Anki + Pleco, or one course?

By Carson 木林森 · October 2026

Anki is a flashcard scheduler and Pleco a dictionary and reader; neither ships a Chinese curriculum, so the order is yours to decide. Together they cost $0 in their free versions, or $54.98 once for the paid iPhone versions. Keep them if you already know what to study next and in what order; take a course if deciding that is the part that keeps going wrong.

Both are excellent at what they do, and the scheduling is not the difference: Anki can run FSRS, the same algorithm GraphChinese uses for its flashcard decks. What a course adds is everything around the cards: which word or grammar point comes next, the teaching before the test, and the writing and reading that a card cannot hold.

What Pleco does

• Free basic version: dictionary search, handwriting recognition, a couple of dictionaries, light document reader, basic audio, no ads (source, checked Oct 2026)
• Basic Bundle: US $29.99 one-time (OCR, flashcards, stroke order, document reader, Mandarin audio, Kai font, Oxford Chinese Dictionary) (source, checked Oct 2026)
• Animated stroke order diagrams for about 27,000 characters; handwriting lookup (source, checked Oct 2026)
• Recordings from two native speakers for 34,000 Mandarin words, plus TTS for sentences (source, checked Oct 2026)
• Flashcards can be added from dictionary entries or imported from pre-made vocabulary lists; reader opens TXT/EPUB/DOC/PDF and web pages on iOS (source, checked Oct 2026)
• iOS/iPadOS and Android only (source, checked Oct 2026)

Pleco is built around lookup. It answers what you ask it, and its flashcards and reader hold what you choose to put in them.

What Anki does

• The desktop app and AnkiDroid are free (source, checked Oct 2026)
• AnkiMobile for iPhone and iPad is $24.99 one-time on the US App Store (source, checked Oct 2026)
• AnkiWeb synchronization is free (source, checked Oct 2026)
• FSRS is available as an alternative to the legacy SM-2 algorithm, supported in Anki 23.10+, AnkiMobile 23.10+, AnkiWeb and AnkiDroid 2.17+; it is switched on in deck options (source, checked Oct 2026)
• .apkg packages import decks, notes, note types and cards; since 23.10 the importer can drop or keep learning progress (source, checked Oct 2026)
• No built-in Chinese curriculum; shared decks on AnkiWeb, quality varies (source, checked Oct 2026)

Anki remembers whatever you put in it. The quality of a Chinese study plan in Anki is the quality of the deck, and the deck is yours to find, build or fix.

The scheduler is not the difference

A common reason to stay with Anki is its scheduler, and it is a good one. GraphChinese schedules its flashcard decks, including Anki decks you import, with the same algorithm; course topics come back on their own mastery-review schedule. So the choice is not about which app remembers better. It is about what goes onto the cards and in what order, and about the parts of Chinese that are not flashcards at all.

What a course adds

• An order. GraphChinese joins its 829 topics by prerequisite links and serves each one after the topics it rests on; you can jump ahead or claim a topic you know, and reviews then check the claim. Most HSK 6 vocabulary topics are the exception, alphabetical slices of the word list rather than a dependency order. A shared Anki deck orders words by list or by frequency; it cannot know that a grammar point rests on three others.
• Teaching before testing. A flashcard asks a question about something you have already met somewhere. A course is where you meet it: the explanation, the worked example, then the check.
• Grammar. 195 grammar points from HSK 1 to HSK 6, public, each with the pattern, worked examples and the topics it rests on (source, checked Oct 2026)
• Writing. Stroke-order writing practice, on by default for learners who start from zero and switchable for everyone else (source, checked Oct 2026)
• Reading at your level. 102 narrated graded readings, Foundations to HSK 6 (source, checked Oct 2026)
• Somewhere to start. An adaptive placement test starts you at your frontier (source, checked Oct 2026)

What the stacks cost

US list prices before tax, the cheapest documented plan for each part over the period: one-time purchases are paid once, and a subscription renews or takes the vendor's longer plan where that is cheaper. Where each combination comes from: hackingchinese.com, chinese-forums.com, hackchinese.com, migaku.com. The prices behind them:

• Pleco Free. Free basic version: dictionary search, handwriting recognition, a couple of dictionaries, light document reader, basic audio, no ads (source, checked Oct 2026)
• Anki Desktop / AnkiDroid. The desktop app and AnkiDroid are free (source, checked Oct 2026)
• AnkiWeb. AnkiWeb synchronization is free (source, checked Oct 2026)
• Pleco Basic Bundle. Basic Bundle: US $29.99 one-time (OCR, flashcards, stroke order, document reader, Mandarin audio, Kai font, Oxford Chinese Dictionary) (source, checked Oct 2026)
• AnkiMobile (iOS). AnkiMobile for iPhone and iPad is $24.99 one-time on the US App Store (source, checked Oct 2026)
• Du Chinese Annual. $119.99 per year, shown as 'SAVE 33%' against $179.88 (source, checked Oct 2026)
• Skritter 1 year. $99.99 per year (shown against $179.88, '44% savings') (source, checked Oct 2026)
• Hack Chinese Annual. $12/month billed annually ($144/year) (source, checked Oct 2026)
• The Chairman's Bao 12 month. $88 per year (source, checked Oct 2026)
• Migaku Standard. Standard: $96/year (USD base offer; pricing is geo-adaptive) (source, checked Oct 2026)
• The Chairman's Bao 2 year. $154 every 2 years (source, checked Oct 2026)

For the full twelve-month picture, with tutors and exam fees, see what it costs to learn Chinese.

Switching keeps your deck

Imports Anki .apkg decks with their audio and images, scheduled by the same FSRS engine; review history is not carried over (source, checked Oct 2026). Inside Anki, a package can carry its progress: .apkg packages import decks, notes, note types and cards; since 23.10 the importer can drop or keep learning progress (source, checked Oct 2026). GraphChinese reads the same package, but not the history. So moving to a course does not throw away the cards you made. What you lose is each card's review history, so the schedule starts again and the first weeks bring more reviews than you are used to.

Pleco does not need to move at all. Keep it on your phone for lookups.

Keep your stack if

• A teacher, a class or a textbook already decides your order, and Anki is where you review it.
• You pass the free test for your level (one per HSK level) and your problem is time, not direction.
• You enjoy building decks, and they are what keeps you studying.
• You are past the HSK 6 material a course covers and mostly read and look things up.

Take a course if

• You spend study time choosing decks and lists instead of studying them.
• You know many words and cannot build sentences with them, which is a grammar order problem.
• You recognise characters on a card and cannot read them in a paragraph.
• You are starting from zero and want tones, pinyin and stroke order taught before the vocabulary arrives.

Side by side on one product each: GraphChinese vs Anki and GraphChinese vs Pleco. Every app we compare is on one page.

Written by GraphChinese, the product being compared. Every fact about Anki and Pleco above links its source and the month it was checked, and every cost is computed from those prices. The research sheet is public at /data/compare/.

Frequently asked questions

Are Anki and Pleco enough to learn Chinese?

They are enough if you already know what to study and in what order. Pleco is a dictionary and reader, Anki is a flashcard scheduler, and neither ships a Chinese course. No built-in Chinese curriculum; shared decks on AnkiWeb, quality varies (source, checked Oct 2026). The free versions together cost $0; the paid iPhone versions cost $54.98 once.

Does Anki use FSRS?

Yes. FSRS is available as an alternative to the legacy SM-2 algorithm, supported in Anki 23.10+, AnkiMobile 23.10+, AnkiWeb and AnkiDroid 2.17+; it is switched on in deck options (source, checked Oct 2026). GraphChinese schedules its flashcard decks with FSRS too, and brings course topics back on a mastery-review schedule, so the scheduler is not what separates a flashcard app from a course.

Can I bring my Anki deck to GraphChinese?

Yes. Imports Anki .apkg decks with their audio and images, scheduled by the same FSRS engine; review history is not carried over (source, checked Oct 2026). Your cards come with you; their schedule starts fresh.

Do I still need Pleco if I take a course?

Keep it if you like it; the free version costs nothing. A course decides what to learn next; a dictionary is for looking up whatever you meet outside it.

What does a Chinese course add to flashcards?

An order, with each topic after what it depends on, teaching before testing, grammar, reading and writing practice. Flashcards remember what you already decided to learn; a course decides it for you.

Related guides: GraphChinese vs Anki · GraphChinese vs Pleco · What it costs to learn Chinese · All comparisons