SumizAI vs Decks

What Decks is

What Decks is

Decks is a productivity app for Mac combining notes, flashcards, tasks, journals, AI chats, videos, and tables into a project-based "deck" — instead of switching between separate apps for each of these functions, the user keeps all material tied to one project in one place. All data is stored locally on the device, with nothing sent to outside servers.

Key features

One workspace per project combines AI chat, notes, tasks, flashcards, journal, video, and tables in a coherent interface. ChatGPT integration offers three specialized modes — Study Mode generating flashcards and notes from source material, Feynman Mode helping surface gaps in understanding by explaining a topic in your own words, and Conversational Mode for ordinary Q&A sessions. Smart flashcards use a spaced-repetition algorithm and support media, including YouTube videos and images, to maximize long-term retention. A Kanban-style task board lets you manage tasks visually with drag-and-drop within each deck. Tables and databases offer 13 column types and smart aggregations for more structured projects.

Who it's for

Decks appeals to students and learners who want to combine notes, flashcards, and AI chat in one place instead of juggling separate apps for each function. People running complex, multi-faceted projects — combining research, tasks, and video material — will appreciate the "deck" model grouping everything around one topic instead of spreading material across apps.

Use cases

In practice, Decks works well for studying for an exam, where Study Mode generates flashcards from notes and Feynman Mode helps check whether a topic is genuinely understood. Managing a project with a Kanban board and a data table in the same deck as source notes eliminates switching between a separate task tool and a notebook.

Pricing and business model

Decks is a paid app, currently available on macOS, with Windows and Linux versions announced. Exact pricing is worth checking on the official decksapp.com site before purchasing, since apps combining AI features with local data storage often update their plan structure as features develop.

Limitations and what to watch for

The app is currently Mac-only, so Windows and Linux users have to wait for the announced versions. ChatGPT integration means a dependency on OpenAI's external API for flashcard-generation and conversational-mode features.

AI notes generated in Study Mode

Decks doesn't explicitly export the concept of a "ai notes" entry as a separate category, but Study Mode works exactly in that spirit — it generates notes and flashcards directly from a ChatGPT conversation, saving them locally in the same deck as the rest of the project's materials. Such an ai notes entry lands immediately in the project's structure, alongside tasks and tables tied to the same topic.

Bottom line

Decks is a local, multi-component workspace for Mac combining notes, flashcards, tasks, and AI chat in project decks. Anyone who wants ai notes from AI conversations to land in a single, portable file store independent of one app should consider a tool built around that workflow.

Comparison with SumizAI

Decks and SumizAI differ in scope. Decks combines notes, flashcards, tasks, and video into one project workspace on Mac. SumizAI focuses solely on notes — it turns conversations with one of 7 AI providers into these notes, Markdown files in a vault the user owns, available on macOS, Windows, iOS, and Android. Anyone who wants a multi-component project workspace with flashcards and tasks will pick Decks; anyone who wants these notes from AI conversations to land as plain Markdown files across multiple platforms will find SumizAI the better-fitting tool.

What SumizAI is

A note-taking application built around a conversation with an AI model. You ask a question, the answer streams back, and the answers worth keeping become Markdown notes — filed into a vault that is a folder on your own disk.

A vault is a directory holding base.md, a generated table of contents up to six levels deep, and a notes/ folder with one .md file per note. Before a note is written it is checked against the ones already there, so the fourth note about the same idea gets merged instead of added. Links between notes are ordinary Markdown links to files that exist.

The model is never ours: you bring your own API key to one of seven providers — Anthropic, OpenAI, Gemini, Groq, OpenRouter, a local Ollama or your own server — and pay that provider directly. A question sends the table of contents plus at most five relevant notes within a 24,000-character budget, and the app shows you which five it used.

Every answer kept this way becomes one of these ai notes, ready to search again months later without hunting back through old chats.

Side by side

Where they differ

• Both mention AI. The difference is whose key it runs on: SumizAI never resells inference — you connect one of seven providers (Anthropic, OpenAI, Gemini, Groq, OpenRouter, a local Ollama or your own server) with your own API key and pay that provider directly. Check what Decks does with the model bill before comparing prices.
• Decks is paid software. Compare the two numbers directly: SumizAI is one dollar a month, one plan, and your AI provider bills you separately for the model you chose.
• AlternativeTo's description of Decks does not mention Markdown, so check what format your notes end up in before you fill it up. SumizAI writes standard .md files to a folder you picked, and an unpaid account can still export all of them.
• Decks also does tasks. SumizAI does not — no boards, no due dates, no projects. It files knowledge, not work.
• Decks turns notes into flashcards. SumizAI does not do spaced repetition; what it does with a growing vault is keep the table of contents accurate and check each new note against the ones already there before writing it.
• AlternativeTo lists no mobile version of Decks. SumizAI runs on macOS, Windows, iOS and Android.

Which one to pick