Which one to pick
Gemini Notebook
Gemini Notebook, if you're mostly reading
- Its free tier is generous: 100 notebooks, each holding up to 50 sources.2
- It reads Google Docs and Sheets directly, alongside PDFs, slides, audio, web pages and YouTube links.3
- Audio Overviews come in four formats and more than 80 languages, and you can join one by voice in English.4
- Eligible US college students 18+ can get Google AI Pro free for a year if they redeem the offer by December 31, 2026.5
Skolight
Skolight, if there's an exam date
- Flashcards are scheduled with spaced repetition, so each day starts with the cards that are due, not the whole deck.
- Mock exams run on a clock that survives a reload, then finish with a written account of your weak points.
- A study plan counts back from the exam and fits the minutes you have each day; the calendar view comes with Starter.
- You can record a lecture in the browser and study from its transcript the same afternoon.
Side by side
| Feature | Skolight | Gemini Notebook |
|---|---|---|
| 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.6 | Gemini Notebook Yes. PDF, Word, slides, Google Docs and Sheets, images, audio, web pages and YouTube links.3 |
| Answers cite your sources | Skolight Yes. Numbered citations that open the passage they came from. No web search.7 | Gemini Notebook Yes. Inline citations jump to the quoted passage; it won't answer beyond your sources.8 |
| AI tutor chat | Skolight Yes. Skolar answers from your material, with modes for explaining, solving and quizzing.7 | Gemini Notebook Yes. Chat with your sources; the Learning Guide style asks questions and goes step by step.8 |
| Audio / podcasts | Skolight Yes. Two-host podcasts on Pro and Max; talk to the hosts by voice on Max.9 | Gemini Notebook Yes. Audio Overviews in four formats and 80+ languages; join in by voice in English.4 |
| Flashcards | Skolight Yes. Decks written from your material, graded Again, Hard, Good or Easy.10 | Gemini Notebook Yes. Made from your sources; pick the count, difficulty and focus, and export to CSV.11 |
| Spaced repetition | Skolight Yes. SM-2-style scheduling. Review what's due, the whole deck, or only your misses.10 | Gemini Notebook No. You mark cards Got it or Missed it; no spaced-repetition scheduling in its docs.11 |
| Quizzes | Skolight Yes. Up to 30 questions in four types, easy to hard, every answer explained.12 | Gemini Notebook Yes. Quizzes from your sources, with hints and an Explain button that cites the passage.11 |
| Timed mock exams | Skolight Yes. A server-kept clock that survives reloads, autosave, flagging and a written analysis.13 | Gemini Notebook No. No timed mock exam in its docs.11 |
| Notes | Skolight Yes. Concise or detailed notes in a rich editor, exportable to PDF, Word, Markdown or HTML.14 | Gemini Notebook Yes. Study guides and other reports from templates, kept beside your own notes.15 |
| Records lectures | Skolight Yes. Records in the browser with a live English transcript, up to 90 minutes a session.16 | Gemini Notebook Partly. Phone-app lecture recorder announced September 2026; audio files can be uploaded.17 |
| Study planning | Skolight Yes. Study plans paced to your deadline on every plan; the calendar from Starter.18 | Gemini Notebook No. No study planner or calendar in its docs.19 |
| Study with classmates | Skolight Yes. Groups with chat, a shared calendar and linked spaces. Join on any plan, start one on Starter.6 | Gemini Notebook Yes. Share a notebook with up to 50 people as viewers or editors, or publicly by link.20 |
| Phone and desktop apps | Skolight Partly. Works in any browser, with a layout built for phones. No native app.6 | Gemini Notebook Yes. Android and iPhone/iPad apps; they take 5 source types and lack notes and mind maps.21 |
| Works offline | Skolight No. Needs an internet connection.6 | Gemini Notebook Partly. The phone apps can play Audio Overviews offline.22 |
Same start, different finish line
Both apps rest on one idea: an AI that works from your sources instead of the open internet. In Gemini Notebook, chat answers carry inline citations that jump to the quoted passage, and it declines to answer when your sources don't cover the question.8 Skolar, Skolight's tutor, behaves the same way, with numbered citations that open the passage and no web search. If grounding is what you're shopping for, either will serve you.
Gemini Notebook goes further on breadth. It takes PDFs, Word files, slides, Google Docs and Sheets, images, audio, web pages and YouTube links, at up to 500,000 words or 200 MB per source.3 It turns them into Audio and Video Overviews, mind maps and reports.2324 Since October 2026 its quizzes include short-answer, multi-select and fill-in-the-blank questions, and its Interactive Learning Overviews walk you through a topic with checks along the way.25 For a research paper or a seminar built on readings, it's a superb workspace.
Where it stops is time. Its flashcards let you mark a card Got it or Missed it and review only the misses, but nothing in its docs decides when a card should come back.11 There's no timed exam mode and no planner.19 That's no loss when the goal is understanding a stack of reading this week. It becomes one when the goal is recalling it on a particular Thursday in December.
Skolight is built around that Thursday. The same sources feed a deck whose cards return on a spaced schedule, a mock exam you can set to the real paper's length, and a plan that spreads the work over the days you have left. None of that is cleverer AI. It's the bookkeeping between the AI's outputs, which the app does so you don't have to. The spaced repetition guide explains why the schedule carries so much of the load.
A history seminar, two weeks out
In Gemini Notebook
Put all twelve readings in one notebook; the free tier allows up to 50 sources in it.2
Ask questions that cut across the readings, and follow each citation back to the page it quotes.8
Generate a debate-format Audio Overview and play it offline on the bus from the phone app.422
Make flashcards on the key dates and arguments, then go back over the ones you missed.11
Before the exam, take a quiz and ask the chat which topics you're weakest on.25
In Skolight
Add the readings to the seminar's space and ask Skolar the same cross-cutting questions, with numbered citations to each PDF.
Outline the response paper in a note, then export it to Word when you sit down to write.
Make a deck of dates and arguments. From then on, open the app and review whatever is due that day.
Set a study plan for the exam date with your busy days left out, so the readings are spread across the fortnight.
Three days out, sit a timed mock exam built from the twelve readings and turn its weak points into the final days' plan.
For week one - understanding and writing - Gemini Notebook is at least as good, and its free limits are far higher. For week two - remembering under time pressure - Skolight does more of the organizing for you.
Paying for it
Gemini Notebook2
Free: 100 notebooks of up to 50 sources each, at standard usage limits that refill every 5 hours up to a weekly cap.
Google AI Plus26
$4.99 a month
200 notebooks of up to 100 sources, and twice the free usage.
Google AI Pro26
$19.99 a month
500 notebooks of up to 300 sources, four times the free usage, and watermark removal.
No standalone price: it comes with Google AI plans, shown at US prices; Google AI Ultra starts at $99.99 a month. Limits are compute-based and not published as numbers. Paid plans keep a visible watermark in India, South Korea and Vietnam. Eligible US college students 18+ can get AI Pro free for a year, and students in 140+ other markets AI Plus, if they redeem by December 31, 2026; it then renews at the normal price. A core service in Google Workspace for Education.
Skolight27
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.
Free against free, Gemini Notebook gives you far more room. A student who qualifies for Google's offer pays nothing for a year of Google AI Pro, which then renews at $19.99 a month. Skolight's paid plans start at $7.99 a month, or $59 a year, and the reason to pay is the exam machinery described above, not storage.
Where Skolight falls short of it
- A much smaller free plan
- Skolight's Free plan has tight caps on file size and total storage, listed on the pricing page. Gemini Notebook's free tier holds 100 notebooks of up to 50 sources. If you want to hand a whole semester of PDFs to an AI for free, it wins easily.2
- No video explainers
- Skolight makes podcasts, mind maps and tutorials, but nothing like Gemini Notebook's narrated Video Overviews.23
- Audio isn't on the free plan
- Two-host episodes start on Pro. Gemini Notebook includes Audio Overviews on its free tier, within its usage limits.2
- English-only lecture transcripts
- Skolight's live transcription is for English-language lectures, 90 minutes a session. If your seminar runs in another language, test it before relying on it.