Best Flashcard Apps for iPhone (2026)

There are hundreds of flashcard apps on the App Store, and most of the good ones are cross-platform apps that happen to run on an iPhone. That matters, because the phone is where most students actually review: on the bus, between lectures, in the ten minutes before a class. This guide covers the best flashcard apps for iPhone in 2026, judged on how well each works on the phone itself, what the free version includes, and what you pay if you stay.

Prices below come from each app's US App Store listing and the vendor's own pricing pages, checked on 21 October 2026. In-app prices can differ by country and change without notice, so check the listing before you buy.

The Short Version

The best flashcard app for iPhone depends on where your cards come from:

• AnkiMobile is the most powerful iPhone flashcard app. It has full Anki scheduling (SM-2 or FSRS), shared decks, cloze cards and free sync with Anki on a computer. It costs $24.99 once and the learning curve is steep.
• Sticky is the fastest way to turn your own notes into cards. Photograph a page, paste text or dictate, and AI builds the deck, which is then scheduled with SM-2. The free plan is trial-sized (3 decks of 30 cards, 5 AI generations a month); Sticky Pro is $39.99 a year. iPhone and iPad only.
• Quizlet has the biggest library of ready-made sets and a usable free app with ads, but its Learn mode isn't long-term spaced repetition.
• Noji is the most polished free option for typed cards, capped at 50 reviews a day.
• Brainscape and Knowt suit narrower needs: expert-certified decks, and a cross-platform Quizlet alternative with AI built in.

If you only remember one rule: pick AnkiMobile if you'll use shared decks or study across a Mac and Android too, and pick Sticky if you'd rather photograph your notes than type them.

What Makes a Good Flashcard App on iPhone

A phone changes what matters. Typing 200 cards on a touchscreen is painful, sessions are short, and you need the app to open fast and pick up where you left off. These are the criteria behind the picks:

• Card creation that suits a phone. Typing works for a few cards. For a lecture's worth, you want import, shared decks, or AI that builds cards from a photo or pasted text.
• Real spaced repetition. An app that schedules each card against the forgetting curve keeps material for months. One that only reshuffles cards within a session is fine for cramming and weak for anything longer. Our guide to how spaced repetition works explains why the difference is so large.
• Active recall, not just flipping. Typed answers and quizzes make you retrieve the answer before you see it, which is the mechanism behind retrieval practice.
• Pricing you can live with. iPhone apps are either a one-time purchase (AnkiMobile) or a subscription with a free tier (everything else here). A capped free tier is a trial, not a plan.
• The other devices you use. If you also study on a Windows laptop or an Android tablet, an iPhone-only app means your cards live in one place.

1. AnkiMobile

Platforms: iPhone and iPad (free Anki on desktop, Android and AnkiWeb) Free tier: None on iPhone; AnkiWeb in Safari is free Paid: $24.99 one-time purchase (App Store, checked 21 October 2026)

AnkiMobile is the official Anki app for iPhone, and it is the most powerful flashcard app you can install on one. It's built by the same small team as desktop Anki, and the $24.99 price funds the whole project. It's a one-off payment, not a subscription.

Everything that makes Anki the standard in medical school and serious language study is here. You get SM-2 scheduling, or FSRS if you switch it on in deck options, which fits intervals to your own memory. There are cloze deletions, image occlusion and custom note types. You can also open any of the thousands of free shared decks, from AnKing for Step 1 to frequency decks for Japanese. Sync through AnkiWeb is free, so you can build cards on a computer and review on the phone.

It has 4.0 stars from around 2,400 US App Store ratings, the lowest rating on this list. The trade-off is the learning curve. Anki's settings are deep, the interface is functional rather than friendly, and card creation on the phone is manual typing (there's no built-in AI). Many AnkiMobile users build and edit decks in desktop Anki, where a keyboard and the add-ons help, and use the phone for daily reviews.

Best for: Medical students, serious language learners, and anyone who wants shared decks or full control of their schedule. Also the best pick if you study on several platforms, since Anki runs everywhere. See our full Sticky vs Anki comparison.

Limitations: No free trial on iPhone. Steep first week. No AI card creation. The phone app is best paired with desktop Anki for building decks.

2. Sticky

Platforms: iPhone and iPad Free tier: 3 decks of up to 30 cards, 5 AI generations a month (1 from the camera) Paid: Sticky Pro at $5.99/month or $39.99/year

Sticky was built for the phone, around one job: getting your own material into flashcards without typing it. Point the camera at a page of notes, a textbook spread or a worksheet, paste text, or dictate with your voice, and the AI writes question-and-answer cards from it. A page of lecture notes becomes a study-ready deck in about a minute.

Once the cards exist, Sticky schedules them with SM-2. You grade each card Hard, Okay or Easy, every grade shows when you'll see the card again, and all your decks feed one daily review. There are three ways to study: flip and self-grade, a Type mode that checks what you type from memory (spelling slips and synonyms count), and a multiple-choice quiz. Any card can be read aloud in the deck's own language, so a Spanish deck gets a Spanish voice. Maths and science notation (LaTeX) renders properly, and you can share a deck with a link so classmates can add it in one tap.

The free plan lets you try the whole loop, but it's small: 3 decks of up to 30 cards and 5 AI generations a month, one of them from a photo. Regular use needs Sticky Pro ($5.99 a month or $39.99 a year), which removes those limits.

Best for: Students on iPhone who study their own notes and want them turned into cards fast, without learning Anki. Language learners who want vocabulary from a page photographed and read aloud. Anyone whose biggest problem is making the cards, not finding them.

Limitations: iPhone and iPad only, with no web, Mac or Android app. A trial-sized free plan. No shared deck library like Anki's or Quizlet's, no cloze cards, and no scheduling settings to tune. Sticky doesn't import Anki decks.

3. Quizlet

Platforms: iPhone, iPad, Android, web Free tier: Create and study sets, community sets, basic study modes, with ads Paid: Quizlet Plus at $9.99/month or $44.99/year in the iOS app (from $35.99/year on the web)

Quizlet is the biggest flashcard platform in the world, and its iPhone app (4.8 stars from over 1.1 million US ratings) is the easiest way to study a set someone else already made. Search a course code or a textbook chapter and there is usually a set for it. The app covers flashcards, Learn, Test and Match, and it syncs with the website so you can make sets on a laptop.

The catch for long-term study is scheduling. Learn mode adapts within a session, pushing cards you miss to the front, but it doesn't space each card across weeks the way SM-2 or FSRS does. That makes Quizlet good for a test on Friday and weaker for knowledge you need next term. Community sets also vary in quality, with typos and wrong answers common in less-used sets.

One pricing detail is worth knowing on iPhone: Quizlet Plus costs more through the App Store than on Quizlet's website, so if you want Plus, buying it on the web is cheaper.

Best for: Students who want ready-made sets for a specific course or textbook, classes that share sets, and short-term exam prep. See our Sticky vs Quizlet comparison.

Limitations: Ads on the free tier. Offline study, ad-free use and the stronger AI tools need Plus. No true long-term spaced repetition. Uneven community content.

4. Noji

Platforms: iPhone, iPad, Android, web Free tier: Unlimited cards and spaced repetition, capped at 50 card reviews a day Paid: Noji Premium from $4.99/month; annual plans from $29.99; $74.99 lifetime

Noji (formerly Anki Pro) is the most polished-looking flashcard app on this list. It feels native on iPhone, opens fast, and makes studying feel lighter, with streaks, reminders and a library of ready-made decks. It has 4.6 stars from around 14,000 ratings on the US App Store.

Despite the old name, Noji isn't Anki. It's a separate app from a different company, and Anki's own documentation lists it as unrelated. It can import Anki .apkg files on its website, but it doesn't sync with AnkiWeb, so you can't move between the two. Our Noji vs Anki comparison covers the differences in detail.

The free tier is usable for light study. Its main cap is 50 card reviews a day, and Premium gates AI card generation, images on cards, image occlusion, custom intervals and offline study.

Best for: Students who want a clean, modern iPhone app for typed cards and a moderate daily load. Beginners who find Anki's interface off-putting.

Limitations: The 50-review daily cap bites quickly once a deck grows. AI and images need Premium. No AnkiWeb sync, so it isn't a way into the Anki ecosystem.

5. Brainscape

Platforms: iPhone, iPad, Android, web Free tier: Unlimited cards you make, up to 2,500 cards of pre-made content, limited AI generation Paid: Brainscape Pro at $19.99/month or $95.99/year in the iOS app ($95.88/year on the web)

Brainscape's scheduling is confidence-based: after each card you rate how well you knew it from 1 to 5, and low-rated cards come back sooner. It's simpler than SM-2 and there's nothing to configure, which some students prefer.

The draw is the certified library: decks written by subject experts for exams like the bar, nursing boards, real estate licensing and several languages. The free tier lets you study up to 2,500 cards of pre-made content and make unlimited cards of your own, with a limited allowance of AI card generation. Images and sound on cards, reverse study and private decks need Pro. The app has 4.8 stars from around 21,500 US App Store ratings.

Best for: Professional certification prep where Brainscape has certified content, and study groups that want to share classes. See our Sticky vs Brainscape comparison.

Limitations: Pro is one of the most expensive plans here, especially monthly through the App Store. Free AI generation is limited and images on cards need Pro. The scheduling can't be tuned.

6. Knowt

Platforms: iPhone, iPad, Android, web Free tier: Unlimited flashcards, AI flashcards from notes (limits not published), spaced repetition, with ads Paid: Knowt Ultra at $24.99/month or $149.99/year on Knowt's site (the iOS app lists several Ultra prices)

Knowt grew as the free Quizlet alternative, and its iPhone app keeps that pitch: flashcards, a Learn mode, practice tests and AI that turns pasted notes or uploaded documents into cards. It can import Quizlet sets, which makes switching easy, and everything syncs to the web. It has 4.7 stars from around 11,000 US App Store ratings.

On iPhone, Knowt works best as the mobile side of a web-first workflow. Uploading lecture slides and editing generated cards is easier on a laptop, and the app is where you review. The spaced repetition mode exists but isn't transparent, so you can't see or adjust how cards are scheduled.

Best for: Students leaving Quizlet who want similar features with more free, and anyone who builds cards on a laptop and reviews on iPhone. See our Sticky vs Knowt comparison.

Limitations: Ultra at $149.99 a year is the most expensive plan on this list. The free tier shows ads, and Knowt doesn't publish its free AI limits. The scheduling is a black box. AI output depends heavily on how clean your source notes are.

Comparison Table

How to Choose a Flashcard App for iPhone

Four questions settle it for most students.

Do you study only on iPhone and iPad?

If the phone and tablet are your only devices, every app here works, and Sticky's iOS-only design costs you nothing. If you also study on a Windows laptop, a Chromebook or an Android phone, choose AnkiMobile, Quizlet, Knowt, Noji or Brainscape so your cards follow you.

Where do your cards come from?

If someone has already made them (a shared Anki deck, a Quizlet set for your course, a certified Brainscape deck), pick the app where those cards live. If they come from your own notes, the bottleneck is creation. Sticky photographs a page into a deck on the phone; Knowt does the same from pasted notes and documents, best on a laptop. Typing cards by hand in AnkiMobile or Noji works, but it's slow on a touchscreen.

Are you cramming or keeping it?

For a test in a few days, Quizlet's Learn mode or Knowt is fine. For anything you need in three months (a language, a medical curriculum, a cumulative final), use an app with real per-card scheduling: AnkiMobile, Sticky or Noji. Our guide to building a spaced repetition schedule shows what that looks like day to day.

One-time purchase or subscription?

AnkiMobile is the only one-off price here: $24.99 and you're done. Everything else is free to start and charges a subscription once you outgrow the free tier. Over two years, AnkiMobile is the cheapest serious option; Sticky Pro ($39.99 a year) and Noji (from $29.99 a year) sit in the middle; Brainscape and Knowt are the most expensive.

What About Other iPhone Flashcard Apps?

A few apps come up in iPhone searches but didn't make the main list:

• Gizmo (4.8 stars, around 14,000 ratings) is an AI study app that turns notes into quizzes with a game-like lives system. It's closer to a quiz tool than a flashcard deck, and we couldn't verify its free limits from Gizmo's own site. See Sticky vs Gizmo.
• RemNote combines note-taking with flashcards. The free plan has unlimited notes and cards plus 250 AI credits a month. Pro costs $8 a month on RemNote's website but $14.99 a month in the iOS app, so buy on the web. See Sticky vs RemNote.
• Mochi now has an iPhone app. Cards are written in Markdown, and the free plan has unlimited cards but no sync between devices; Pro is $5 a month. Its App Store listing has only around 175 ratings so far.
• Flashcard Hero is a simple, paid-upfront app: $4.99 once, with iCloud sync. The Mac version is a separate purchase. A good fit if you want typed cards with no subscription and don't need Anki's depth.

Apple's own apps don't help here: there's no built-in flashcard app on iPhone, and Notes or Freeform can't schedule reviews.

The Honest Recommendation

There's no single best flashcard app for iPhone. Here's who should use what:

• You want the most powerful app and don't mind a learning curve: AnkiMobile. It's $24.99 once, it's the standard for medicine and serious language study, and it syncs with free Anki everywhere else.
• You want your own notes turned into cards without typing: Sticky. Photograph a page, get a scheduled deck. Try the free plan; regular use needs Pro.
• You want ready-made sets for a course: Quizlet, with Learn mode for short-term exam prep.
• You want a clean, free app for typed cards: Noji, as long as 50 reviews a day is enough.
• You're preparing for a professional certification: Brainscape, if it has a certified deck for your exam.
• You build cards on a laptop and review on the phone: Knowt or AnkiMobile.

Whichever you pick, commit to it for a few weeks. Spaced repetition only works once the app has a history of how you do on each card, and switching apps resets that. For more on getting the most out of whichever app you choose, read our guide to making effective flashcards, or browse ready-made decks like AP Biology flashcards and SAT Math flashcards. For the wider field, including desktop and Android apps, see our roundup of the best free flashcard apps for students, or browse everything in the Learn hub.