NotebookLM
Your own notes into quizzes, flashcards, mind maps and audio
Use it
AI and study tools
Free tools for notes, projects and research, with my verdict on each.
Start with these
ChatGPT
General assistant, study mode, voice, file uploads
Free plan
Claude
Long documents, code explanations, writing
Free plan
Perplexity
Answers with a source link on every claim
Use it
Gamma
Builds a deck from an outline in about a minute.
Only if…
Build and ship
GitHub Student Developer Pack
Free paid-tier tools for students with a college email
Free
GitHub Copilot
Code completion; free for verified students via the Student Pack
Free plan
Google Colab
Free notebooks with a GPU
Free plan
Hugging Face Spaces
Host a demo of your ML project for free
Free plan
GitHub
Where your projects live
Free
Vercel
Deploy a site or app in minutes
Free plan
Netlify Drop
Drag an HTML file, get a live URL
Free plan
Cloudflare Pages
Free static hosting with a generous tier
Free plan
Supabase
Postgres, auth and storage for student projects
Free plan
MongoDB Atlas
Free shared cluster for projects
Free plan
Replit
Code and host from the browser, good on a weak laptop
Free plan
Figma
UI design; education plan for students
Free plan
Canva
Posters, resumes, presentations
Free plan
Postman
Test and document APIs
Free plan
VS Code
The editor most jobs expect you to know
Free
Study
NotebookLM
Your own notes into quizzes, flashcards, mind maps and audio
Use it
Anki
Spaced repetition flashcards, the serious one
Free
Obsidian
Local markdown notes that stay yours
Free
Notion
Notes, trackers and semester dashboards
Free plan
Zotero
Reference manager with one-click citations
Free
Overleaf
LaTeX in the browser for reports and resumes
Free plan
Wolfram Alpha
Step-by-step maths
Free plan
Desmos
Graphing calculator that actually explains shapes
Free
Excalidraw
Hand-drawn diagrams for DBMS, OS and system design
Use it
Mermaid Live
Diagrams from text, good for flowcharts in reports
Free
draw.io
ER diagrams and architecture, exports anywhere
Free
Google Scholar
Papers, plus the Cite button for APA/IEEE
Free
Stirling PDF
Merge, split, compress, convert PDFs
Only if…
LocalSend
Phone to laptop transfers over Wi-Fi, no cloud
Use it
Upscayl
Sharpen low-res images offline
Use it
Gamma
Builds a deck from an outline in about a minute.
Only if…
AI assistants
ChatGPT
General assistant, study mode, voice, file uploads
Free plan
Claude
Long documents, code explanations, writing
Free plan
Google Gemini
Tied into Drive, Docs and NotebookLM
Free plan
Perplexity
Answers with a source link on every claim
Use it
'Free pro version' AI aggregator sites
Sites promising free Pro access to paid AI models.
Avoid
Nothing matches that. Try a shorter word.
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