Quran Explorer vs AsterScope
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Quran Explorer
Explore the Quran with a complete, ad-free digital text featuring diacritical marks and English translations. Listen to recitations, bookmark verses, and customize your reading experience with adjustable fonts and modes. Unlock more features with a one-time purchase.
- Complete Quran with diacritical marks
- Side-by-side English translation
- Audio recitation by famous Qari
- Bookmarking
- Scalable font sizes
- Portrait and landscape mode
- Ayah highlighting
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Our Quran Explorer app is the perfect tool for anyone seeking a comprehensive and user-friendly way to explore the Quran. Available on iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch, this essential app is completely ad-free in both the basic and premium versions. Features include: - Complete, scalable Quran with all diacritical marks - Side-by-side English translation by Mufti Taqi Usmani with audio - Beautiful Uthmanic and IndoPak script (fonts) - Complete audio recitation by famous Qari Sheikh Mishari Rashid and more - Bookmarking up to 3 and more - Bulk download (for last ten suras only) - Portrait and landscape mode - Scalable font sizes - Sura and Juz index - High-quality audio recitation with ayah highlighting - Pinch/zoom feature for changing the font size - Fast audio playback through robust download method with progress icon - Colored ayah marking to show downloaded audio - Contextual toolbar on double tap - Option to update existing content (for fixing errors in Quran text, translation or audio) - Goto aya feature - Our complete Arabic text and translation have been proofread by a Muslim scholar ('alim), ensuring accuracy and authenticity. For those seeking even more features, our paid version (available for only USD $4.99) offers additional translations, reciters, English and Urdu translation audio, unlimited bookmarks, background audio, disable standby feature, bulk download, and much more. Explore the Quran like never before with our Quran Explorer app.
AsterScope
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AsterScope is the transparent stargazing planner built for real observers — from first-time binocular users to seasoned deep-sky hunters. Instead of dumping a wall of coordinates, it answers the question you actually care about: "Is tonight worth setting up?" EXPLAINABLE TONIGHT PLAN Every plan is scored on five independent pillars — Sky clarity, Moon friendliness, Dark hours, Gear fit, and Target quality — and visualized as a five-axis radar chart. You see at a glance which pillar is dragging the night down, plus a one-tap remediation hint ("Switch to planets tonight, deep-sky is compromised by the bright Moon"). TRENDING SKY EVENTS A built-in event ranker surfaces what is actually worth chasing this week — meteor peaks, lunar phases, planetary conjunctions, eclipses, ISS passes — ordered by visibility from your location, not by hype. COMMUNITY HOTSPOTS (OPTIONAL) See where stargazers around the world are heading right now. AsterScope quietly listens to public posts on Mastodon and Bluesky, extracts location signals for US, EU, and Japan dark-sky sites, and shows a ranked hotspot list. Tap any hotspot to open the original post in your browser — no third-party text is rendered inside the app. INTERACTIVE SKY CHART Real-time gnomonic projection backed by precise ephemeris. Tap any object for rise/set times, an altitude graph, and imaging suitability. Horizon-up mode mirrors what you see in the eyepiece. AR SKY OVERLAY Point your phone at the sky and AsterScope labels stars, planets, and deep-sky objects in real time. Markers stay pinned to celestial positions as you pan across the night. DARK-SKY FINDER Browse nearby dark-sky sites with Bortle ratings, compare light pollution, and plan trips to the best location within driving distance. OBSERVATION LOGBOOK Pin must-see objects to a Tonight List, work through them during the session, and keep a searchable log with year reports and CSV / Markdown export. BUILT FOR READABILITY Full Dynamic Type support across plans, events, logs, AR hints, and the dark-sky map — text scales cleanly with your iOS text size, including the larger accessibility sizes, with no clipping or overlap. WHAT YOUR APP PURCHASE INCLUDES The paid download already unlocks Tonight Score, the explainable plan, sky chart, AR overlay, dark-sky finder, observation log, weather forecasts, trending sky events, community hotspots, and the Core catalog (planets, the Moon, bright stars, and popular Messier objects). No subscription. No auto-renewal. OPTIONAL ONE-TIME CATALOG UPGRADES For deep-sky observers who want the long tail, two non-consumable, one-time upgrades extend catalog depth only: - Catalog Upgrade — adds Extended and Pro Deep Sky catalogs to planning, search, AR, and offline packs. - Ad-Free Catalog Upgrade — same catalogs, with no third-party ads. Neither is required to use the app. PRIVACY AsterScope uses coarse location only. Coordinates are rounded to a roughly 1 km grid before any third-party request. Apple WeatherKit, Open-Meteo, 7Timer ASTRO, and NASA GIBS receive only the rounded coordinates needed for forecasts and imagery. The community hotspot feature reads only public posts via official public endpoints (Mastodon, Bluesky), aggregates them on-device, and never uploads your location or identity. We do not collect or sell personal data. Full policy: https://qixiaobing54673.github.io/asterscope-site/privacy.html AsterScope works offline for core sky calculations. An internet connection is needed for weather, dark-sky site information, image fetching, trending events, and community hotspots.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Quran Explorer at Free against AsterScope's $3.99. Quran Explorer also leads on device support (4 vs 2) and iOS requirement (12.0 vs 17.0). AsterScope's advantage is update cadence (monthly vs every 6 months). On ads and in-app purchases 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
Quran Explorer is free to download; AsterScope costs $3.99 up front. Quran Explorer sells 2 one-off in-app purchases and AsterScope sells 2 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Quran Explorer ships an update every 6 months, AsterScope monthly. The most recent releases landed on October 18, 2026 and September 29, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Quran Explorer | AsterScope |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free — better | $3.99 |
| Rating | 4.8 (54K ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 92.2% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 54K — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 6 months | Monthly — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple Watch — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 12.0 — better | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 112 MB | 12 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Noble Education Foundation, Inc. | 红斌 戚 |
Bugs and requests
Quran Explorer
Reported bugs
3 issues- Login screen freezes
- Incompatible with older devices
- Network error when playing some reciters
Requested features
12 requests- Audio translation switch off option
- Customizable marking for listening from random words
- Customizable listening feature like a MP3 player
- Juz/Sapara search and listen option
- Tajweed version for reading
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- Playlists of surahs for studying the Quran
- More reciters like Sheikh Noreen
- More English translations
- Word lookup with pronunciation
- Dark theme
- English search functionality
- Verse export with Sura:verse number format
AsterScope
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Quran Explorer
- Mishari-Rashid-HQFree
- Quran Explorer Full Upgrade$4.99
AsterScope
- Catalog Upgrade$4.99
- Ad-Free Catalog Upgrade$7.99
Questions
Is Quran Explorer free?
Is AsterScope free?
Do Quran Explorer or AsterScope have ads?
Which is updated more often, Quran Explorer or AsterScope?
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