blas. vs Anki for Irish — Pre-Built App vs DIY Flashcards

Anki is the gold standard for spaced repetition. It's free, open-source, endlessly customisable, and used by serious learners of everything from medicine to Mandarin. blas. uses the same underlying algorithm (FSRS) but wraps it in a structured curriculum built specifically for Irish. This comparison is for learners deciding between the two — or figuring out how to use both.

For a broader comparison of every Irish learning app, see the Best Apps to Learn Irish (2026) comparison.

The Anki Advantage

Anki's strength is total flexibility. You can create cards for anything: vocabulary, grammar rules, conjugation tables, mutation patterns, audio clips, images, cloze deletions. You can import shared decks, customise scheduling parameters, and add plugins. If you know exactly what you need to learn and how to structure it, Anki is unbeatable.

Anki is also free on desktop and Android. (AnkiMobile for iOS costs ~€28 as a one-time purchase — the only paid version.)

The Anki Problem for Irish

Anki's flexibility is also its biggest weakness for Irish learners. To use Anki effectively for Irish, you need to either:

• Build your own deck — which means knowing what to include (base forms, mutation forms, gender, conjugations, example sentences, audio), how to structure cards, and what order to learn things in. This takes hundreds of hours and requires knowledge you don't have yet as a learner.
• Find a good shared deck — but high-quality pre-made Irish decks are scarce. Most cover basic vocabulary without mutations, gender, or grammatical context. You end up memorising words you can't use in sentences.

Anki also has no lessons. It doesn't teach grammar, doesn't explain rules, and doesn't provide a learning sequence. It's a review tool, not a teaching tool. You need to learn the material elsewhere and use Anki to retain it.

Spaced Repetition: SM-2 vs FSRS

Anki defaults to the SM-2 algorithm (from 1987). Modern Anki also supports FSRS as an opt-in plugin, which outperforms SM-2 on retention benchmarks.

blas. uses FSRS natively. Every review — vocabulary, grammar drills, mutation exercises — is scheduled by FSRS based on your individual performance history. The core spaced repetition quality is comparable if you enable FSRS in Anki.

Grammar and Mutations

Anki: No grammar content. You can make grammar cards, but Anki provides no lessons, no explanations, no structured progression.

blas.: Structured grammar lessons covering every major topic, plus dedicated mutation drilling with spaced repetition. This is the biggest practical difference — blas. teaches and reviews; Anki only reviews.

Vocabulary

Anki: As good as your deck. A well-built deck with audio, example sentences, mutation forms, and gender is extremely effective. A basic word-translation deck is mediocre. Building a good deck is a project in itself.

blas.: Pre-built vocabulary with grammatical context — gender, mutation forms, example sentences, pronunciation. You don't build anything; it's ready to use.

Reading and Conversation

Anki: None.

blas.: Graded reading passages A1-C1, conversation practice with grammar feedback.

Learning Curve

Anki has a notoriously steep learning curve. The interface is functional rather than friendly. Configuring deck options, understanding ease factors, setting up filtered decks — these all take time to learn. Many people bounce off Anki before they get productive with it.

blas. has a standard app interface. You open it, pick a topic, and start learning. No configuration required.

Pricing

Anki: Free on desktop and Android. ~€28 one-time on iOS. AnkiWeb is free.

blas.: Free tier covers grammar and mutation fundamentals. Premium unlocks all content.

Side-by-Side Comparison

Who Should Use Anki

Anki is the right choice if you already know how to use it, if you enjoy building and curating decks, or if you have very specific review needs that a pre-built app can't serve. It's also the right choice if you're learning multiple languages and want one tool for all of them.

Advanced Irish learners who've outgrown structured apps often move to Anki for vocabulary mining from native content. At that stage, the flexibility is worth the setup cost.

Who Should Use blas.

blas. is the right choice if you want structured grammar and mutation teaching alongside spaced repetition, if you don't want to spend hours building decks, or if you're a beginner or intermediate learner who needs a curriculum, not just flashcards.

Using Both Together

Many serious learners use both. A common pattern: blas. for structured grammar, mutations, and reading; Anki for vocabulary mined from native content (podcasts, TG4 subtitles, books). blas. provides the foundation; Anki extends it into personalised immersion-based review.

The Honest Answer

Anki is a more powerful tool. blas. is a more complete learning experience. If you're starting from scratch with Irish, blas. gets you productive immediately. If you're an experienced Anki user with good decks, you might not need blas. for vocabulary — but you'll still benefit from the grammar lessons and mutation drilling that Anki can't provide.