Tinycards died in September 2020, but I still get search traffic from people looking for alternatives—which tells me the app left a real gap.
I never got to use Tinycards myself (it was already gone when I started building SmartRecall), but I've talked to dozens of former users and studied what made it special: dead-simple mobile UX, gorgeous visuals, zero learning curve, and a massive library of community decks. It was flashcards for people who didn't want to think about spaced repetition algorithms or optimal intervals.
TL;DR: Tinycards is permanently discontinued. SmartRecall offers AI-powered card generation and modern spaced repetition (FSRS), but trades some of Tinycards' visual polish and community library for smarter review scheduling and cross-platform sync. If you loved Tinycards' simplicity, SmartRecall is learnable in under 10 minutes—but it won't feel identical.
What happened to Tinycards?
Duolingo shut it down to focus on their core language app. The official statement cited "limited resources" and the desire to integrate flashcard features directly into Duolingo. No data export was offered. If you had decks in Tinycards, they're gone unless you manually recreated them elsewhere.
The shutdown left a specific user segment stranded: casual learners who wanted beautiful, mobile-first flashcards without the complexity of Anki or the rigidity of Quizlet.
How I'm comparing them
Since I can't actually use Tinycards anymore, I'm basing this on:
- What Tinycards users tell me they miss — I've surveyed 40+ former users who tried SmartRecall
- Archived reviews and screenshots — Reddit threads, YouTube demos, App Store reviews from 2018-2020
- Feature parity — what Tinycards did vs. what SmartRecall does now
- Migration friction — how hard it is to rebuild your decks in SmartRecall
I'm not pretending this is a head-to-head test. It's a "here's what you lost, here's what you can get instead" guide.
1. Card creation: AI vs. manual entry
Tinycards: You typed front/back manually or browsed community decks. Adding images was easy—tap the image icon, search built-in libraries (powered by Giphy and other sources), done. No AI, no auto-generation. Pure manual curation.
SmartRecall: You can still create cards manually, but the main draw is AI generation. Paste a PDF, article, or YouTube transcript, and SmartRecall extracts key concepts into flashcards. It uses GPT-4 to identify what's worth memorizing and formats it into question/answer pairs.
The tradeoff: Tinycards felt more personal because you built every card yourself. SmartRecall is faster for knowledge-heavy material (textbooks, research papers, lecture notes) but less tactile. If you're studying a language or memorizing vocabulary, manual entry still works fine—but SmartRecall won't have Tinycards' built-in image search. You'll need to upload images yourself or use URLs.
Honest critique of SmartRecall: Our AI sometimes generates cards that are too granular or miss the forest for the trees. You'll want to review and edit the generated deck before studying it. Tinycards never had this problem because you controlled every card from the start.
2. Spaced repetition: invisible vs. transparent
Tinycards: Used a simplified spaced repetition algorithm. You never saw intervals or "ease factors." Cards just showed up when Tinycards thought you needed them. The algorithm was forgiving—if you got a card wrong, it didn't punish you too hard.
SmartRecall: Uses FSRS (Free Spaced Repetition Scheduler), the same algorithm Anki switched to in 2023. It's more aggressive than Tinycards' system: if you keep forgetting a card, intervals shrink fast. You can see your next review date for each card, and you can manually adjust intervals if you want.
What this means in practice: Tinycards felt effortless because the algorithm stayed out of your way. SmartRecall is more efficient—you'll memorize things faster—but it requires slightly more discipline. If you skip reviews for a week, you'll come back to a pile of overdue cards. Tinycards was more forgiving about lapses.
If you're deciding between SRS approaches, which spaced repetition algorithm actually wins covers the trade-offs.
3. Mobile experience: where Tinycards really shined
Tinycards: Built mobile-first. The iOS and Android apps were gorgeous—big, swipeable cards with smooth animations. Reviewing felt like playing a game. The app was fast, offline-capable, and never felt like a "web wrapper."
SmartRecall: We have iOS and Android apps, but they're newer and less polished than Tinycards was. The core review experience works well (swipe gestures, offline mode, clean card layouts), but we don't have the same level of animation polish. Our mobile apps are also PWA-based, which means they're technically web apps installed to your home screen—not native apps.
The gap: If you loved Tinycards specifically for its mobile UX, SmartRecall will feel slightly less fluid. We're working on native app rewrites, but right now, the mobile experience is "good enough" rather than "delightful."
4. Community decks: the biggest loss
Tinycards: Had a massive library of user-created decks. You could search for "Spanish verbs" or "anatomy terms" and find dozens of pre-made decks to clone. This was Tinycards' killer feature for casual learners—you didn't need to create anything yourself.
SmartRecall: No community library yet. Every deck you study is one you created (or had AI create for you). We're planning a deck-sharing feature, but it's not live.
Workaround: If you're migrating from Tinycards and lost your decks, you can:
- Use SmartRecall's AI to regenerate cards from source material (if you still have your textbook, notes, etc.)
- Import Anki decks (we support
.apkgfiles), and there are Anki decks for most popular topics - Manually recreate small decks (painful, but sometimes necessary)
Honest critique of SmartRecall: This is our biggest weakness compared to Tinycards. If you don't have source material to feed the AI, and you don't want to build cards manually, SmartRecall is harder to get started with. Tinycards let you start studying in 30 seconds by cloning a deck. We don't have that yet.
5. Pricing: free vs. freemium
Tinycards: Completely free. No ads, no premium tier, no paywalls. Duolingo funded it as a side project.
SmartRecall: Freemium model. Free tier includes:
- 50 AI-generated cards per month
- Unlimited manual cards
- Unlimited reviews
- Basic spaced repetition (FSRS)
Pro tier ($8/month or $60/year) adds:
- Unlimited AI card generation
- PDF/YouTube import
- Advanced analytics (retention curves, optimal interval graphs)
- Priority support
The reality: If you're recreating a small Tinycards deck (under 200 cards), the free tier works. If you're a heavy user or want to use AI generation regularly, you'll need Pro. Tinycards was free forever, so this is a downgrade in terms of cost.
6. What SmartRecall does better
I've been critical so far, so here's where SmartRecall actually improves on Tinycards:
Smarter scheduling: FSRS is legitimately better than Tinycards' algorithm. You'll retain more with less review time. I've seen users cut their daily review time by 30-40% compared to older spaced repetition apps.
AI generation: If you're studying from textbooks, articles, or videos, SmartRecall saves hours of manual card creation. Tinycards had no equivalent.
Cross-platform sync: Tinycards was mobile-only (technically there was a web version, but it was clunky). SmartRecall works equally well on desktop and mobile, with real-time sync.
Active development: Tinycards is dead. SmartRecall ships new features every month. If you report a bug or request a feature, there's a real chance it gets built.
Who should use SmartRecall instead of Tinycards?
Good fit:
- You're studying from textbooks, PDFs, or long-form content (AI generation shines here)
- You want more control over spaced repetition intervals
- You're okay building decks yourself or importing from Anki
- You use both desktop and mobile
Bad fit:
- You want a massive library of pre-made decks to browse (we don't have this yet)
- You're studying casually and don't want to think about algorithms or settings
- You need a native mobile app with Tinycards-level polish (ours is good, not great)
- You're not willing to pay for AI features
Final verdict
Tinycards was a beautifully simple tool that Duolingo killed too soon. SmartRecall isn't a perfect replacement—it's more powerful but less immediately intuitive, and it costs money if you want the full feature set.
If you're a former Tinycards user, here's my honest recommendation: try SmartRecall's free tier for two weeks. Build one deck manually (or import an Anki deck) and see if the review experience feels right. If you're studying from books or articles, test the AI generation—it's the feature that makes SmartRecall worth the switch.
But if what you loved about Tinycards was the zero-friction, browse-and-study experience with gorgeous community decks, no current tool fully replicates that. SmartRecall gets you 70% of the way there, with better spaced repetition and AI generation as the upside.
The gap Tinycards left is real. We're trying to fill it, but we're not pretending to be a clone.
