Collect what you learn: a learning app with cards and a map

By the edgi team Facts checked September 30, 2026

edgi is a learning app where you collect what you learn: every idea you finish becomes a card, and every card lights up on a Map next to the ideas it connects to. It's free on iPhone and the web. Each card goes from matte to foil to gold as you learn more about its idea, and 37 Sets of six to nine cards give you something to finish. If you'd rather write the cards yourself, use Anki to memorize them, or Obsidian or Heptabase to lay your own notes out as a map. For a ready-made course that tracks what you've learned, Kinnu keeps a Knowledge Bank of what's "safe in your memory."

We make edgi, so weigh this accordingly.

Details on this page come from each app's own site or US App Store listing, checked September 30, 2026.

What you're actually collecting

"Collect" means four different things in these apps.

Some keep a record of what you did. Duolingo gives you a badge when you hit a personal best, like the most XP in a day, and a new weekly league begins every Sunday. Brilliant counts XP too, in weekly Leagues of 30 learners. A badge for your best XP day doesn't say what the XP was for.

Some keep what you saved. Deepstash has idea cards from bestselling books that you sort into stashes, and Readwise pulls in your Kindle and Apple Books highlights. Saving is easy, so a stash measures what caught your eye, not what you took in.

In Anki, Obsidian, Heptabase, Capacities, Scrintal, Traverse and Mapling, the card or note really is the idea, and you write it yourself (or, in Anki, download someone's deck). That's the right tool when you already have the material, like a course or a pile of reading. It can't hand you an idea you didn't know to look for.

And in one, you open packs. Wikigacha: Collectible Cards makes cards "inspired by real-world knowledge," each with a rarity level, and you get them by opening packs. Its subscription is $5.99 a week. Its listing doesn't say that finishing or reading anything earns a card.

Of the other apps, Kinnu comes closest to what the question asks for: it teaches from its own pathways, and its listing promises a "map based design to explore content."

In edgi, the card is the idea, and you earn it by paying attention to that idea.

How a card is earned in edgi

Finish a Lesson, which takes about 60 seconds, and its card is yours. Watching a video's explanation of the idea nearly to the end counts toward the same card, and so does finishing an explainer on it. Enough of that earns the card without the Lesson. Scrolling past a video counts for nothing.

Most cards arrive matte. The finish shows how much XP you've earned on that one idea: a Lesson pays 45, foil comes at 150 and gold at 450. More Lessons on the idea add to it, and so do videos and quizzes that cover it. Tap a card and it tells you where it stands, in a line like "Foil · 240 XP to Gold." Interactive Lessons pay more for right answers, and a perfect run pays exactly 150, so that card arrives foil.

A card is a record that you gave an idea real attention. It isn't proof you've mastered it, and edgi doesn't bring it back on a schedule to check.

The Map

Every card lights its idea on your Map in the card's finish. Ideas you haven't collected stay dim. Tap any idea to see a few of the ideas it's related to, with a line on why.

A new card almost never lands alone: 96% of edgi's ideas connect to at least one other, and the typical one connects to five. The whole map holds more than 104,000 ideas joined by 296,000 connections, and 44,000 of them have a Lesson. You won't finish that collection. You can finish a Set.

Sets, and sealing one

A Set is six to nine cards that make one argument, and there are 37. Why a Song Takes You Back has seven: the encoding specificity principle, the amygdala, frisson, the reminiscence bump, involuntary memory, nostalgia and dementia. A few Sets are open from the start. The rest unlock with coins you earn by learning.

Once you've unlocked a Set and hold every card in it, its capstone quiz opens: one question per card, and you pass by getting all of them right. Retakes are free, and a miss names the Lessons to go back to. Pass, and a stamp comes down across the cards and the Set's argument is written out. A trophy goes in your trophy case. Cards that aren't in any Set go in a loose pile, and they light the Map all the same.

The app opens on today's card: the next one in the Set you're closest to finishing, one tap from its Lesson.

Here's the encoding specificity principle, from Why a Song Takes You Back. It plays here, no account needed. In the app, finishing it earns the card, and a perfect run on an interactive Lesson like this one makes it foil.

Encoding specificity principle Information is easiest to retrieve when the physical, auditory, or mental state at recall matches the conditions present during learning.

60-second Lesson

Encoding specificity principle

The best cue for a memory is whatever was there when you stored it, like the song that was playing.

Play it here Read about encoding specificity principle

The Lesson is also our case for a Map over a pile. That part is our reading, not a research finding: if a memory comes back through what was there when it was stored, a fact you learn with nothing around it has less to come back through. On edgi's Map, a card arrives next to the ideas it connects to.

When another app is the better pick

You need to remember specific facts for a test. Anki. You write or download the cards, and Anki says it "will schedule the next review for when you're most likely to forget the information." edgi has no review schedule.

You want a ready-made course, with help keeping it. Kinnu's pathways are free, and its listing pitches a feature it calls Memory Shield as "a new method to never forget what you've learned."

You want to map your own reading and notes. Obsidian's core app is free and draws your notes as a graph. Heptabase puts them on whiteboards, and Readwise brings your highlights back to you. edgi only keeps what you learn in edgi.

You're on Android. Kinnu and Anki both have Android apps. edgi's Lessons play in a browser at edgi.tv/learn.

FAQ

Is edgi free? Yes. Lessons, cards and the Map are free. A few Sets are open from the start, and the rest unlock with coins you earn by learning. An optional Pro subscription opens two Sets a day without coins, raises the limits on making your own Lessons and adds offline access.

Is there an app that shows a map of everything you've learned? edgi does, for what you learn in edgi: each idea you finish lights up on your Map next to the ideas it connects to. Obsidian and Heptabase map notes you write yourself. Kinnu's listing describes a map for exploring its content.

Is there a learning app with collectible cards? edgi's cards are ideas, earned by finishing a 60-second Lesson, and each one goes from matte to foil to gold as you learn more about it. Wikigacha: Collectible Cards gives you its cards by opening packs, and its listing doesn't say that finishing anything earns one.

Does edgi use spaced repetition? No. There's a streak, and your cards stay on your Map, but nothing brings them back on a schedule. Anki is built around scheduled review, and Readwise says it uses spaced repetition to resurface your highlights.