Last updated: 14 October 2026. Prices and plan limits re-read on each tool’s own site or app store listing that day. Written by Josh Hutcheson, OnlineCourseing editor. See our review methodology.
Our picks at a glance
| Tool | Best for | Free option | Paid option |
|---|---|---|---|
| Anki | Remembering facts | Yes (computer, Android) | $24.99 once on iPhone |
| Quizlet | Quick flashcards and practice tests | Yes | Quizlet Plus |
| Notion | Notes and a study planner | Yes | Plus $10/member/month |
| Todoist | Deadlines and assignments | Yes (5 projects) | Pro $5/month billed yearly |
| Forest | Staying focused | Yes | In-app upgrades |
| Otter.ai | Transcribing lectures and calls | Yes (300 min/month) | Pro $8.33/month billed yearly |
| Zotero | Research and citations | Yes (300 MB storage) | Storage from $20/year |
| Grammarly | Checking your writing | Yes | Pro $12 |
We earn nothing from any of these eight tools: none of them is on an affiliate network we belong to, and every tool link on this page is a plain link.
What changed in this update: the previous version of this list mixed tools for students with tools for people who make courses, such as Articulate Storyline and Camtasia, and some of its picks were no longer the best options. We rebuilt it around the jobs students actually need help with, re-checked every price, and moved course-creation tools to their own short section below.
What are online learning tools?
Before you spend money on the wrong online course, read this.
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Online learning tools are the apps you use while you learn: for memorizing, planning, focusing, recording, researching and writing. They are different from online learning platforms, which are the places you take courses, such as Coursera, Udemy and edX. If you are still choosing where to study, start with our guide to the best online learning platforms, then come back here for the tools.
Most students need one tool per job, not ten. A typical setup is a flashcard app, a place for notes and deadlines, and a focus timer, plus a citation manager or writing checker if your course involves essays.
The 8 best online learning tools for students
We chose these on what they do for a student, how good the free version is, and whether the price is fair. Picks are ordered by how many students would benefit, starting with memory.
1. Anki: best for remembering what you study
Anki is a flashcard app that schedules reviews for you: cards you know come back rarely, cards you miss come back soon. That puts self-testing and spaced review, the two techniques with the strongest research behind them, on autopilot. It suits anything with a lot of facts, such as languages, medicine, law and exam prep.
- Cost: free on Windows, Mac and Linux; free on Android (AnkiDroid, built by volunteers); $24.99 once on iPhone and iPad (AnkiMobile), which funds development. Syncing through AnkiWeb is free.
- Downside: it looks dated and takes an hour to learn. Make your own cards for the points you missed rather than importing huge shared decks.
- Tip: if $24.99 is too much on an iPhone, AnkiWeb, Anki’s free web companion, lets you review your cards online in a browser and keeps them synced with the computer version.
Website: apps.ankiweb.net
2. Quizlet: easiest flashcards and practice tests
Quizlet is the quickest way to start with flashcards. You can make a set in minutes or find one other students have shared, then study it as cards, matching games or practice tests. The iPhone app had a 4.8 rating from 1.1 million ratings when we checked.
- Cost: free tier; Quizlet Plus is a paid monthly or annual subscription. Quizlet’s pricing page blocked our check, so look at the price in the app before you upgrade.
- Downside: shared sets can contain mistakes, and its review scheduling is less precise than Anki’s.
Website: quizlet.com
3. Notion: best for notes and a study planner
Notion combines notes, to-do lists, tables and calendars in one workspace. Students use it as a home base: one page per course, with lecture notes, a reading list and an assignment tracker. Its education page offers ready-made student planner templates.
- Cost: Free plan at $0 for individuals; Plus is listed at $10 per member a month for small teams.
- Downside: it is easy to spend more time building the perfect system than studying. Start with one template and change it only when something annoys you.
Website: notion.com
4. Todoist: best for deadlines and assignments
If Notion feels like too much, Todoist does one job well: tasks with due dates. Type “essay draft Friday 5pm” and it understands the date. Reminders and recurring tasks keep weekly readings from slipping.
- Cost: Beginner plan free (up to 5 personal projects); Pro is US$5 a month, billed yearly at $60.
- Downside: the free plan’s 5-project limit is tight if you want one project per course.
Website: todoist.com
5. Forest: best for staying focused
Forest is a focus timer: you plant a virtual tree when you start a study session, and it dies if you leave the app to check your phone. It works as a Pomodoro timer with a reason not to cheat. Through a partnership with Trees for the Future, Forest says it has funded more than 2.1 million real trees.
- Cost: free to start; upgrades are sold in the app, and the Android version shows ads.
- Downside: it only works if you start a session. Its Deep Focus feature can block distracting apps, but you have to switch it on.
Website: forestapp.cc
6. Otter.ai: best for lecture and study-group notes
Otter.ai transcribes speech as it happens and labels who is speaking, which is useful for recorded lectures, video calls and group projects. You can search the transcript later instead of rewatching a whole recording.
- Cost: Basic plan free with 300 transcription minutes a month; Pro is listed at $8.33 per user a month on annual billing.
- Downside: reading a transcript is not the same as taking notes, which is part of how you learn. Use it as a backup, and get permission before recording any class.
Website: otter.ai
7. Zotero: best for research papers and citations
Zotero saves articles, books and web pages from your browser, keeps the PDFs together, and formats citations and bibliographies in more than 9,000 styles, directly inside Word, LibreOffice and Google Docs. It is free, open source and developed by an independent nonprofit.
- Cost: free software with 300 MB of free online storage; extra storage costs $20 a year (2 GB), $60 a year (6 GB) or $120 a year (unlimited).
- Downside: it is overkill for a short course. It pays off for essays, theses and anything with more than a handful of sources.
Website: zotero.org
8. Grammarly: best for checking your writing
Grammarly checks spelling, grammar and tone as you type in your browser, email and documents. The free version checks spelling and grammar; the paid version also rewrites whole sentences. Grammarly says more than 40 million people use it.
- Cost: Free plan at $0; Pro is listed at US$12, with a 7-day free trial.
- Downside: sentence rewrites and AI-generated text can break your school’s academic integrity rules. Check your policy before using anything beyond spelling and grammar on graded work.
Website: grammarly.com
Which tool should you start with?
| Your problem | Start with | Why |
|---|---|---|
| “I study but forget it by the exam” | Anki or Quizlet | Self-testing with spaced review is the best-supported memory method |
| “I miss deadlines” | Todoist | Dated tasks and reminders, nothing else to set up |
| “My notes are everywhere” | Notion | One page per course keeps notes, readings and deadlines together |
| “I keep picking up my phone” | Forest | A visible cost to breaking focus |
| “I cannot keep up with lectures” | Otter.ai | A searchable transcript to check what you missed (with permission) |
| “My essays take forever to reference” | Zotero | Citations and bibliographies formatted automatically |
| “I lose marks on writing” | Grammarly (free) | Catches spelling and grammar errors as you type |
Three example setups
These combinations show how the tools fit together. Each uses free tiers only.
A high school or college student with exams
Notion holds one page per class with notes and the syllabus. Todoist holds every due date. Anki gets a few new cards after each class, made from whatever you got wrong in that day’s homework, and you review them for ten minutes a day. Forest runs during homework so your phone stays face down.
A university student writing essays and a thesis
Zotero captures every source the moment you read it, and its Word or Google Docs plugin builds the bibliography as you write. Notion or a plain document holds your outline and reading notes. Grammarly’s free plan checks spelling and grammar before you submit, and you leave its rewrite features off for graded work unless your course allows them.
An adult taking an online course around a job
Todoist schedules three or four short study sessions a week with reminders, which matters more than any single tool when your time is limited. Otter.ai transcribes live webinars or study-group calls so you can search them later. Quizlet or Anki turns each module’s key terms into a quick daily review on your phone.
What students recommend on Reddit
We read the study-app threads on r/GetStudying and r/study (14 October 2026). The tools students named most were a calendar (usually Google Calendar), a note app (Notion, OneNote, or Goodnotes on iPad), a Pomodoro-style focus timer and Grammarly for writing. Two other points stood out:
- Anki’s price and interface put people off. Students regularly ask for something simpler, and others suggest apps such as Mochi and RemNote. We have not tested those, so they are not on this list; Quizlet is our pick if Anki feels like too much.
- Apps do not replace studying. More than one reply made the point that a new app can feel productive without changing anything. The setup advice below is built around that.
The best free online learning tools
You can cover almost everything for free. Anki (on computer and Android) and Zotero are free outright. Notion, Todoist, Quizlet, Otter.ai, Grammarly and Forest all have free tiers that are enough for most students. Pay for an upgrade only when you hit a real limit, such as Otter’s 300 monthly minutes or Todoist’s five projects, and check for student discounts first.
Two free study methods matter more than any app: closing your notes and recalling what you can, and spreading your study over several days. Our guide on how to improve your memory for studying explains the research behind both.
How to use online learning tools without wasting time
- Pick one tool per job. Two note apps and two task lists means checking four places.
- Set up in under an hour. Use a template, then study. Rebuild your system only if it is actually failing.
- Make your own flashcards from mistakes. Cards for points you got wrong are worth more than a 2,000-card shared deck.
- Put the tools on your study schedule. A daily ten-minute flashcard review beats an hour on Sunday.
- Keep the integrity rules in mind. Transcription and AI writing features are useful for studying and risky on graded work. Check your course’s rules.
For the habits that help you finish an online course, see our online study tips.
Online learning tools for teachers and course creators
If you make courses rather than take them, you need a different toolkit. The previous version of this page listed several of these, and they are still widely used:
- Trello for planning lessons and course production on boards; free for up to 10 boards per workspace, with Standard at $5 per user a month billed annually.
- Canva for slides, worksheets and course graphics.
- Camtasia for screen-recorded video lessons.
- Articulate Storyline for interactive e-learning modules, mostly used in corporate training.
To sell or host a course, compare course platforms in our Teachable vs Thinkific guide.
A course to go with the tools
Tools help most when you know how learning works. Learning How to Learn, by Barbara Oakley and Terrence Sejnowski on Coursera, covers chunking, procrastination, memory techniques and illusions of learning in four modules. On 14 October 2026 it had 4.8 stars from 93,270 reviews and more than 4.19 million learners.
See Learning How to Learn on Coursera →
Frequently asked questions
What are online learning tools?
Online learning tools are apps and websites that help you study, as opposed to the platforms that sell or host courses. They cover jobs such as memorizing (flashcard apps like Anki), planning (Notion, Todoist), staying focused (Forest), recording lectures (Otter.ai), managing sources (Zotero) and checking your writing (Grammarly).
What are the best free online learning tools for students?
Anki (free on computer and Android), Zotero (free, with 300 MB of free sync storage) and the free tiers of Notion, Todoist, Quizlet, Otter.ai and Grammarly cover most students’ needs without paying anything. Upgrade only when a free limit actually gets in your way.
Which online learning tool is best for remembering what I study?
A spaced-repetition flashcard app. Anki schedules each card just before you are likely to forget it, which applies two of the best-supported study techniques, self-testing and spacing. Quizlet is easier to start with.
Is it allowed to use Grammarly or AI writing tools for school?
It depends on your school and the assignment. Spelling and grammar checks are usually fine; rewriting whole sentences or generating text may break an academic integrity policy. Read your course or school policy, and ask your instructor if it is unclear.
Can I record lectures with Otter.ai?
Only with permission. Many schools and instructors restrict recording, and some places require everyone’s consent. Ask first, or use Otter for your own study groups and voice notes.
What is the difference between online learning tools and online learning platforms?
Platforms such as Coursera, Udemy and edX are where you take courses. Tools are what you use while you study them. If you are choosing where to learn, see our guide to the best online learning platforms.
Related: best online learning platforms · how to improve your memory for studying · online study tips · best free online courses