Book notes vs Notion, Obsidian, and Anki: pick the right layer

People comparing “alternatives” often mash together Kindle notes, Notion/Obsidian vaults, scanner apps, ChatGPT, and Anki/Quizlet. Those tools overlap in screenshots and diverge in jobs-to-be-done. Choosing well starts with naming the job.

Jobs readers actually have

• Capture — get text off a page (OCR) or out of a storefront highlight pile
• Organize — keep book → chapter → note structure without a custom schema project
• Resurface — see ideas again on a schedule
• Ask — clarify using your notes as context
• Drill — active recall for exam-grade facts

Where each tool shines

Kindle / reader apps

Excellent for reading inside one storefront. Weak when your life includes paper textbooks, PDFs, library books, and notes that must outlive a single ecosystem’s export.

Notion / Obsidian

Excellent for flexible knowledge work. Weak when you want a calm, book-native capture loop without designing databases, templates, and plugins before chapter two. Many readers abandon vaults not because PKM is wrong—but because intake for reading never got a home.

Scanner / photo apps

Excellent at images. Weak at the reading workflow after the scan—digest, grounded chat, and chapter filing.

Generic AI chat

Excellent at brainstorming. Weak at faithfulness to your underlines unless you paste context every time.

Anki / Quizlet

Excellent at spaced active recall. Weak as a home for capturing pages and living with a whole book’s notes. Card creation after every chapter is the churn point—even though retrieval practice itself is high-utility.

A practical decision guide

1. If you only read Kindle and export happily into a vault you already love → stay with that stack
2. If your camera roll is full of textbook pages you never reopen → prioritize OCR + chapter filing
3. If you abandon Anki because card creation is the chore → prioritize digest-first resurfacing
4. If AI answers ignore your highlights → prioritize grounded Talk-to-Book over generic chat
5. If you need cross-project PKM more than reading recall → Notion/Obsidian remain the hub; keep a reading companion as the intake layer

Bottom line

Don’t ask which app is “best.” Ask which layer is missing. Many readers already have a vault or a flashcard deck—and still lose the thread because capture and calm resurfacing never had a book-shaped home.