[HN Gopher] Anki ownership transferred to AnkiHub
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Anki ownership transferred to AnkiHub
Author : trms
Score : 107 points
Date : 2026-02-02 20:48 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (forums.ankiweb.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (forums.ankiweb.net)
| embedding-shape wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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
| hermanzegerman wrote:
| 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"
| bingobangobungo wrote:
| Good on him, 19 years is a long time to carry the flame. Thanks
| for getting me through school!
| infotainment wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Agreed. I'm particularly excited that they'll be investing in
| the UI/UX.
| hermanzegerman wrote:
| I've just bought it to support the developer, as it was
| according to his website his preferred way to support him.
| avazhi wrote:
| What's so bad about the paid iOS client? I remember it being
| expensive when I got it but it works fine for my use case (mix
| of getting me through part of med school, all of law school,
| and the just general shit I'd like to remember and learn).
| There's definitely never been anything jarring about using it
| vs the Mac or windows clients but I'm happy for somebody to
| point out the problems I've been missing!
| Jacobinski wrote:
| True. It should however be noted that the most active
| maintainer of AnkiDroid will be joining the new entity:
|
| > We're currently talking to David Allison, a long-time core
| contributor to AnkiDroid, about working together on exactly
| these questions. His experience with AnkiDroid's collaborative
| development is invaluable, and we're grateful he's willing to
| help us get this right. We're incredibly excited to have him
| join us full-time to help propel Anki into the future.
| siva7 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| I don't think it's just for nerdy med students nowadays. Who
| studied for Step I without it? And How? (And Why? :)
| hermanzegerman wrote:
| Amboss
| GaggiX wrote:
| Even in the worst-case scenario, Anki is already perfect for me
| as is.
| DoctorOetker wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| This is being actively researched (in the open!).
| https://github.com/open-spaced-repetition/srs-benchmark
| NormenKD wrote:
| Possible alternative to check out (not affiliated):
|
| https://mochi.cards/
| surrTurr wrote:
| > 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-1905...)
| Aachen wrote:
| 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).
| They're 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
| hermanzegerman wrote:
| 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
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(page generated 2026-02-02 23:00 UTC)