Between jobs earlier this year I had a lot of time to study, and I went a little overboard testing different study apps. My partner started calling it my “app problem.” She was not wrong. Here is what I actually found after spending real time with five different tools.
The first thing I learned is that no single app is going to do everything for you, and the ones that promise they will are usually the weakest at all of it. The apps that work best tend to do one thing really well and let you combine them with other tools for the pieces they do not cover.
Anki is the outlier in any honest review of study tools, and I want to be upfront about that. It is not pretty, the interface feels like it was designed in a different era, and the learning curve for setting it up properly is steeper than it should be. But the spaced repetition system is genuinely effective for memorizing large volumes of terminology and concepts, which is a real requirement for most IT certification exams. I used it for CompTIA content and the retention was noticeably better than flashcard approaches I had used before. If you can get past the setup friction, it is worth it. It is also free, which does not hurt.
Pocket Prep is the opposite experience. Clean, well-designed, easy to pick up. The question bank for the exams I tested it on was solid and the explanations for correct and incorrect answers were genuinely useful. Not just “the answer is C” but actual reasoning. For people who learn well from practice questions with good explanations, this one delivers. The subscription cost is reasonable and the mobile experience is good enough that I actually used it during commutes in a way I never managed with some other tools.
Professor Messer’s materials deserve a mention even though they are more of a study resource than an app. His free videos for CompTIA exams are exceptionally good and have helped a lot of people pass who could not afford expensive courses. Not an app, but if you are studying for Security+, A+, or Network+ and you are not using his content, you are making things harder than they need to be. His site links directly through the CompTIA certification pages as a recommended resource for a reason.
I tried two apps I am not going to name because I do not want to trash anyone publicly, but I will say that both had question banks that were clearly outdated relative to current exam objectives, and in one case I found multiple questions where the “correct” answer according to the app was actually wrong. Outdated or inaccurate practice questions are worse than no practice questions, because you end up memorizing wrong information. Always check when a question bank was last updated before you rely on it.
The pattern that actually worked for me was using video content to build conceptual understanding first, Anki for terminology retention, and then practice question apps for exam readiness in the final weeks before sitting. Trying to use five tools simultaneously from day one is a mess. Pick your video source, pick one practice question tool, and use Anki if you are willing to put in the setup time. That combination beats any single all-in-one app I tested.
The best study app is the one you actually open. Boring advice, but it kept proving itself true every time I watched myself ignore a tool because it was annoying to use even though it was technically comprehensive.
Cody Davis is the Program Director for the certification courses on this site, where he oversees curriculum design and the overall learning experience. He holds several IT certifications and brings a practitioner's mindset to everything he builds. When he's not helping IT pros level up their careers, he's wrangling three kids and adding to a GI Joe collection that his family pretends not to notice.