Products · Product
Anki
Raised as a usability problem by 91 people on Hacker News over 13 years (2014–2026), in 58 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads in the last 5 years.
Every issue, all time, most people first
Deck creation on mobile is hard and not mobile friendlyUnreviewed
20142026- Making cards on a phone requires constant app switching, which is hard with mobile multitasking2026-02-03
- Many simple tasks are hard and some expected things impossible; app slows badly with many decks2025-05-18
- Deck creation on mobile is a hassle and the interface isn't mobile friendly2020-07-26
No shortcut to minimize or maximize the add card panelUnreviewed
20142026- Shows just-added cards again immediately, then waits a month, making it unusable2025-05-18
- Adding cards is confusing and not obvious, with no tutorial2020-11-01
- Adding cards is slow and painful, with no shortcut to minimize or maximize the add card panel2018-07-14
Card and note split is confusing and intimidatingUnreviewed
20142026- Card/note split is confusing and intimidating, so the commenter built a workaround app2025-12-15
- Card creation sits outside the user's note-taking workflow, so it's cumbersome to fit in2025-04-27
- Card types versus note types is confusing and gets in the way occasionally2021-06-28
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 50 complaints
- Anki crashed, causing the user to lose flashcard work2026-10-05
- Defaults are poor, and effective setup requires an elaborate, disputed configuration2026-07-12
- The card editor is clunky to use2026-07-10
- Inconsistent and broken UX that sometimes breaks after added functionality2026-02-23
- Couldn't find a simple setting to reverse a deck's translation direction2026-02-03
- Can't find a way to invert card direction, so English-to-Chinese decks need template editing that's hard to locate2026-02-03
- Keeps pressing the second button out of reflex because the button label changes to NOK after a failed card2026-02-03
- Pasted text keeps color, and removing formatting requires buried menus and HTML editing2026-02-03
- Default interface is too complicated for users, so add-ons are needed2026-02-03
- Hard to find and understand where to edit card templates and translation direction2026-02-03
- Making cards on a phone requires constant app switching, which is hard with mobile multitasking2026-02-03
- Hard to figure out how to use it effectively; easy to misuse2025-12-15
- Card/note split is confusing and intimidating, so the commenter built a workaround app2025-12-15
- Described as having a terrible user experience, with no specific problem named2025-12-15
- Hard for beginners; doing something new feels like an escape room2025-12-14
- Copying and pasting card fields from chat into Anki is too much effort2025-11-02
- Must open a separate form view to edit cards instead of editing in the table2025-11-02
- Anki's UI feels dated and its web version is limited2025-09-23
- Switching deck direction from foreign to native language is too cumbersome2025-08-21
- Commenter bounced off Anki repeatedly because its UX is terrible2025-05-19
- Most buttons are unclear, so user switched the app to English2025-05-18
- Can't remember whether to suspend a card or a note, must search every time2025-05-18
- Card editor window is clunky and due for redesign2025-05-18
- Rating recall difficulty and complex settings add distracting overhead, so the user never settles in2025-05-18
- Can't see both sides of new cards together; pressing buttons wrong yields absurd intervals2025-05-18
- Moving information from other apps into Anki takes many manual steps2025-05-18
- Sessions swing between too easy and impossibly hard with no way to adjust2025-05-18
- Many simple tasks are hard and some expected things impossible; app slows badly with many decks2025-05-18
- User can't tell what the four review buttons mean, so reviews go wrong2025-05-18
- Hideous, clunky and unintuitive, takes a long time to learn to use effectively2025-05-18
- Old and unintuitive UI makes the spaced repetition app hard to use2025-05-18
- Interface is unintuitive and boring for average people trying it2025-05-18
- Shows just-added cards again immediately, then waits a month, making it unusable2025-05-18
- Card creation sits outside the user's note-taking workflow, so it's cumbersome to fit in2025-04-27
- Card styles vary between decks and audio plays inconsistently across web, Mac and iOS2025-02-10
- Its spaced repetition scheduling algorithm feels infuriating to the user2025-02-02
- Review load swings wildly day to day, and missed days pile up into a jumble2024-07-17
- Review load swings wildly; missing days leaves an overwhelming backlog to dig out of2024-07-17
- New users find multiple decks, cards versus notes, and search confusing2024-03-02
- Too many options make it unclear where to start or how to use it2024-02-07
- Anki is hard to get working with fractional UI scaling on GNOME2024-01-28
- Typed answers are too slow and difficult, while multiple choice lets users guess by elimination2024-01-28
- The UI is truly awful, with no specific problem stated2024-01-28
- Finding decks is a slog and manual card making is tedious2024-01-28
- Breaks flow deciding between good, easy and other rating options2024-01-28
- Steep learning curve and easy to waste time tweaking layout settings2024-01-28
- Friend couldn't scroll the page and was stuck when auto-scroll didn't happen2024-01-28
- Anki looked too complicated and intimidating to a sophisticated user2023-06-24
- Badly designed and inefficient to use, with accumulated pain points2023-06-24
- Anki implementations look ugly and have poor UX, overly complicated for simple flashcards2023-06-24