Helium vs Simplyr

Helium is a free planner for organizing classes, homework, grades, notes, and academic workload. Its grade tools calculate results in real time, let students test hypothetical scores, and estimate what is needed on a final to reach a target grade. Scheduling offers Month, Week, 3-Day, Day, and Agenda views with color coding, filters, search, and drag-and-drop. Push notifications on iOS, Android, and web, or email reminders, can cover assignments, classes, exams, and events. Helium supports two-way syncing with Google, Apple, other calendars, and iCal sources. Notes can include headings, lists, quotes, links, and search, and can connect to classes or assignments. The open-source service provides a public REST API for actions available in its apps, though it does not maintain official tooling or pre-built integrations. Users can access, export, or delete their data, and full schedules can be exported as JSON. Data is stored and processed on servers in the United States. Helium says it suits middle school, high school, college, university, graduate school, and homeschool students.

Simplyr is a college planner and student workspace for managing courses, assignments, exams, grades, notes, files, and study schedules. Its planner offers day, week, and month views alongside tasks, events, reminders, habits, course schedules, and attendance check-ins. Study features include Pomodoro and break timers, flashcards, exam preparation, confidence ratings, review notes, and progress tracking. Students can record course grades, semester and overall GPA, missing assignments, and attendance, and model what-if grades. The workspace includes course-linked notebooks, journals, documents, whiteboards, sticky notes, image support, PDF export, and uploaded course PDFs. Canvas imports available course and assignment data when school permissions allow; calendars can be imported and exported through iCal. Simplyr runs on web, iOS, and Android, and offers a free plan. Paid options start at $9.99 a month or $59.99 a year. Simplyr complements school systems rather than replacing them; Canvas remains the official place for submissions, announcements, communication, and academic records.