Comparison

FlashStacks vs Tapioca

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

FlashStacks

Transform study materials into interactive Home Screen widgets. AI generates flashcards from PDFs, and spaced repetition optimizes learning. Visualize concepts with image occlusion and track progress with detailed stats.

Highlights
  • Home and Lock Screen widgets
  • AI-powered PDF to flashcard generation
  • Spaced repetition learning
  • Image occlusion cards
  • Progress tracking and stats
  • Customizable widget themes
Features
Read full description

Your flashcards, on your Home Screen. FlashStacks turns your study cards into Home Screen, Lock Screen and StandBy widgets. Glance at a question between classes. Tap to reveal the answer. Tap again for the next card — all without opening the app. Learning fits into the moments already filling your day. ALWAYS VISIBLE, ALWAYS READY Widgets come in every size and rotate through your stacks automatically, so every time you pick up your phone there's something new to learn. Start a study session and your card follows you to the Lock Screen and Dynamic Island as a Live Activity. AI DECKS FROM YOUR NOTES Upload any PDF — lecture slides, textbook chapters, study guides — and AI builds a complete deck in seconds. Choose High-Yield for exam prep or Comprehensive for full coverage. FlashStacks even finds the diagrams in your PDF so you can turn them into image occlusion cards. LEARN A LANGUAGE FlashStacks Learn gives you ready-made packs in French, Spanish, Japanese, Korean and Mandarin — greetings, numbers, food, travel and more. Add a pack and pick up new words from your Lock Screen all day. SPACED REPETITION THAT WORKS FlashStacks uses the same proven science behind Anki. Cards you struggle with come back sooner. Cards you've mastered fade into the background. Study smarter, not longer. IMAGE OCCLUSION CARDS Add any image — diagrams, anatomy, maps — and draw boxes over the parts to hide. Tap to reveal what's underneath. Perfect for visual subjects. BRING YOUR CARDS WITH YOU Import from Anki, CSV, TSV or JSON. Search every card across all your stacks and keep them organised with tags. BEAUTIFUL BY DESIGN Every stack gets its own colour palette — soft pastels or bold modern tones — and your widgets match. Dark mode uses pure OLED black. TRACK YOUR PROGRESS See mastery, difficulty breakdown and 14-day activity for every stack, plus a study calendar across everything you've learned. Build a streak. Hit your daily goal. FLASHSTACKS PREMIUM Unlock unlimited stacks, AI deck generation from PDF, image occlusion cards and every FlashStacks Learn pack. Free accounts include up to 2 stacks. Monthly and annual plans available. Annual plans include a discounted first month. Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

About

Tapioca

Read full description

Tapioca puts your flashcards on the Home Screen. Tap the widget to reveal the answer, tap again to grade it, and the next card appears without the app ever opening. Most spaced repetition fails because the app never gets opened. Tapioca brings the cards to you, and it can write them for you too. REVIEW WHERE YOU ALREADY LOOK • Add the Tapioca widget to your Home Screen in medium or large. It shows one card at a time, and you answer it right there. • A Lock Screen widget shows how many cards are due. • Grade each card Again, Hard, Good or Easy. Every button shows the interval it grants. • Tapioca schedules reviews with FSRS-6, the modern spaced-repetition algorithm, with learning steps for new and forgotten cards. With enough history it can refit the scheduler to your own memory, and it keeps the fit only when it beats the defaults. • Review in the app too, with undo and haptics. LET TAPIOCA WRITE THE CARDS • Name a topic and Tapioca writes a deck about it. • Paste your notes, a handout or a transcript and Tapioca writes one card per fact. • Photograph a page. The words are read on your phone; the picture never leaves it. • Choose a PDF. Each card notes the page it came from. • Cards appear as they are written. Drop the ones you don't want before anything is saved. Before anything is sent the first time, Tapioca asks. What you choose goes to the Tapioca server and on to Anthropic's Claude to write the cards; Tapioca keeps none of it. You can withdraw permission at any time. AI card writing needs an internet connection and is included in Tapioca Pro within a monthly fair-use allowance. 100 READY-MADE DECKS 2,500 cards across ten subjects: languages, geography, history, science, space, art and music, maths, technology, literature and everyday knowledge. Capitals, flags, hiragana, the periodic table, the human skeleton, constellations, Git commands and more. Add a deck in one tap. BRING YOUR DECKS WITH YOU Import from Anki (.apkg and .colpkg, with pictures, image occlusion and review history), Quizlet, Mochi, AlgoApp, Mnemosyne, SuperMemo, Obsidian and CSV. Tapioca shows you what it read before anything is added. FOUR KINDS OF CARD • Text: a prompt and an answer. • Cloze: a passage with words hidden in it. Anki's {{c1::…}} markers work too. • Picture: a photo with a caption, answered in words. • Blur: parts of a photo or diagram hidden until you reveal them. Write cards by hand with a live preview of exactly what the widget will draw, or turn any deck around so it is asked both ways. KEEP THE HABIT • Reminders built from your real due forecast, and an evening nudge only when a streak is at risk. Optional, and never asked for on first launch. • Stats for reps, recall, mature cards and the days ahead. • Add cards from Siri, Spotlight and Shortcuts. • Light and dark appearance, accent themes and tinted Home Screen support. YOUR LIBRARY STAYS YOURS • Your decks, cards and history are stored on your iPhone. There is no account to create. • A copy is kept in your own iCloud Drive automatically, so a new phone gets everything back. You can turn this off. • Export every card as CSV, or back up everything to a file, at any time. TAPIOCA PRO Tapioca Pro is the app: every deck and card, every kind of card, every widget, the full scheduler, AI card writing, reverse cards and iCloud backup. There is no free tier and no trial. If a subscription ends, everything you made stays on your phone and can be exported at any time. • Yearly: $49.99 per year • Monthly: $14.99 per month • Weekly: $7.99 per week Payment is charged to your Apple Account. Subscriptions renew automatically unless cancelled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period, and can be managed in your App Store account settings. Prices are US App Store prices; your storefront may differ. Terms of Use: https://tapiocaflashcards.com/terms/ Privacy Policy: https://tapiocaflashcards.com/privacy/ Tapioca requires iOS 26 or later and is designed for iPhone.

Screenshots

FlashStacks4 screens
Tapioca4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is update cadence: Tapioca at every 2 days against FlashStacks's every 8 days. FlashStacks's advantage is iOS requirement (17.6 vs 26.0). On price, ads, in-app purchases and device support there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. FlashStacks sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month and Tapioca sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $7.99 per 7 days. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

FlashStacks ships an update every 8 days, Tapioca every 2 days. The most recent releases landed on October 25, 2026 and October 29, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences · 8 level
FlashStacks versus Tapioca: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterFlashStacksTapioca
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.6 (7 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings7 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 8 daysEvery 2 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFreemium—
DevicesiPhoneiPhone
Requires iOS17.6 — better26.0
Further details — not scored
Size11 MB14 MB
Age rating4+12+
DeveloperBailey SkewesAlexander Herdt

In-app purchases

3 purchases

FlashStacks

Subscriptions3
  • FlashStacks Premium — Monthly$4.991 Month
  • Premium Special Offer$24.991 Year
  • FlashStacks Premium — Annual1 Month trial$39.991 Year
3 purchases

Tapioca

Subscriptions3
  • Tapioca Pro Weekly$7.997 Days
  • Tapioca Pro Monthly$14.991 Month
  • Tapioca Pro Yearly$49.991 Year

Questions

Is FlashStacks free?
FlashStacks is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Tapioca free?
Tapioca is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do FlashStacks or Tapioca have ads?
Neither FlashStacks nor Tapioca shows ads.
Which is updated more often, FlashStacks or Tapioca?
FlashStacks ships an update every 8 days, and Tapioca every 2 days. Most recently, FlashStacks was updated on October 25, 2026 and Tapioca on October 29, 2026.

Other comparisons