Comparison
Micabo or Anki: what actually changes
Anki is a very good program. It is open, it has twenty years of track record and a community that has documented everything. If you already use it and it works for you, you have no reason to switch.
The difference is not in the scheduling: it is the same SM-2. It is before, in the time it takes to have cards, and after, in what happens when an exam date lands.
Line by line
Three lines go to Anki, and they are written as they are.
The algorithm
- Micabo
- SM-2, with Anki's default settings.
- Anki
- SM-2 historically, FSRS today, and both can be configured.
Writing the cards
- Micabo
- The course becomes a sheet, the sheet becomes cards. You reread and you correct.
- Anki
- That's on you. That is where most of the time goes.
An exam date
- Micabo
- The deck replans around exam day, and nothing leaves past it.
- Anki
- No notion of a deadline. You advance the deck by hand.
Ways to be questioned
- Micabo
- Cards, quizzes, fill-in-the-blanks, graded mock exams, explaining out loud.
- Anki
- Front and back, and the card types you build yourself.
The platforms
- Micabo
- iPhone and browser, the same account on both sides.
- Anki
- Computer, Android, iPhone, browser.
Ready-made decks
- Micabo
- No catalog. Your courses, and the ones your friends share.
- Anki
- Thousands of public decks, of uneven quality.
Your classmates' courses
- Micabo
- A shared course is picked up in one gesture, and becomes yours.
- Anki
- A file to send each other.
Getting started
- Micabo
- A document dropped, a sheet to read, a session that same evening.
- Anki
- Settings to understand before the first card.
What Anki really costs: time
A useful Anki deck for a college course is two to four hours of typing per chapter: splitting, writing one question per idea, not stacking five items on a card. That work is instructive, and denying it would be dishonest. But it is the work that makes you open Anki in September and not again in November.
Micabo takes that step. The course becomes a sheet put back in order, then cards drawn from that sheet. You reread, you correct what is wrong, you delete what does not help. It is still your work, but it starts at rereading instead of starting at a blank page.
What Anki does not do: the date
This is the real mechanical difference. Spaced repetition places each card at the last useful moment, without end. It does not know there is an exam on the 14th: a card rated “easy” leaves for three weeks and does not come back before the test.
In Anki, you get by advancing the deck by hand, or by reviewing everything the night before. In Micabo, you set the date and the deck replans around it, with a cap that stops a card from leaving past exam day. Exam mode explains how.
Which one to pick
Stay on Anki if you like tuning your scheduler, if you want FSRS, if you are on Android, or if you want an open tool whose files you own.
Try Micabo if what is blocking you is not the review but making the cards, or if your reviews are organized around exam dates rather than a continuous stream.
And if you are unsure: the method is the same in both. That is what does the work, not the software that carries it.
Read next
The method
Rereading a course does not make it stick. What you retrieve from memory does, especially if the question comes back just before you forget. How Micabo applies spaced repetition, with the real intervals.
Exam mode
Spaced repetition ignores exam day. Micabo's exam mode gives it a deadline, tightens the passes as the test approaches, and stops a card from leaving past that date.
Drop a course, see what it becomes.
On the site and on iPhone, with the same account and the same plan.