Who should pick which
Knowt
Knowt, if free matters most
- Learn, Practice Test, Spaced Repetition and Match all work on your own sets on the free plan.1
- You're preparing for AP, SAT or ACT, where Knowt has exam hubs and full-length timed mock exams.2
- You're coming from Quizlet and want its Chrome extension to carry your sets across.3
- You study on your phone and want native iPhone, iPad and Android apps.4
Skolight
Skolight, if your exam comes from your lecturer
- Mock exams are generated from your own lectures and readings, for any course, not only standardized tests.
- Skolar, the tutor, answers from your material and shows numbered citations you can open and check.
- A study plan works back from your exam date on every plan, and the calendar view starts on Starter.
- You can start a study group on Starter or above and share spaces with classmates, who can join on Free.
Start with the money
Knowt5
Free: Every study mode on your own sets, unlimited files, 1 AI summary a month and 1 AP, SAT or ACT mock exam, with ads.
Student Ultra5
$24.99 a month or $149.99 a year · $12.50/mo yearly
No ads, unlimited AI summaries and mock exams, podcasts, Kai chat and voice tutor, and full AP, SAT and ACT prep.
The yearly plan starts with a 3-day free trial and is shown as $12.99 a month, though $149.99 a year works out to $12.50. App Store prices differ, from $59.99 to $149.99 a year. Teacher Ultra is $199.99 a year with a 30-day trial, and schools get volume-based quotes. In February 2026 Knowt's single Ultra plan cost $119.99 a year or $19.99 a month.
Skolight6
Free: 1,500 AI words, 1 generation a day and 3 flashcard sets a day, 1 space and 30 minutes of lecture transcription a month. No card needed.
Starter
$7.99 a month or $59 a year · $4.92/mo yearly
15 generations a day, 10 flashcard sets a day, 3 hours of transcription a month
Pro
$12.99 a month or $89 a year · $7.42/mo yearly
25 generations a day, 50 flashcard sets a day, 8 hours of transcription a month, 1 hour of podcasts
Max
$24.99 a month or $179 a year · $14.92/mo yearly
unlimited generations, unlimited flashcard sets, 20 hours of transcription a month, 3 hours of podcasts
Yearly billing saves at least 38%. One-time top-up packs of AI words never expire.
Paid against paid, Skolight's Starter plan ($59 a year) costs well under Knowt's Student Ultra ($149.99), though Ultra lists its AI summaries as unlimited while Starter counts generations per day. Pro, at $89, adds podcasts and a bigger daily allowance. The sharper difference is on the free side: Knowt gives away every study mode on your own cards but allows one AI summary a month, while Skolight's free plan allows 1 generation a day and 3 flashcard sets a day.
What each one does
| Feature | Skolight | Knowt |
|---|---|---|
| Makes study aids from your files | Skolight Yes. PDFs (scanned too), Word, PowerPoint, text and LaTeX files, captioned YouTube videos, web pages, audio and live lectures.7 | Knowt Yes. PDFs, slides, images, videos and YouTube, Canvas or Drive links; 1 a month free, unlimited on Ultra.8 |
| Records lectures | Skolight Yes. Records in the browser with a live English transcript, up to 90 minutes a session.9 | Knowt Yes. Record in the browser or app, or upload audio; on free it uses the 1 AI summary a month.10 |
| Flashcards | Skolight Yes. Decks written from your material, graded Again, Hard, Good or Easy.11 | Knowt Yes. Cards with images, recorded audio, custom hints and custom multiple-choice options.12 |
| Spaced repetition | Skolight Yes. SM-2-style scheduling. Review what's due, the whole deck, or only your misses.11 | Knowt Yes. Free on your own sets: rate cards Again, Hard, Good or Easy, with a daily new-card limit.13 |
| Quizzes | Skolight Yes. Up to 30 questions in four types, easy to hard, every answer explained.14 | Knowt Yes. Practice Test mode on any set, free: mixed question types, retake only the ones you missed.15 |
| Timed mock exams | Skolight Yes. A server-kept clock that survives reloads, autosave, flagging and a written analysis.16 | Knowt Partly. Timed full-length mock exams for AP, SAT and ACT only; 1 free, unlimited on Ultra.2 |
| AI tutor chat | Skolight Yes. Skolar answers from your material, with modes for explaining, solving and quizzing.17 | Knowt Yes. Ask Kai with attachments, math, a whiteboard or web search; Ultra on your own files.18 |
| Audio / podcasts | Skolight Yes. Two-host podcasts on Pro and Max; talk to the hosts by voice on Max.19 | Knowt Yes. Podcasts in five styles, 4 to 20 minutes, from a note, set or topic; listed as an Ultra perk.20 |
| Study planning | Skolight Yes. Study plans paced to your deadline on every plan; the calendar from Starter.21 | Knowt Yes. Exam Predictor builds a study plan from your class files; Learn paces cards to your exam date.22 |
| Study with classmates | Skolight Yes. Groups with chat, a shared calendar and linked spaces. Join on any plan, start one on Starter.7 | Knowt Yes. Live collaboration on notes and flashcard sets, on the free plan.5 |
| Library of shared sets | Skolight No. No public library of other people's decks. Share links for notes, chats and groups.7 | Knowt Yes. Its plans page offers 5 million resources to browse, on the free plan.5 |
| Imports existing decks | Skolight No. Can't import Anki or Quizlet decks. Add the source material and it writes new cards.11 | Knowt Yes. Quizlet sets via its Chrome extension or pasted export text; Quizlet has blocked it at times.3 |
| Phone and desktop apps | Skolight Partly. Works in any browser, with a layout built for phones. No native app.7 | Knowt Yes. Native iPhone, iPad and Android apps that sync with the web.4 |
| Works offline | Skolight No. Needs an internet connection.7 | Knowt No. No offline mode in its docs or app listings.23 |
Test prep and coursework are different jobs
Knowt has built much of its product around exams with a public syllabus. Its AP, SAT and ACT hubs include practice rooms and AI-generated, full-length mock exams with a timer, and the free plan includes one of those exams.2 For a high-school student facing a College Board test, that's well-aimed: the content of the exam is known in advance, so practice can be prepared for everyone at once.
A university midterm doesn't work like that. One person writes it, from one set of lectures, and it rewards whatever that person chose to stress. Knowt reaches toward this with Exam Predictor, which reads your class files and proposes predicted exams and a study plan.22 Skolight puts it at the center: every quiz, mock exam and study plan is built from the material in that course's space, and the mock exam closes with a written breakdown you can turn into a plan in one step.
The tutors split along the same line. Knowt's Kai can answer with attachments, math, a whiteboard or web search, and Call Kai quizzes you out loud.18 Skolar, Skolight's tutor, deliberately stays inside your material: it doesn't search the web, but every answer carries numbered citations back to the passage it used. If you want answers you can check against your own notes, that restriction is the point. If you want broad explanations from anywhere, Kai is the more flexible of the two.
On flashcards alone, the two are closer than their prices suggest. Both schedule reviews with spaced repetition and ask you to grade each card Again, Hard, Good or Easy.13 Knowt adds a Learn mode that paces cards to your exam date,24 plus Match and its Knowt Play games.25 Skolight adds decks written from a lecture recording or a scanned PDF, kept in the same space as the notes and quizzes from that material.
Fair warning about Skolight
- Nothing built for AP, SAT or ACT
- Skolight has no standardized-test hubs or question banks. It only knows the material you give it, so for College Board exams you'd be adding your own prep books.
- Fewer ways to drill
- There's no Match game, no Learn rounds and no live quiz games. Review in Skolight means flashcards, quizzes and mock exams.
- Browser only
- Skolight runs in the browser, with a phone layout you can pin to your home screen. There's no app-store download, and it needs a connection.
- Quizlet sets don't come along
- Knowt can pull Quizlet sets in through its Chrome extension.3 Skolight only takes pasted text, and writes new cards from it.
- Daily caps on the lower plans
- Generations are counted per day, and only Max removes that count. A big upload day on Starter can hit the limit.
Which one suits you?
Answer the questions above to see which tool fits.