Catholic Calendar vs Ben's Virtues
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Catholic Calendar
Access daily Mass readings, saints' biographies, and the Order of Mass. Offers the Liturgy of the Hours, Rosary with scripture, and offline access. Customizable display options and helpful support are included.
- Daily liturgical calendar
- About Today page with reflections
- Order of Mass
- Rosary with scripture audio
- Offline access
- Customizable display
- Home Screen widgets
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Universalis is a missal and a breviary, and more besides. It gives you the Liturgy of the Hours (Divine Office) and the Mass for every day; plus valuable additional material. The Catholic Calendar app lets you join in with the tens of thousands of people who use Universalis daily, through a free app plus a small monthly subscription of roughly $0.99 / £0.79 / €0.99 (the App Store will tell you the exact figure). If you prefer a single purchase instead of a monthly subscription, get the Universalis app instead of the Catholic Calendar app. WHAT YOU GET FOR FREE • A complete liturgical calendar listing every saint and feast for your region. • The “About Today” page tells you what saints are being celebrated today, not only in your region but worldwide. It includes reflections and biographies. • The Order of Mass with all the possible alternative texts. • The Rosary with a verse of Scripture for every Hail Mary of every Mystery. Spoken audio is included if you want to listen to it. • No Internet needed: everything you need is already built in. • No cleverness needed: each day, Catholic Calendar works out exactly what you need to see. • View any date: past, present and future. • Use your own local calendar: USA, Canada, Singapore, Ireland, and every diocese in Australia, New Zealand and the UK. • Easy to read and use: a choice of fonts; big or small type; dark or light theme; page-turning or scrolling. • Help and support: tips and instructions are included; or press “Contact Us” to send us a message, and we will reply. And more – Home Screen widgets; liturgical events for your iOS calendar; copy and paste into other apps; reminders and alarms. THE MONTHLY SUBSCRIPTION ADDS: (Your first month is free.) LITURGY OF THE HOURS: The complete official Liturgy of the Hours of the Catholic Church, as used worldwide. Morning (Lauds), daytime (Terce, Sext and None), evening (Vespers), night (Compline) and the deeply reflective Office of Readings. Do as many or as few of them as you like. • The psalms and canticles match the official English and American books. Scripture readings are from the Jerusalem Bible or the RSV. • Latin if you want it: by itself or alongside the English. MASS: The exact prayers and readings at Mass for each day. • England, Wales, Scotland: the official ESV version. • United States: the official NAB version. • Elsewhere: Jerusalem Bible readings and Grail psalms. • Latin if you want it: alongside the English. AND ALSO… • Illustrations in the About Today page. • “Mass Today” gives you the Order of Mass and today’s readings and prayers, all in one page. Bishops have been known to use it to say Mass from their iPads! • “Spiritual Reading” gathers the patristic and hagiographic readings for all the saints and feasts of the day. • Daily Books takes selected spiritual classics and presents them in daily instalments to focus and enrich your prayer life. • Commentaries on the day’s Mass readings from a leading biblical scholar. And more – daily email service; Mass readings on your Apple Watch. OPTIONAL ADD-ON AUDIO (in-app purchase required) Just press the button and listen! If you want to see what you are hearing, the text is highlighted to follow the sound. After an initial download, no Internet is required. Works with CarPlay too. • Spoken English Liturgy of the Hours: every Hour of every day of every year. Monthly or annual subscription. • Spoken English Mass Readings: First and Second Reading and the Gospel. Jerusalem Bible translation only. Monthly or annual subscription. (You can listen to a sample before subscribing. Following App Store rules, subscriptions renew automatically but you can cancel auto-renewal at any time.) • Sung Latin Compline (Night Prayer): by the boys of the Schola Cantorum of the London Oratory School. Single purchase. -- Privacy policy & terms of service: universalis.com/n-ios-privacy.htm.
Ben's Virtues
This app helps you cultivate personal growth by tracking your adherence to thirteen virtues, inspired by Benjamin Franklin's original plan. Review your day nightly and mark transgressions to improve your conduct over time.
- Thirteen virtue tracking chart
- Weekly virtue focus
- Daily transgression marking
- Yearly cycle completion
- Personal conduct regulation
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Follow Benjamin Franklin's 13-week virtue system used for nearly 300 years to build discipline, honesty, moderation, industry, humility, and more. • Focus on one virtue each week • Takes one minute every evening • Free, no ads, and no account necessary • Apple Watch and widget make it even easier to track your virtues In 1726, while on an 80-day ocean voyage from London to Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin developed a plan and corresponding chart for regulating his future conduct. He based his plan on a chart of thirteen virtues. He committed to giving strict attention to one virtue each week - placing a mark on his chart each time he transgressed that week’s virtue. After thirteen weeks he moved through all thirteen virtues. He would repeat the course four times a year. Use this modern incarnation of Benjamin Franklin’s original chart to improve and regulate your daily conduct. Every evening review your day. Tap the day's date to place a mark if you transgressed the week's virtue. One virtue is highlighted every week and the whole chart should be completed four times in a year. The goal is to live your days - giving strict attention to each virtue - without having to place any marks on your chart. Thank you for checking out Ben's Virtues. If you like the app please let me know what virtue you are currently focusing on by leaving a quick review.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Catholic Calendar at 4.8 against Ben's Virtues's 4.3. Catholic Calendar also leads on review sentiment (82% vs 60%) and ratings volume (993 vs 37). Ben's Virtues's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 10). On price, update cadence, ads and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Catholic Calendar sells 10 in-app purchases, starting at $0.99 per month. Ben's Virtues asks for nothing beyond the download.
Catholic Calendar holds the better App Store score, 4.8 against 4.3. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Catholic Calendar has 993 ratings behind it against 37, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 82% of Catholic Calendar's written reviews are positive against 60% of Ben's Virtues's.
Catholic Calendar ships an update every 3 weeks, Ben's Virtues every 4 weeks. The most recent releases landed on November 6, 2026 and October 31, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Catholic Calendar | Ben's Virtues |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.8 (993 ratings) — better | 4.3 (37 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 81.9% of reviews — better | 60.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 993 — better | 37 |
| Update frequency | Every 3 weeks — better | Every 4 weeks |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple Watch | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple Watch |
| Requires iOS | 15.6 | 15.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 77 MB | 31 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Universalis Publishing | Reason Interactive |
Customer experience
Catholic Calendar
Ben's Virtues
User reviews
Catholic Calendar
From 993 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Keeps me informed and organized
- 👍 Best app for daily prayer
- 👍 Great prayer tool
- 👍 Wonderful spiritual aid
- 👍 Faithful companion
Room to improve
- 🐛 Psalter
- 🐛 Notification Bells TAKE OVER MY iPhone!!!
- 🐛 App crashes
- 🐛 Something is wrong
- 🐛 Subscription not sharable across apple family members
Ben's Virtues
From 37 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Simple and clean design
- 💡 Great idea for self-improvement
- ✅ Easy to use
- ✨ Inspiring and practical
- 🎯 Helps with personal growth
Room to improve
- 🐛 App crashes frequently
- 🐛 Data loss and resets
- 🐛 Blank screen issues
- 🐛 Inconsistent functionality
- 🐛 Not working on newer OS/devices
Bugs and requests
Catholic Calendar
Reported bugs
4 issues- App crashes when you try to open
- Crashes on iPhone 6 with IOS 12
- App refuses to open
- Update with widget for iOS14 opens and immediately closes
Requested features
8 requests- Look up option
- Memorial Dates
- Add Eastern Catholic Saints' Feasts, & other Feasts only celebrated by Eastern Catholics, to the Eastern General calendar
- Add Holy Rosary & Divine Mercy Chaplet
- Add 1961 General & local liturgical calendars, 1961 Roman Breviary, 1962 Roman Missal
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- Alerts
- Spanish daily readings
- Add dates to calendar
Ben's Virtues
Reported bugs
25 issues- Blank screen
- Crashes every time it's opened
- App no longer works
- Keeps resetting and losing progress
- Data doesn't get stored or saved
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- App doesn't work
- Can only choose one virtue line
- Updates remove data
- Keeps losing progress
- Dots don't appear on any other virtues except the highlighted one
- History/tracking deleted on iOS update
- Impossible to put marks on any of the virtues except the one highlighted
- Impossible to put more than one mark on a virtue per day
- Rewording of Franklin's description of Chastity
- Chart boots out after 3 or 4 weeks
- Doesn't move forward each day
- No way to manually set the calendar date
- App completely reset itself
- Randomly resetting itself and deleting prior progress
- Keeps randomly reseting itself and deleting prior progress
- Just freezes immediately on opening
- App doesn't work...at all
- Wil not run on ipad
- Didn't work on my iPad
- Not working right now
Requested features
23 requests- Allow setting custom start day
- Enable marking all virtues daily
- Allow adding custom virtues
- Improve visibility of virtue tracking
- Option to export data
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- Include samples of Ben Franklin's tracked virtues
- Allow multiple marks per day
- Support for more than one virtue focus at a time
- Add ability to cycle through thirteen weeks with marking on other virtues
- Make it able to put dots in EVERY spot per day
- Add ability to change "virtues" to add your own
- Add tab with passage from Franklin's bio
- Allow user to set start day
- Add ability to put more than one mark on a virtue per day
- Allow tracking of multiple virtues
- Add option to create custom virtues
- Set alarm/push notification for daily rating
- Include video and autobiography section
- Update app to 4.0
- Allow marking any virtues on any given day
- Include option of creating your own list of virtues
- Add higher level of personalization
- Add more discussion on each virtue
In-app purchases
Catholic Calendar
- Daily texts7 Days trial$0.991 Month
- Daily Mass Readings1 Month trial$1.991 Month
- Daytime Hours1 Month trial$2.991 Month
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- All Hours1 Month trial$2.991 Month
- Daily Mass Readings1 Month trial$19.991 Year
- All Hours1 Month trial$29.991 Year
- July 2011$0.99
- September 2011$0.99
- October 2011$0.99
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- Sung Latin Compline$3.99
Ben's Virtues
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Catholic Calendar free?
Is Ben's Virtues free?
Which has better reviews, Catholic Calendar or Ben's Virtues?
Do Catholic Calendar or Ben's Virtues have ads?
Which is updated more often, Catholic Calendar or Ben's Virtues?
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