Olivia Telecky-

As an avid Quizlet enjoyer, using it to study for every test since middle school, it has become more and more irritating for me to deal with the constant bombardment of Quizlet Premium. Not only is premium constantly shoved in my face, but Quizlet has started rolling back previously free study tools and putting them behind an ad wall- which no broke college student can afford. I reached my limit when Quizlet started only allowing me to use the “learn” feature five times per set before I had to pay. This was extra frustrating because I made the sets myself and was being asked to pay to use them. So, with midterms coming up, I decided to check out some of the app store’s “free” Quizlet replacements and see which ones are worth their weight in salt, and which ones are seemingly pointless. 

Study Bunny

Study Bunny is unique because it gamifies studying. Similar to other habit-building apps, Study Bunny has a virtual pet that gets happier and healthier the more you complete tasks. Specifically, the bunny’s health bar goes up when you use the flashcards or study for a prolonged amount of time. The app has a study timer, which is how it tracks when you are studying, playlists for background music, and built-in flashcards. However, the app itself isn’t the best to navigate. An ad appears every time you enter the app, including if you simply respond to a notification without exiting the app completely. The flashcards are also more difficult to create, with them all needing to be typed instead of being able to upload notes from other apps, and the stylistic font could be seen as distracting. Overall, a pretty decent idea for an app, but not executed the best. 

Aniki

Aniki does have a pro version that can be paid for, like many “free” study apps, but it is not required to use many of the features. Aniki is similar to Quizlet in that you can create your own flashcards but there is also a database of flashcards available to be used as well. Unlike Quizlet, though, these flashcards have reviews so you can see if they have been helpful to others or contain misinformation. When creating flashcards you can type them all by hand or upload them from Quizlet or Google Docs, however this is somewhat difficult to do. Aniki also has an AI feature to create flashcards and quizzes, but with the free version, you can only create five of these. They do work pretty well as long as your prompt is general, the second you get too specific the AI will create repeat flashcards or leave out information you added. Personally, I have AI trust issues, so I am not mad that this feature is locked behind a paywall.

Chegg

This app is a liar. While it did say that there were in-app purchases available–like almost every other app on this list– it was listed as free, leading me to believe there was a free version that could be accessed. This is not the case. When you try to use the app, it blocks everything with a paywall. Why is it not just listed as costing money in the app store? Then it wouldn’t look like a good deal, and they couldn’t charge a subscription fee to something that doesn’t make sense as a subscription service. Zero out of five stars, very disappointing. 

Flipd

Flipd is basically a glorified timer. It has some background noise included if you need that, and can track what times of day you are the most productive. It also has a multitask mode where you can make it so if you use another app the timer will automatically stop, which you can toggle on and off at will. The timers also have recommended break times, but this can be achieved by setting multiple timers on your phone. A cool app but not very necessary.

RemNote

This is the crème de la crème of study apps. It can be used to create notes and folders as well as flashcards. You can schedule when your exams are and create daily learning goals. RemNote is the app that is easiest to convert notes to flashcards, and these flashcards can be studied in an automatically spaced-out manner or all at once. It is very simple to upload notes to create flashcards or quizzes, which makes switching your notes from a different app an easy process. I also didn’t encounter a single ad while using RemNote. If I were to quit using Quizlet cold turkey, I would definitely switch to this app.