Lantern Bible vs Margin
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Lantern Bible
This app offers in-depth Bible study with multiple translations, inline commentary, and personalized reading plans. It includes tools for highlighting, bookmarking, and taking notes, all accessible offline.
- Four Bible translations included
- Inline commentary and study notes
- Structured reading plans with streak tracking
- Highlighting, bookmarking, and personal notes
- Full offline functionality
- Simultaneous full-text search across translations
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Lantern Bible is a Bible app for readers who want to go deeper — built around commentary, reading plans, and the tools that turn reading into study. FOUR TRANSLATIONS — ALL BUNDLED IN - BSB — Berean Standard Bible (modern, accurate) - KJV — King James Version (1769) - NET — New English Translation (full study-note edition) - MSB — Majority Standard Bible (Textus Receptus base) All four are included at install. No separate downloads. COMMENTARY & STUDY NOTES Inline commentary and study notes accompany the text so you can read and understand Scripture in context. Notes sit right alongside the passage you're reading. READING PLANS - M'Cheyne One-Year Plan: read through the whole Bible in a year across coordinated Old and New Testament passages each day - 5x5x5 Plan: five minutes a day, five days a week through the New Testament - Streak tracking keeps your momentum going across sessions. PERSONAL TOOLS - Highlights: mark verses in multiple colors and return to them later - Bookmarks: save any passage for quick access - Personal notes: write your own reflections directly alongside the text OFFLINE READING Everything works without a network connection once installed. Read on a plane, in a remote area, or anywhere without signal — full text and all tools available offline. SEARCH Full-text search across all four translations simultaneously. Find any word, phrase, or passage across the entire Bible instantly. WHY LANTERN Commentary, study notes, four translations, reading plans, offline access, and personal tools in one focused, distraction-free app. The BSB and MSB are modern and accurate finding both alongside the full-note NET edition and the KJV in a single app is rare. PERFECT FOR - Daily Bible readers who want commentary alongside the text - Readers following a structured one-year or New Testament plan - Students preparing for small group, Sunday school, or personal devotion - Anyone who wants to highlight, bookmark, and note their way through Scripture Download Lantern Bible and read Scripture the way it was meant to be studied. Support: support@lanternbible.app Privacy: https://lanternbible.app/privacy
Margin
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You know the moment: mid-sermon, the phone next to you lights up with a full-screen ad. Or you open a Bible app to read one verse and land in a feed instead. Margin is what's left when you take all of that away: the text, set with real care, and study tools deep enough to keep you here. No feed. No ads. No account required. Scripture is free in Margin, forever, and it always will be. THE COVENANT We built the business model around the complaints people leave on every other Bible app. - Scripture is free, always. Charging for God's word isn't something we're willing to do. - One honest price for the study toolset, and no subscription anywhere in the app. Buy it once, like a good study Bible, instead of renting it every month. - No account, ever. Highlights and notes sync through your own private iCloud. We never see them. - Nothing that's free today gets taken away later. - We never ask you to rate the app, and reading-plan streaks forgive a missed day instead of resetting to zero. READ, THE WAY A PRINTED BIBLE READS (free, always) - Three complete translations bundled offline: Berean Standard, World English, and King James - Real book typography: poetry set as poetry, psalm titles where they belong, section headings that orient you - True black for reading at night, sepia for a paper-like calm, and a font-size range built for eyes that need it - Opens exactly where you left off, every time STUDY AS DEEP AS YOU WANT (Margin Pro, one-time purchase) - Tap any word for the Greek or Hebrew behind it: lemma, transliteration, and a full definition from a 14,000-entry Strong's lexicon, entirely offline - Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary, sitting beside the passage, offline - Two translations, side by side - Search the way a concordance works: exact phrases, Old or New Testament filters, results in the Bible's own order - Follow a cross-reference, then tap once to come back, like keeping your finger in the page - Listen to any chapter read aloud: real human narration (World English Bible, public domain), with adjustable speed and a sleep timer - Family Sharing included: one purchase covers your household SHARE A VERSE LIKE YOU MEAN IT (free for everyone) Most Bible apps turn a verse into a stock quote graphic. Margin turns it into something you'd actually send to the one person you were already thinking of: your own words in the margin, written by hand with Apple's own pencil tools, not a font pretending to be your handwriting. Put someone's name on it, or keep it plain. It's free for everyone, because getting Scripture into someone's hands shouldn't cost either of you anything. BUILD THE HABIT WITHOUT THE SHAME - Reading plans from John in 21 days to the whole Bible in a year: scripture only, no devotional filler - A missed day never breaks your streak, and you can turn streaks off completely - Highlights in six colors and notes on any verse, all in one browse-everything screen, independent of translation BUILT FOR IPHONE, NOT PORTED TO IT - Verse-of-the-day widgets for your Home Screen and Lock Screen - Shortcuts that jump straight back to your place - Fast and native, with Dynamic Type that holds up at any size AN AI THAT POINTS, NEVER SPEAKS FOR GOD (three free questions a day) Ask about the chapter you have open, or find passages by theme: "anxiety about the future," "forgiving someone who isn't sorry." Every verse it shows is pulled from your Bible rather than written by the model, and every claim cites book and chapter. It admits what it doesn't know, and it never claims to speak for God. Three questions a day are free for everyone. No account, no card, nothing to cancel. Margin Pro lifts the count for good. This used to be a separate monthly subscription. The cost of running it dropped far enough that charging monthly would have meant charging you for almost nothing, so we folded it into the one-time price and dropped the subscription. Margin. A Bible with nothing between you and the text.
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Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Lantern Bible at none against Margin's 1. Margin's advantage is update cadence (weekly vs every 6 weeks). On price, ads, device support 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
Both are free to download. Margin sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Lantern Bible asks for nothing beyond the download.
Lantern Bible ships an update every 6 weeks, Margin weekly. The most recent releases landed on October 24, 2026 and October 25, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Lantern Bible | Margin |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 5.0 (2 ratings) — better | — |
| Number of ratings | 2 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 6 weeks | Weekly — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Free | — |
| Devices | iPhone | iPhone |
| Requires iOS | 18.0 | 18.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 117 MB | 47 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Tywon MUCKLER | deniz misirli |
In-app purchases
Lantern Bible
No in-app purchases
Margin
- Margin Pro$39.99
Questions
Is Lantern Bible free?
Is Margin free?
Do Lantern Bible or Margin have ads?
Which is updated more often, Lantern Bible or Margin?
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