Open-sourcing AnkiWeb?

Anki Suggestions
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Hi!
Damien, what are your thoughts about open-sourcing AnkiWeb? Would you prefer to keep it closed-source indefinitely? If you’d like to eventually open-source it, what are the blockers for it?

There was at some point a project of replicating it, but I believe it’s been now dead for a while.

For me, there’s a few reasons I’d like it open-sourced:

  • Multi-device sync for Anki has a bus factor of 1. If something happens to Damien (like injury, burnout, etc.), eventually the server gets shut down and the community will have no sync until someone reverse-engineers the sync server.
  • As long as it’s closed-source, any improvements to AnkiWeb are bottlenecked on the time Damien can put into AnkiWeb.
  • Somewhat less importantly (for me), I would have more trust in security and privacy of my data if I could run my own backend and/or have control over the data.

– Rai

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To work full time on Anki, I need some way to pay the bills. Currently AnkiMobile is able to do that, but if one day its sales are no longer able to cover costs, I would need something to fall back on, and AnkiWeb is a potential backup source of revenue. For this reason, I’m afraid I don’t think giving it away at this point would be the smartest move.

There are third-party sync servers out there already, largely based on the code from the computer version, which you may wish to explore further.

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Thanks for the openness, I think that’s completely fine and reasonable, and I’m glad that you can work full-time on Anki :slight_smile:

I’d still like it if Anki’s bus factor could get higher. Some ideas that come to mind would be making some sort of legal setup where in case something happens to Damien, someone else [who would keep the lights on] inherit Ankiweb.

For myself, I might look into 3rd-party sync servers.

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As an update to this, while AnkiWeb is unlikely to be opened up in its entirety, I’ve added a basic local syncing server in the latest git. It doesn’t support media yet; that may come in the future.

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Thank you very much!

I am not able to sync to Ankiweb anymore because the collection is too large.

I have found some guides about how to sync with a non-ankiweb server, but with my limited skills I wasn’t able to implement any.

In the meantime, the solution has been to make Anki portable with a .bat file.

I will try out the new local server method. It seems like I can set it up. I guess the first step is to install Anki on two computers, one functioning as the server and one as the client.

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How big is your collection? How many cards?

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My assumption would be that it would be more a problem of large media than of lots of cards, so I’m not sure if local server will help. But good luck anyway.

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Yes, that would make sense, especially long audio files with less optimal compression.

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It’s probably the collection size: Are there limits on file sizes on AnkiWeb? - Frequently Asked Questions

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sorry to resurrect this thread, but I’d like to throw in my opinion here. i feel like even if ankiweb code is open sourced, the majority of users would still opt for a paid hosted version over self-hosting. another benefit of open-sourcing is that other people can help out with development.

that said, i understand your reluctance and i do think it’s a valid argument against open-sourcing. we just want this project to last as long as possible :slight_smile:

1 Like