Hi everyone,
We initially reached out to @dae to explore collaborating more closely on improving Anki. We were both humbled and shocked when he asked if we’d be willing to step into a much larger leadership role than we expected.
At this point, we’re mostly excited…and also feeling a healthy amount of terror. 
This is a big responsibility. It will push us to grow as individuals, as a team, and as a community, and we don’t take that lightly.
We’re grateful for the trust Damien and others have placed in us. And we also know that trust has to be earned, especially from people who don’t know us yet.
What We Believe
We believe Anki is almost sacred, something bigger than any one person or organization. In an important sense, it belongs to the community.
This article highlights the principles Damien built Anki on; principles we deeply share, such as respect for user agency, refusal of manipulative design patterns, and an emphasis on the craft of building genuinely useful tools that aren’t merely engaging. Anki has never tried to maximize “engagement” by exploiting psychological vulnerabilities purely for profit. Anki gives your time back to you, and that is an exceptional rarity in this world that we want to preserve.
As an organization built by students, for students, our mission is to continue embodying these principles. We are accountable only to you, our users, not external investors, and we plan to keep it that way.
What We Don’t Know Yet
We can’t answer every question right away, as there are many unknowns since much hasn’t been decided yet. But we are sharing everything we can now because the community is important to us. We encourage you all to share your thoughts and questions – we’re all in this together!
We’re still working through the details on things like:
- 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
Anki has shown how powerful community collaboration can be when it’s genuinely a group effort, and that’s a tradition we are honored to continue.
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.
What We’re Aiming For
UI/UX improvements. We’re bringing professional design expertise on board to make it more approachable without sacrificing Anki’s power. We believe that principled design will bring meaningful quality of life improvements to power users and novices alike.
Addressing the bus factor. The ecosystem shouldn’t be in jeopardy if any one person disappears. We want to build software that lives beyond any single contributor.
Supporting more than just med students. AnkiHub grew out of the medical education community, but Anki serves learners from all walks of life, and we want to support everyone to achieve their learning goals.
A more robust add-on ecosystem. We’d love to build tools that empower non-technical users to customize Anki for their needs, and we’re exploring add-ons that work everywhere, including mobile.
How We’ll Work
We want to provide transparency into the decision-making process, taking inspiration from proven models to:
- Give the community clarity on how to be heard and give feedback
- Make it clear how decisions are made and why
- Set realistic expectations
- Define roles and responsibilities so things don’t fall through the cracks
We want to bring everyone in the global Anki community together into a closer collaboration focused on building the best learning tools possible. Today, these groups often work in silos; a more unified process will help everyone move Anki forward together.
Sustainability
Some practical reassurances:
Sustainability, affordability, and accessibility. We’re committed to a sustainable business model that keeps Anki accessible and prioritizes user needs above profits. If anything ever needs to change, we’ll be transparent about why.
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.
We’re grateful to Damien et all for their trust and support, and grateful to all of you for the passion that makes this community so special.
We welcome your questions, concerns, and feedback.
– What is AnkiHub?
AnkiHub is a small education technology company founded by two long-time Anki nerds: Nick, a resident physician known as The AnKing, and Andrew Sanchez, a research software engineer. AnkiHub grew out of years of obsessive Anki use and firsthand experience with both its power and its limitations.
AnkiHub began as a way to collaborate on Anki decks (such as the AnKing Step Deck for medical students) and has since evolved into a broader effort to improve the Anki ecosystem by building tools that help more people benefit from Anki.
Will Anki remain open source?
Absolutely. Anki’s core code will remain open source, guided by the same principles that have guided the project from the beginning.
Are there any changes planned to Anki’s pricing?
No. We are committed to fair pricing that supports users rather than exploiting them. Both Anki and AnkiHub are already profitable. Any future decisions will be made with community benefit, user value, and long-term project health in mind.
Is Anki in financial trouble?
No. The transition is driven by the goal of helping Anki reach its full potential, not by financial issues. Our goal is to build a resilient structure and accelerate development.
What is the timeline?
Our intention is to build confidence and earn trust while making gradual changes. The transition will be transparent, with clear communication throughout.
What happens to volunteer contributors and community developers?
Volunteer contributors will always be essential to Anki. Our goal is to make it easier to collaborate meaningfully.
Will the mobile apps change or be removed from the app stores?
The mobile apps will continue to be maintained and supported. Additional development capacity should help with faster updates, better testing, and more consistent improvements across platforms over time.
How much influence will investors or external partners have on Anki after the transition?
None. Both Anki and AnkiHub are entirely self-funded. There are no outside investors dictating product decisions, growth targets, or monetization strategy.
What will happen with AnkiHub?
AnkiHub will continue to operate as usual, but now our teams are working together to improve both solutions. The only change you should notice is that, over time, everything becomes much easier to use.
We’ll share more updates as they happen in the future.
What will happen with the current AnkiHub subscriptions?
AnkiHub subscriptions enhance Anki with collaborative features, shared deck syncing, and LLM-based features and that isn’t changing at this time.
What will happen with AnkiDroid?
AnkiDroid will remain an open-source, self-governed project. There are no plans or agreements regarding AnkiDroid.
How will decisions be made and communicated?
Anki is open-source, and we will build on and improve its current decision-making processes. We will work in public whenever possible and seek consensus from core contributors. Significant decisions, choices, and their outcomes will be documented on GitHub or in the source code. When a change materially affects users or developers, the reasoning behind it and its impact will be communicated publicly. In the coming weeks, we will work on defining a more formal governance model to set clear expectations.
Will there be a public governance model, advisory board, or other accountability structure?
We’re exploring what makes sense here, and we don’t want to rush it.
Historically, Anki has relied more on trust and stewardship than on formal governance. We want to preserve that spirit while improving transparency. Our goal is to establish a governance structure that supports the community and improves clarity and accountability without burdensome bureaucracy.
How will the transition affect add-ons and their developers?
Add-ons are a critical part of the ecosystem.
Our intent is to make life easier for add-on developers: clearer APIs, better documentation, fewer breaking changes, and more predictable release cycles. The goal is not to lock down or restrict the add-on space, but rather to enhance it.
What new resources will Anki gain through this transition?
The biggest change is bandwidth by enabling more people to work on Anki without everything being bottlenecked through a single person. This will take time, but will eventually translate into more engineering, design, and support capacity.
What steps will be taken to make Anki more accessible, stable, and beginner-friendly?
There is a lot of low-hanging fruit that we plan to tackle: improving onboarding for new users, polishing rough edges, and addressing long-standing usability issues. These are exactly the kinds of improvements that have been difficult to tackle under constant time pressure, and we’re excited to invest in them.
Will community feedback still meaningfully influence the project’s direction?
Yes. Anki exists because of its community: users, contributors, add-on developers, translators, and educators. Feedback won’t always translate into immediate changes, but it will always be heard, considered, and respected.
How will trust be built with users who are skeptical or anxious about the change?
Trust isn’t something you demand; it’s something you earn over time. We intend to build trust through consistent actions: honoring commitments, avoiding surprises, communicating clearly, and demonstrating that Anki’s values haven’t changed. We hope our past actions will give you some peace of mind, but we also understand the skepticism, and we’re prepared to meet it with patience and transparency.