Comparison

e vs Massarrah

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

e

Explore over 1,000 digitized medieval manuscripts with high-resolution images. Bookmark, download, and view historical documents offline, complete with scholarly descriptions.

Highlights
  • Browse over 1,000 digitized manuscripts
  • View over 450,000 high-resolution pages
  • Bookmark favorite manuscripts
  • Download manuscripts for offline viewing
  • Access scholarly manuscript descriptions
Read full description

The Virtual Manuscript Library of Switzerland. Browse through over 3'000 fully digitized manuscripts on your iPhone and iPad. Over 1'000'000 pages in high resolution. Bookmark, download and view manuscripts offline. Includes scholarly manuscript descriptions from official catalogs. Explore medieval and early modern manuscripts from Swiss collections on iPhone and iPad. Browse illuminated codices, papyri, fragments, liturgical books, literary works, scientific texts, and even modern autographs such as Albert Einstein’s. The collection spans many centuries and languages, from Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Syriac, Sanskrit, and Persian to French, English, Old High German and even Nahuatl.

About

Massarrah

Learn humanity's oldest writing system, cuneiform, through guided lessons and interactive mini-games. Explore famous ancient tablets and track your progress with a gamified system. Designed for history buffs and language learners.

Highlights
  • Learn 44 authentic cuneiform signs
  • Explore famous ancient tablets
  • Spaced repetition for effective review
  • Eight cuneiform mini-games
  • Gamified progress tracking with streaks and achievements
  • Offline core lessons and practice
  • Historically accurate content
Features
Read full description

Five thousand years ago, the people of ancient Mesopotamia pressed the first written words into wet clay. Massarrah teaches you to read them. Cuneiform is humanity's oldest writing system. With Massarrah you don't just admire it behind museum glass — you learn it, sign by sign, at your own pace. LEARN REAL CUNEIFORM Master 44 authentic signs across four guided levels — vowels, syllables, logograms, and numbers. Every sign comes with its meaning, pronunciation, and audio, so you learn to recognize it and read it. EXPLORE THE FAMOUS TABLETS Discover the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Code of Hammurabi, the Cyrus Cylinder and more — each presented with the story of what it says and why it still matters today. PRACTICE THAT STICKS Massarrah schedules every review with spaced repetition — proven learning science — right before you'd forget. Eight cuneiform mini-games turn daily practice into something you'll want to return to. TRACK YOUR JOURNEY Build a daily streak, earn XP, climb the scribe ranks, and unlock 84 achievements as your skill grows. Your progress, your pace. WALK 5,000 YEARS OF HISTORY Follow the story of writing itself — from the first pictographs of Uruk to the empires that carried cuneiform across the ancient world. THOUGHTFULLY BUILT • Core lessons and practice work offline — learn anywhere • Private by default — start learning anonymously, no account required • Historically accurate — content grounded in real scholarship • Accessible — designed for learners of all abilities Whether you love history, collect languages, study the ancient world, or are simply curious where writing began — Massarrah turns 5,000 years of human history into something you can hold, read, and understand. Begin your journey as a scribe.

Screenshots

e4 screens
Massarrah4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: e at none against Massarrah's 6. e also leads on ratings volume (7 vs 1). Massarrah's advantage is review sentiment (100% vs 89%) and device support. On price, rating and iOS requirement 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Massarrah sells 6 one-off in-app purchases. e asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for e against 5.0 for Massarrah. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: e has 7 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 89% of e's written reviews are positive against 100% of Massarrah's.

Scorecard5 real differences · 5 level
e versus Massarrah: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParametereMassarrah
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (7 ratings)5.0 (1 ratings)
Positive reviews88.9% of reviews100.0% of reviews — better
Number of ratings7 — better1
Update frequencyEvery 70 months—
Ads—No
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationFree — betterFree with in-app purchases
Devices—iPhone, iPad — better
Requires iOS18.017.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size4 MB86 MB
Age rating9+4+
Developertext & bytes LLCAlan Shami

Customer experience

e

Written reviews9 reviews
Positive88.9%
Neutral11.1%
Negative0.0%

Massarrah

All ratings1 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews1 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

None

e

No in-app purchases

6 purchases

Massarrah

One-time6
  • Clay Token Tip$0.99
  • Reed Stylus Tip$2.99
  • Clay Tablet Tip$4.99
Show 3 more
  • Scribe's Seal Tip$9.99
  • Lapis Lazuli Tip$24.99
  • Royal Decree Tip$49.99

Questions

Is e free?
e is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Massarrah free?
Massarrah is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, e or Massarrah?
e and Massarrah are both rated 5.0 out of 5 on the App Store, from 7 and 1 ratings respectively.

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