Anki is open source flash card software which runs on Linux, Android, and the web, and other operating systems. It is free for these platforms. It's revenue stream is from the iOS app, which makes a lot of sense if you think about it. Tax the rich kids.
It is pretty much the sine qua non software for vocabulary learning and any actual content memorization needs. It has Supermemo2 (SM-2) and FSRS spaced repetition algorithms with some important differences.
It is the only system which can bridge from N5 to N1 for Japanese, and also serves as essentially an open-ended learning tool that can cover any language and any content set. Yes, there is a learning curve and one has to customize the system, but it is highly customizable, open source, and highly functional.
Anki is an open-source digital flashcard application designed around spaced repetition and active recall. While it can technically be used to memorize almost anything, its primary user base falls into two dominant power-user categories, followed by a handful of niche applications.
Foreign Language Acquisition
Language learners form one of the largest single user segments on Anki. Spaced repetition makes retaining massive amounts of vocabulary efficient over long periods.
- Vocabulary Building: Memorizing single words, idiomatic expressions, and sentence mining (extracting phrases directly from native media, TV shows, or books).
- Character-Based Languages: Essential for memorizing writing systems and script characters, such as Japanese (Kanji) and Mandarin (Hanzi).
- Grammar & Conjugation: Drills for verb conjugations, irregular forms, and prepositions.
Medical Education (Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy)
Medical students represent the other massive power-user demographic. Medical curricula require retaining an immense volume of dense facts under strict time constraints.
- Board Exam Prep: Preparing for massive standardized exams like the USMLE (Step 1 and 2) or MCAT using massive collaborative community decks (e.g., the famous -AnKing- deck).
- Anatomy & Visual Diagnostics: Using the -Image Occlusion- add-on to hide labels on diagrams of organs, bones, muscles, or medical imaging (CT/MRI).
- Pharmacology & Pathology: Memorizing drug names, mechanisms of action, drug interactions, disease presentations, and diagnostic criteria.
Other Core Use Cases
| Subject / Field | What People Learn & Memorize |
|---|---|
| Law & Legal Studies | Case law names, specific statutory frameworks, legal definitions, and bar exam prep. |
| STEM & Tech | Command-line syntax, keyboard shortcuts, coding syntax, math/physics formulas, and IT certification exams (AWS, Cisco). |
| Humanities & General Academics | Historical dates, key figures, geography (flags, capitals, maps), literature facts, and AP/A-Level exam content. |
| Personal & Everyday | Names and faces of new coworkers, phone numbers, poetry/text memorization, art identification, and trivia. |
Why Anki Dominates These Specific Fields
Anki is built specifically for long-term retention, not short-term cramming. Its algorithm dynamically schedules flashcards so you review a concept right before you're predicted to forget it. Because languages and medicine require holding tens of thousands of individual facts in memory simultaneously, traditional study methods often break down, making Anki's systematic spaced repetition uniquely effective.
Installing Anki on Linux
This is a bit of a pain. Standard apt repositories don't hold the latest, so one has to download a compressed tarball and unzip, then install from that unzipped nested directory. Ensure that dependencies are already installed:
sudo apt install libxcb-xinerama0 libxcb-cursor0 libnss3 libxcb-icccm4 libxcb-keysyms1 zst
Then download the .tar.zst file from: Download Anki.
On the Bash command line inside the download folder, use the following script to uncompress and enter the tarball folder and execute the ./install.sh file as sudo:
for f in *.tar.zst; do [ -e "$f" ] || continue; dir="${f%.tar.zst}"; mkdir -p "$dir"; zstd -dc "$f" | tar -xf - -C "$dir"; for t in "$dir"/*.tar; do [ -f "$t" ] && tar -xf "$t" -C "$dir" && rm "$t"; done; script=$(find "$dir" -name "install.sh" -type f -print -quit); [ -n "$script" ] && (cd "$(dirname "$script")" && sudo ./install.sh); done
This should be enough to get things going. To log into Ankiweb for access to plugins and shared collections, see below.
Anki for web
Anki add-ons
- HyperTTS 1436550454 Voice add-on that has free options such as using Google Translate voice.
- Heatmap (Review Heatmap) 1771074083
- Pass/Fail 2: Remove the "Easy" and "Hard" buttons 876946123
- Image Occlusion Enhanced 1374772155
- Ankimon 1908235722
- Congrats Confetti! (Deck Completion) 1908221580
- Anki Killstreaks - Reward Medals for Correct Answers (Fixed by Shige) 1562475180
There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of shared decks. Anyone may share their decks through Ankiweb, so there is a lot of quality control issues. People also sell decks and the use of Anki to share decks has copyright protection as part of the use agreement.
Anki custom (created) decks
These can be done via .csv files imported into Anki, using standard import or the CSV Import Plus add-on, or using Genanki python tool which creates .apkg files. Note that there are helper gems/skills for Gemini and ChatGPT to help with CSV Import Plus.
Anki settings
- Burying: Bury new siblings; Bury review siblings
- Display Order: New card gather order: Random cards; Review sort order: Due date, then random