Glean keeps showing up in "best study apps" lists next to Anki and RemNote, which is like comparing a voice recorder to a gym membership.
I spent two weeks using both Glean (£14.99/mo, ~$19 USD) and SmartRecall ($12/mo) to understand why students keep asking me if they should switch. The short answer: they solve completely different problems, and most people who think they need Glean actually need spaced repetition.
TL;DR: Glean captures lectures beautifully but won't help you retain anything long-term. SmartRecall forces active recall through AI-generated flashcards and FSRS scheduling. Use Glean if you're drowning in lecture content and need better notes. Use SmartRecall if you actually want to remember what you studied six months from now.
How I evaluated them
I tested both tools across three dimensions that matter for actual learning:
- Content capture — How easily can you get information into the system?
- Active recall enforcement — Does the tool make you retrieve information from memory?
- Long-term retention mechanics — What algorithm schedules reviews, and does it work?
I also tracked one practical concern: time investment per study session. Recording a 90-minute lecture is passive. Reviewing 40 flashcards is active work. Both have a place, but only one builds durable memory.
1. Content capture: Glean wins on input, loses on output
Glean's core feature is dead simple: hit record during a lecture, and it transcribes everything while you take handwritten notes on your tablet. After class, you get a searchable transcript synced to your notes by timestamp. Tap a sentence in your notes, and the audio jumps to that moment in the lecture.
This is genuinely useful if your professor talks faster than you write, or if you zone out mid-lecture and need to reconstruct what happened. I tested it with three recorded podcast episodes (pretending they were lectures), and the transcription accuracy was 95%+ even with technical jargon.
The problem: Glean stops there. You have a transcript and some notes. Now what? The app has a "quiz" feature that auto-generates multiple-choice questions from your notes, but they're surface-level and don't repeat on any schedule. I took a quiz on day 3, got 80%, and Glean never asked me to review again. That's not spaced repetition — that's a one-time comprehension check.
SmartRecall's capture is less magical but more intentional. You paste text (lecture notes, textbook excerpts, articles), and the AI generates flashcards using GPT-4. I fed it a 2,000-word article on neural networks, and it produced 18 cards in 30 seconds — some cloze deletions, some Q&A pairs, all targeting key concepts rather than trivia.
The AI isn't perfect. About 20% of the cards need editing (too vague, or they assume context from earlier in the article). But SmartRecall lets you edit cards inline before adding them to your deck, so I spent 5 minutes cleaning them up. Glean doesn't give you that control — the quiz questions are auto-generated and locked.
Verdict: Glean is better if you need to capture live lectures without missing anything. SmartRecall is better if you're working from written material and want cards that actually test understanding.
2. Active recall: Only one of these tools forces you to think
Here's the uncomfortable truth about Glean: it's designed to make studying feel easier, not to make learning more effective.
After recording a lecture, Glean encourages you to re-read your notes and re-listen to confusing sections. This is passive review — you're recognizing information, not retrieving it. Research since the 1880s (Ebbinghaus) shows that recognition creates an illusion of knowing. You read "mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell" and think, yeah, I know that. Then the exam asks you to explain cellular respiration, and you blank.
SmartRecall forces active recall by hiding the answer until you've attempted to retrieve it from memory. Every card is a mini-test. You see "What organelle produces ATP in eukaryotic cells?" and have to generate the answer before flipping the card. This is harder and slower than re-reading notes, but it's the only method proven to build long-term retention.
I tested this directly. I took the same 2,000-word article and:
- Studied it in Glean by highlighting key sentences and re-reading them twice
- Studied it in SmartRecall by reviewing 18 AI-generated flashcards
Three days later, I took a 10-question quiz I wrote myself (mix of recall and application questions). Glean prep: 4/10. SmartRecall prep: 8/10. The two questions I missed were edge cases the flashcards didn't cover, which is fair — I could've added more cards.
Verdict: Glean is a note-taking app with a quiz feature. SmartRecall is a memory tool. If you want to feel productive, use Glean. If you want to actually remember things, use SmartRecall.
3. Long-term retention: FSRS vs nothing
Glean has no spaced repetition algorithm. Once you take a quiz, that content disappears into your archive unless you manually go back and review it. There's no scheduling, no interval tracking, no forgetting curve. It's a static library.
SmartRecall uses FSRS (Free Spaced Repetition Scheduler), the modern successor to Anki's SM-2 algorithm. FSRS adapts to your performance: if you keep forgetting a card, it shows up more often. If you nail it five times in a row, the interval stretches to weeks or months. This is the core of spaced repetition — you review cards right before you're about to forget them, which strengthens the memory trace.
I've been using SmartRecall for six months (yes, before writing this comparison), and I have cards from January that still come up every 90 days. That's the point. I'm not cramming — I'm maintaining knowledge over time with minimal effort. Glean can't do this because it's not designed to.
One honest critique of SmartRecall: the mobile app is slower than the web version, and sometimes cards take 2-3 seconds to load on my iPhone 13. Not a dealbreaker, but annoying when you're trying to knock out 30 reviews during a commute. Glean's mobile app is faster, but again, it's just playing back audio and showing notes — less computation required.
Verdict: If you care about remembering things past next week's exam, SmartRecall is the only option here. Glean is for short-term comprehension, not long-term retention.
If you're deciding between algorithms, SM-2 vs FSRS vs Leitner explained breaks down the major approaches.
4. Time investment: Passive hours vs active minutes
Glean's value proposition is "spend less time studying by recording everything." In practice, this means:
- 90-minute lecture → 90 minutes of audio
- 20 minutes reviewing notes and transcript
- 10 minutes taking the auto-generated quiz
- Total: ~2 hours, most of it passive
SmartRecall's workflow:
- 10 minutes generating and editing flashcards from lecture notes
- 15 minutes reviewing cards (30-40 cards per session)
- Total: 25 minutes, all of it active
The SmartRecall session feels harder because you're constantly retrieving information. The Glean session feels easier because you're mostly consuming. But "feels easier" is not the same as "works better."
I also timed how long it took to prepare for a mock quiz one week after initial study:
- Glean: 45 minutes re-reading notes and transcripts
- SmartRecall: 8 minutes reviewing due cards (only 12 cards were due after a week)
Spaced repetition front-loads the effort but pays dividends later. Glean spreads the effort across multiple passive sessions that don't compound.
Verdict: SmartRecall is more time-efficient if you measure by retention per minute. Glean is more time-efficient if you measure by "hours spent feeling like you're studying."
Who should actually use Glean?
Glean isn't a bad tool — it's just not a spaced repetition tool. It's excellent for:
- Students with fast-talking professors who need transcripts to keep up
- Auditory learners who retain better by re-listening to lectures
- Accessibility needs — if you have ADHD or processing issues, having audio + text + notes in one place is genuinely helpful
But if you're using Glean as your primary study method, you're setting yourself up for cramming. You'll re-read notes the night before the exam, recognize everything, and then forget it two weeks later.
Who should use SmartRecall?
SmartRecall is for anyone who wants to remember things long-term:
- Medical, law, or engineering students with massive fact loads
- Language learners building vocabulary over months
- Professionals maintaining certifications or technical knowledge
- Lifelong learners who read a lot and want to retain key ideas
The main downside: SmartRecall requires discipline. You have to review cards regularly, even when you don't feel like it. The algorithm only works if you show up. Glean lets you procrastinate by re-reading notes whenever you want, which feels more flexible but builds weaker memory.
Another honest critique: SmartRecall's AI sometimes generates cards that are too granular (e.g., "What year was X published?" when the year doesn't matter). You have to delete or edit these, which adds friction. Glean's quiz questions have the opposite problem — they're too broad and don't test specific recall.
Final verdict: Use both, or just use SmartRecall
If you're a university student drowning in lecture content, Glean is worth $19/mo for the transcription and note-syncing alone. But don't mistake it for a learning tool. Use it to capture information, then export your notes and turn them into SmartRecall flashcards.
If you're studying from textbooks, articles, or any written material, skip Glean entirely. SmartRecall's AI card generation is faster than manual note-taking, and the spaced repetition will save you dozens of hours of re-reading.
The uncomfortable truth: most students don't want to hear that active recall is harder than passive review. Glean sells the fantasy that you can learn by osmosis if you just record and re-read enough times. SmartRecall sells the reality that memory is built through effortful retrieval, repeated over time.
I'm biased — I built SmartRecall because I was tired of forgetting everything I read. But I tested Glean honestly, and it's a well-designed tool for a different job. If you want better notes, use Glean. If you want better memory, use SmartRecall.
Or use both and export Glean transcripts into SmartRecall cards. That's probably the optimal setup for lecture-heavy students, even if it costs $31/mo combined.
