If you search for a free Quizlet alternative, Knowt is the name that comes up first, partly because Knowt put «#1 Free Quizlet Alternative» in the headline of its own homepage. That's a marketing claim, so we did the boring thing: we opened both pricing pages and both App Store listings on 18 September 2026 and wrote down what each one actually says. Everything below links to its source.
One disclosure up front: we make Synt, a study app that competes with both. It gets a short section at the end, clearly labelled. The Knowt vs Quizlet part is the part you came for.
The short version
- Free flashcards with unlimited Learn mode: Knowt. Quizlet's Learn mode is capped per month on Plus and only unlimited on Plus Unlimited.
- Cheapest paid plan: Quizlet Plus at $35.99/year, versus Knowt Ultra at $149.99/year.
- AI from your own files (PDF, video, slides): Knowt, but only on Ultra.
- Textbook solutions and the biggest library of shared sets: Quizlet.
- Non-US students: Quizlet's app ships in 17 languages; Knowt's App Store listing shows English only.
Pricing, side by side
| Quizlet | Knowt | |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | Create sets, study shared sets, limited Learn rounds | Unlimited file creation, unlimited Learn mode, 5M shared resources |
| Mid plan | Plus: $7.99/month or $35.99/year | — |
| Top plan | Plus Unlimited: $9.99/month or $44.99/year | Ultra: $24.99/month or $149.99/year ($12.99/month billed upfront) |
| Free trial | Yes (on the upgrade page) | 3 days on Ultra Annual |
| What the top plan unlocks | Unlimited practice tests, textbook solutions, unlimited Learn, ad-free | Ad-free, AI PDF/video/image/PowerPoint summarizer, lecture recording summarizer, AI podcast generator, AI voice tutor, AP/SAT/ACT prep |
Sources: Quizlet's upgrade page and Knowt's plans page. The Quizlet page lists Plus with 3 practice tests, 3 textbook solutions and 20 Learn rounds per month; Plus Unlimited removes those caps.
What's free on each
This is where the two apps diverge most, and where Knowt's headline is fair.
Quizlet free still gives you the core product: create your own sets and study the ones other people made (the App Store listing mentions over 500 million sets created by teachers and students). What moved behind the paywall is the study engine: Learn mode with spaced repetition is metered, practice tests and textbook solutions are capped, and the free tier has ads.
Knowt free gives you flashcards plus, in the words of its own FAQ, «unlimited rounds of our free learn mode, matching game, spaced repetition or practice test mode». It also lets you import your existing Quizlet sets, which is the whole point if you're switching. The App Store listing confirms the free Learn mode and spaced repetition.
So for the classic flashcard workflow (make a deck, drill it until it sticks), Knowt does for free what Quizlet now charges for. If that's all you need, the comparison ends here.
AI features: who does what
Both apps lean on AI in their marketing, but they put it in different places.
Knowt puts AI behind Ultra. The free plan is flashcards and study modes; pay $149.99 a year (or $24.99 a month) and you get summarizers for PDFs, videos, images, PowerPoints and recorded lectures, a podcast generator and a voice tutor that quizzes you out loud. Knowt's homepage also pitches «Notes to Active Recall»: upload messy notes and get study guides, flashcards and quizzes.
Quizlet sells its paid plans on textbook solutions, practice tests and unlimited Learn. Its upgrade page doesn't itemize AI features the way Knowt's does, and neither does its App Store description, so we can't tell you exactly what AI you get at each tier; we'd rather say that than guess.
Bottom line: if you want to feed your own PDFs and lecture videos to an AI and get flashcards back, Knowt is the one of the two that clearly sells that, and you'll pay Ultra prices for it.
Study modes and the library
Quizlet's App Store listing lists Learn mode with spaced repetition, practice tests, a classroom game, textbook solutions and past exam questions. Knowt's lists Learn, Practice Test, Match and Spaced Repetition, plus free AP study guides with flashcards and practice tests in its Exams tab.
On sheer library size Quizlet wins: 500 million sets against Knowt's 5 million resources. On exam prep for US students, Knowt is unusually strong: its homepage claims that at least 700,000 of 1.3 million AP students used it for the May 2025 season, and it has AP, IB, GCSE and A-Level hubs.
Ratings and languages
Both are well rated on the US App Store: Quizlet 4.8 with about 1.1 million ratings, Knowt 4.7 with about 10,700 (numbers from the listings linked above, 18 Sep 2026). Quizlet's app is available in 17 languages including Spanish, Italian, German and Japanese; Knowt's listing shows English only. If you study in another language, that matters more than any feature.
Who should pick which
Pick Knowt if you want unlimited flashcard drilling for free, you're switching from Quizlet and want to import your sets, or you're a US student preparing for AP, SAT or ACT.
Pick Quizlet if you rely on textbook solutions, you want the largest pool of ready-made sets in your subject, or you need the app in a language other than English. Plus at $35.99 a year is the cheapest paid plan in this comparison.
Pick neither if what you actually need isn't a deck of cards. Both apps are built around the flashcard deck, whether you type it, import it or have an AI draft it. If your starting point is a syllabus and an exam date, and your notes are in a PDF or a photo, you might want a tool that turns that material into a summary, a quiz and flashcards in one go. That's where we come in.
Where Synt fits (the disclosure section)
Synt doesn't have a shared library and doesn't try to be a Quizlet replacement. You paste your notes, upload photos of them or a link, and it generates a summary, a quiz, flashcards and a concept map from that material only; in the mobile app you also set your exam date and target grade and it schedules study sessions up to that day, with a review of what you got wrong and a mock exam the night before.
The pricing is in euros: the free plan covers pasted text, links and photos; PDF upload is Pro, at €4.99/week, €9.99/month or €29.99/year with a 3-day trial, and one subscription works on web and mobile. It's not a better Knowt or a better Quizlet. It's a different question: not «how do I drill these cards» but «how do I get from these notes to this exam». You can try the flashcard maker without an account to see if the output is any good on your notes.
Whichever you choose, the method matters more than the app: the reason flashcards work is active recall and spaced repetition, and a good plan for the weeks before the exam does more than any feature (we wrote up how to study for exams). For a wider look at the tools out there, see our roundup of AI tools for students.
