Cram Is a Good Choice for a No-Frills Flashcards App
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The Good
- Searchable library of existing flashcards
- Make your own cards and decks
The Bad- Limited study options
- Dated design
- Occasional bugs
Table of Contents
Not every studying app needs to be flashy and full of features—which is good, because Cram is neither of those things. Free to download on iOS and Android, as well as accessible on a desktop browser, it's a straightforward study app you can use to make and review personalized flashcards (you can also search for a preexisting set in the app's library).
That's it—and for the most part, that's all you need. Most of its features are free, so if you're looking for simplicity and accessibility, you've found it.
Cram is really simple (and looks it)
The first thing I thought when I downloaded Cram and checked out its desktop layout was that it looks dated. That isn't necessarily a fatal problem, but it is jarring to see distinctly 2013 design choices in a modern app.
But then, everything about Cram is simple enough that it feels like a throwback: You can use it to manually create a flashcard deck by typing in questions, answers, and an optional hint. Then you can review that deck via the app. And that's it, mostly—you can also search for existing, user-generated decks using an in-app search feature, though I found that process to be a little glitchy.
To test it out, I made one deck of five random vocab words. I was frustrated at how long it took to type everything out on my phone, but you can log in using a desktop browser if you prefer. Using a pr-made deck also has some drawbacks: I searched for one to help me study for a hypothetical quiz on state capitals, and while I eventually found one, it was buried among other results like "A Chem Th 05 States of Matter" and "Trees of Eastern United States."
Chem's library of decks is made of up those created by other studiers. When you create your own deck, you have the option to make it public or private; if you choose to make it public, other people can access it via the app library. There are pros and cons to this approach. You'll have no idea if the content in the deck will match your studying needs until you've downloaded it, and even if it is, you'll have no assurances the answers on someone else's flashcards are correct.
On the other hand, if you can think of a topic, there's probably a user-generated deck in there for you. Do you need to know "Airport Codes — US States, A-F?" There's a deck for that. Motor milestones? Business jargon? Ice cream types for an Advanced Pastry class? Studiers before you have already made those decks.
The study method is tricky
Other flashcard apps use the Leitner technique—a method of spacing out how often you study certain cards based on how well you know the material on them—and Cram approximates that, to a degree. When you study a deck, you have a few options: Memorize, Cram, or Games.
Memorize and Cram are similar, and I honestly couldn't see much of a difference between them: You indicate whether or not you got a card right and, if you didn't, you'll be shown it again at the end of the deck. You keep reviewing the ones you didn't get until you master them all, and the app tells you how may rounds it took you.
The Games feature didn't work for me at all. I was shown two game options, Jewels of Wisdom and Stellar Speller, but when I tapped them, nothing happened. This could be an issue with my own phone (though I also had no luck on my desktop), but the fact remains that I could not choose the option to play games to practice my decks.
The paid version gives you (a little) more
There is a paid version of Cram too, and its most interesting feature is access to a bunch of pre-written essays that are supposed to serve as examples of how to write but, I suspect, are often used by people who don't want to write at all. I can't cosign that behavior; please write your own essays or get help from a tutor. It's probably not a good idea for more than moral reasons: I glanced through the available titles in the essays section and noticed a lot of inappropriate capitalization and spelling errors. You don't need to pay to read, let alone plagiarize, "Apology Letter For An Apology" or "13th And 15th Amendment."
The paid version, which costs $29.99 per month, $60 every three months, or $120 a year, also nets you:
Unlimited access to study flashcards.
Fully customizable formatting for your flashcards.
Access to hundreds of folders to organize your sets.
I ran through about five decks from the library, as well as the one I made myself, and didn't get prompted to pay, and the app is unclear about what "unlimited access" means. It is true that the free version doesn't offer much in the way of customization—other apps allow you to add photos and formatting to your cards, for example, and that isn't possible in the free version of Cram, so it makes sense that customization is a paid feature.
Cram offers a simple, straightforward way to study flashcards or find a pre-made deck. If you make your own flashcards, you won't have help from AI or formatting options, but there's a good chance you'll find a pre-made set from another studier and won't need to bother (though you'll probably want to verify the information is accurate first).
The app has potential (the idea of studying using games seems cool, if it had worked) and does use a form of spaced repetition, so it will be useful, but it's much more about simplicity than robust features. All in all, I think this app is best for someone who is content just making and reviewing plain flashcards in a straightforward manner; the free version handles that well enough.
Lindsey Ellefson is Lifehacker’s Features Editor. She currently covers study and productivity hacks, as well as household and digital decluttering, and oversees the freelancers on the sex and relationships beat. She spent most of her pre-Lifehacker career covering media and politics for outlets like Us Weekly, CNN, The Daily Dot, Mashable, Glamour, and InStyle. In recent years, her freelancing has focused on drug use and the overdose crisis, with pieces appearing in Vanity Fair, WIRED, The New Republic, The Daily Beast, and more. Her story for BuzzFeed News won the 2022 American Journalism Online award for Best Debunking of Fake News.
In addition to her journalism, Lindsey recently graduated from the NYU School of Global Public Health with her Master of Public Health after conducting research on media bias in reporting on substance use with the Opioid Policy Institute’s Reporting on Addiction initiative. She is also a Schwinn-certified spin class teacher and won the 2023 Dunkin’ Donuts Butter PeContest that earned her a year of free coffee. Lindsey lives in New York, NY.
