - sambapa 8mo ago
      If the algorithm says so, so it is.
      - mchaver 8mo ago
        Our data in the cloud, hallowed be thy computation, your kingdom come, your will be done, on our devices as it is in the cloud. Give us today our daily feed.
        cwnyth 8mo ago
        And forgive us for our typos, as we forgive those typo [sic] against us.

clbrmbr 8mo ago

Andrew (the CTO of AnkiHub) is smart as a whip and has built an impressive and seemingly sustainable business. Seems like the ideal steward for Anki!

michaelcampbell 8mo ago
Ideal for Andrew, maybe. For the users? The jury is out.

user3939382 8mo ago

Ugly over complex app for what it does. never saw the appeal

treenode 8mo ago

As a person with really poor memory, the entirety of my learning depends on this app. I'm worried :/

guerrilla 8mo ago
Worrying won't help. Find alternatives. Make a plan.

deleted 8mo ago

[deleted]

trms 8mo ago

When a popular, free and open source passion project led by a single dev moves into the hands of a company that needs to sustain its 30-people team [0], you know what happens next. AnkiHub's modus operandi has been to take over communities or projects where free exchange happens and monetize/paywall them. If you've been a part of the /r/medicalschoolanki subreddit, you know exactly what I mean. It's been hollowed out completely. In the post, AnkiHub mentions how Anki is "sacred" to them. Yet, they have had no qualms entrenching themselves into Anki's settings menu as the only third-party ever to do so. [1] I am sure more is to come. And the language used in their post almost never helps their case, especially in the pricing and OSS sections. I understand why Damien felt he was being a bottleneck in Anki's development. This is similar to what was happening with Bram and Vim. Ultimately, the community forked and built Neovim. Gorhill had also similarly transferred uBlock, but then came back and built uBlock Origin. So the precedents are there for a successful community-run or leader-run spinoff. Syncing is sure to become a paid feature, and access to shared decks too. Creating a fork pointed to a hosted version of Sync Server [2], and an alternative hub where people can share decks other than AnkiWeb [3] is paramount. As well as saving and preserving all of the decks there, as they are sure to go behind a paywall. I, and I am sure many other HNers, would be willing to support that with our time and financially. [0] https://www.ankihub.net/about-us https://www.ankihub.net/about-us [1] https://github.com/ankitects/anki/pull/3232 https://github.com/ankitects/anki/pull/3232 [2] https://docs.ankiweb.net/sync-server.html https://docs.ankiweb.net/sync-server.html [3] https://ankiweb.net/shared/decks https://ankiweb.net/shared/decks

stuxnet79 8mo ago
This is the correct take. It's over for Anki. Even assuming a best case scenario where the status quo remains and AnkiWeb continues to be "free", all the valuable data collected in AnkiWeb is now ripe for paywalling & potential abuse. The AnkiWeb privacy policy is likely to undergo a change quite soon - https://ankiweb.net/account/privacy https://ankiweb.net/account/privacy A really disappointing development all around & I hope it galvanizes the community to fully disassociate itself from AnkiHub & dae.
- oaktrout 8mo ago

apparent 8mo ago

Spaced repetition seems like an ideal candidate for vibecoding. Sure, it gets complicated if you want all sorts of multimedia support, but for a lot of people, that's not necessary. How hard is it to build something like this, especially in 2026?

kyorochan 8mo ago
You could fit the most basic version of a spaced repetition program on the back of a napkin. Why would you want to vibe code yet another program lacking a bunch of useful features though?
- fragmede 8mo ago
  Why would you want to install someone else's bloated mess that includes a ton of crap you'll never use?
  - kyorochan 8mo ago
    Tell me about your custom browser you're reading HN on!
    - fragmede 8mo ago
      I'd love to! So I used AI to help me write this, I gotta be honest, but I have this TUI I use over SSH to access HN. I call it Nitpick! It's GPL, athttps://github.com/fragmede/nitpick https://github.com/fragmede/nitpick It uses the HN API and algolia and golang with the bubble tea libraries. I'm parsing/scraping the threads page though, because reconstructing that from the API was proving to be a hassle. It even supports logging in and commenting and reply notification! I'm not totally sure where I land on using libraries (bubble tea) as they do bloat the program with unnecessary features, but I do like its simple text interface over using a web browser and a whole javascript engine for just rendering text. Anyway, patches welcome! :)
- apparent 8mo ago
  Probably because I've seen so many people complaining about the issues with so many of the common apps. I don't want to pay a subscription for SR, and I don't really understand what the useful features are that I'd be missing out on. Can someone clue me in?

ThouYS 8mo ago

Anki is and was truly a blessing. Not sure I would have gotten through my studies without it. Thank you dae!

calpaterson 8mo ago

Longtime anki user here. I think the thing people never appreciate with flashcards is that deck maintenance is real work. And in many cases, it's not work that you can do yourself as a learner of the material: the deck really needs to be created by someone who knows the material. Commercial decks, where the deck maintainer is paid for his efforts, make a lot of sense. And I suppose if they are making money out of the ecosystem, it also only makes sense that commercial deck makers make a contribution to the technology that makes it possible. I suppose I would prefer that be a contribution rather than ownership and custody, but I suppose Anki's license terms (it is AGPL3+ - I think without a CLA) prevents them closing it. So cautiously optimistic

motbus3 8mo ago
No one is appreciating cheap working solution from good folks and prefer to accept the free spy-me stuff going around. I see lots of people also moving stuff with AI that will clearly be biased and force products down your throat. This might be the end of the internet as we know, but the next thing, although sometimes looks exciting, will be controlled by faceless greedy monsters. I guess the fact that we all didn't prioritise those small businesses is getting somewhere
nickkell 8mo ago
Is it really beneficial to use a deck created by someone else? I thought part of the learning process is really engaging with the cards - by writing them, thinking about them, and making mental associations with things you already know.
- lkos 8mo ago
  I would also like to second that. For me, making Anki cards was 50% of the learning.
- pbmonster 8mo ago
  Just as an example: I learn languages using Anki, and I always do it the same way: I use decks that * exclusively quiz entire sentences * introduce around 500 new words (a nice mix of nouns, verbs and adjectives) * use a wide variety of grammatical constructs (including all conjugations of the new verbs), * and that have audio of a native speaker reading the entire sentence after I "flip" the card Such a deck needs to be thoroughly designed, and while I could choose the new words and then write software to make sure they are all used equally in sentences and no conjugations are missing, I actually can't easily make sure they are correct and I can't record the audio of the text.

teruakohatu 8mo ago

The best thing that can happen is a fork. There is no way this will make the app worse, at least if you use a phone to do the reviewing. Syncing is sure to become a subscription.

bigDinosaur 8mo ago
I still haven't quite understood how Anki can apparently be profitable when the web sync with Ankiweb apparently supports an unlimited amount of data (surely some people heavily abuse this - but one never hears about fair use being applied?). Even legit and honest use can mean massive collection sizes since you can have any rich media in an Anki collection.
- stuxnet79 8mo ago
  A few things. Up until now Anki was not a business and was not meant to be profitable. AnkiWeb also does not support an unlimited amount of data. It's evident that their storage requirements aren't infinite. They aggressively cull content. Not syncing for 6 months results in automatic deletion last I checked.
  - bigDinosaur 8mo ago
    I would still expect ingress and egress costs to be significant - as well as storage for content that isn't culled. And while it was not 'meant to be profitable' my point is that it was profitable, apparently exclusively from revenue from the iOS app which I still find surprising that it would cover the Ankiweb costs.

colin_jack 8mo ago

I've started using LLMs to help with card creation, and reviewing historic cards. Its been increasingly successful, I still end up with cards tailored to me, and the card quality has gone up (as I've asked the LLM to look for other views/sources and to do associate research to produce high quality cards). Having ability to bake some of that into the tool in a configurable way would be ideal, and I hope thats sort of path they go down. I realise in meantime plugins are an option, but I've found the quality of plugins very mixed.

p0w3n3d 8mo ago

I learned about Anki recently, and as I was told, this is somehow a standard on medical studies, where a whole bunch of knowledge must be memorised

krintfu 8mo ago

Ankihub is bunk. Why don’t they let us play Darbot games here?

zelphirkalt 8mo ago

I have had a bad experience with Anki so far. Maybe someone can chime in, clearing things up for me: When I search for HSK vocabulary Anki decks or whatever they call it, I found almost exclusively sets of words that are the wrong way around. They showed me the Chinese characters and asked me what the English translation is. I was incredulous about how many wrong decks there are and that I could not find good decks. I was starting to wonder, if people are actually just using Anki to learn to read Chinese characters, one-way learning basically, only recognition not writing. Only for reading subtitles and such, instead of writing with friends. Or perhaps they have the illusion, that they are able to write, because they can type in the Pinyin, and will get a selection of characters, which they then can recognize. But I, I want to be able to properly write the characters myself. The crucial issue was, that I did not find a simple setting to invert the direction of translation of a deck. How can such a simple thing not be among the most easy to find actions to perform with a deck? I read something about it not being possible on mobile phone, but somehow being possible on computer, but not as simple as flipping a switch. Ultimately, I abandoned Anki and recently proceeded made my own tool for learning the characters, that is highly configurable and that can change the direction with the change of one config attribute.

throw-the-towel 8mo ago
Could you share your tool please?
- zelphirkalt 8mo ago
  I could, but as you can see in this thread in sibling comments, even stating that I couldn't find a way to invert the direction easily already attracts ire of Anki evangelists, who assume bad intentions and try to dismiss personal experiences of others. Anki must be perfect! If you want to take a look, you can check out my recent comments, or my git repos.
david_allison 8mo ago
> They showed me the Chinese characters and asked me what the English translation is. I was incredulous about how many wrong decks there are and that I could not find good decks. You can edit the structure of the card templates so they're the 'right way around' for you: https://docs.ankiweb.net/getting-started.html#card-types https://docs.ankiweb.net/getting-started.html#card-types

SuperNinKenDo 8mo ago

>Will Anki remain open source? >Absolutely. Anki’s core code will remain open source, guided by the same principles that have guided the project from the beginning. >Anki’s core code will remain open source Hmmmmmm. Could be benign, but... hmmmmmm...

lovestory 8mo ago

Considering that anki can always be forked if development goes being hostile towards users I think this is a net positive. The most common complaint among new users is the learning curve and the UI. Both can be solved and Anki can flourish to the bigger level. I say this as someone who does 300+ cards every day.

hermanzegerman 8mo ago

Looks like it's already going in the wrong direction. "Our agreement with Damien stipulates that the current AGPLv3 code remains open source" It sounds like a very specific dementi.

digiown 8mo ago
There's no CLA on Anki. Even dae does not have the right to relicense it.
- hermanzegerman 8mo ago
  They still have the closed source AnkiWeb Backend to do some annoying fuckery

blayme 8mo ago

The way AnkiHub answers the questions in the FAQ in that non-answer corporate way sure gives me bad vibes.

quijoteuniv 8mo ago

People usually say they want to change the world, then there are people that just change the world. Thank you for Anki (heart)

Ajedi32 8mo ago

Always a bit scary when an open source project changes stewardship like this, but I'm quite relieved to see all involved parties seem to be aware of the dangers and very much on the same page about not screwing this up. Done right, commercial interests can often have a very positive symbiotic relationship with open source. Almost all the largest and best open source projects out there have substantial involvement from commercial interests. I do think though that from a structural/governance perspective it's not a good idea for Anki to be owned by AnkiHub. Anki is a community project, not a corporate product, and while it sounds like the license will continue to reflect that, I personally think it would be best if the corporate structure did too. If Anki were spun out as an independent foundation (like Blender, Linux, etc) receiving most of its support and development work from AnkiHub, rather than owned outright, I think that would allow a much more robust governance structure than just having everything be under AnkiHub's direct control with some pinky promises about listening to the community.

guluarte 8mo ago

One of the apps that should be worth billions of dollars and the founder billionaire

david_allison 8mo ago
That's not the way the world works. I'm not in it for the money. In the past 12 months, I've made £65.79 from GitHub Sponsors (no fees, thank you GitHub/Microsoft) and $87.89 from Patreon (pre-fees, I'll probably see ~$50), and a split of the Open Collective [below] AnkiDroid GitHub Sponsors: https://github.com/sponsors/ankidroid https://github.com/sponsors/ankidroid and finances/sponsorship: https://opencollective.com/ankidroid https://opencollective.com/ankidroid (with immense help from dae).

jsLavaGoat 8mo ago

I have peer-reviewed research on the efficacy of SRS in second-language acquisition and this should be everywhere for everyone and the fact that it isn't is both a scandal and an opportunity for learners who do use it to leverage that advantage. I use it extensively in my teaching. The problem is deploying Anki on locked down networks can be difficult so I've built alternatives and hacks to let you deploy decks and school accounts, but making a full-featured web client would change all of this. So maybe it's a good time for me to have also started one of my own that I'm temporarily calling libreSRS because I'm not sure of the new direction here. The goal is to have a multi-user, multi-algorithm-capable, web-based system that exposes everything (especially uploading!!) to the web client.

eduFreedom 8mo ago

I shared my thoughts as a veteran user and contributor to Anki, as well as a former AnkiHub team member https://youtu.be/13p0t8Tv-jw https://youtu.be/13p0t8Tv-jw