Anki ownership transferred to AnkiHub

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Overall sentiment

  • Many long-time users express gratitude for Anki’s creator and say the desktop app is “already complete” for their needs.
  • Initial fear on seeing the headline (“time to replace Anki”) is tempered by relief that:
    • Anki’s core remains open source.
    • AnkiHub claims no VC/PE backing and explicitly promises “no enshittification.”
  • Others remain deeply skeptical, reading the language around “core code” and “no investors” as weak or temporary assurances.

Commercialization & governance worries

  • Big concern: AnkiHub’s existing business relies on selling decks and paywalling content originally built and shared for free.
  • Many expect classic failure mode: a beloved 1‑dev project handed to a 35‑person company that eventually must choose between “enshittification” and layoffs.
  • Specific fears:
    • Sync and AnkiWeb shared decks becoming paid or restricted.
    • Deck data and usage data behind new terms or privacy-policy changes.
    • Conflicts of interest: features that compete with AnkiHub’s paid add-ons/decks may never be integrated.
  • Some view the FAQ’s “what we don’t know yet” (governance, roadmap) as either refreshingly honest or alarmingly vague.

Open source, forking, and ecosystem structure

  • Multiple commenters stress that:
    • Anki is AGPL; the sync server is public; FSRS libraries are MIT; data is in SQLite; so forking and self-hosted sync are viable.
    • Worst case, a community fork + alternative deck hub could emerge, as happened with other tools.
  • Others counter that AnkiWeb’s existing deck corpus is strategically important and should be mirrored now in case of future paywalls.

Clients, UX, and AnkiDroid

  • AnkiDroid remains independent, but its lead maintainer is joining the new entity to work on Anki/AnkiWeb/AnkiMobile, with reduced but ongoing AnkiDroid involvement; project bus factor is said to be high.
  • Strong divide on the iOS client:
    • Some call it expensive, clunky, and neglected; others say it’s powerful and worth the price, especially compared to what it delivered in their studies.
  • Many hope new resources will finally improve UI/UX and onboarding, often cited as Anki’s biggest weakness.

Algorithms and alternatives

  • Discussion of FSRS vs SM‑2: users who switched report much lower review load and higher throughput; others think algorithm choice is overhyped relative to simply doing the reps.
  • Alternatives mentioned include Mochi, hashcards, Flashcards Deluxe, and rolling a custom SRS, but most agree Anki’s openness and maturity remain unmatched—for now.