Comparison

Critica vs Bible Explorer by OCC

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

Head to head
About

Critica

This app provides critical annotations for Islamic texts, including the Quran, Hadith, Sira, Fiqh, and Tafsir. It flags and explains issues like violence, misogyny, and historical errors, citing specific sources for verification. Designed for readers seeking a deeper, critical understanding of Islamic tradition.

Highlights
  • Annotated Quran (Meccan/Medinan)
  • Six Sunni & Twelver Shia Hadith collections
  • Event-based biography of Muhammad (Sira)
  • Classical jurisprudence (Fiqh) on contested topics
  • Major classical Tafsir commentaries
  • Source citation for every claim
  • Filterable flags for critical issues
Features
Read full description

Critica is a critical-edition reference covering the full primary sourcebase of Islam across five tabs: • QURAN — All 114 surahs, grouped Meccan / Medinan, with section-by-section annotations. • HADITH — The six Sunni books (Bukhari, Muslim, Abu Dawud, Tirmidhi, Nasa'i, Ibn Majah) and the Twelver Shia al-Kafi, with the most consequential and most-cited narrations. • SIRA — Muhammad's biography by event cluster — Mecca, Hijra, Badr, Uhud, the Jewish-tribe encounters, Khaybar, the conquest of Mecca, the Farewell Sermon. • FIQH — Classical jurisprudence on contested topics across the four Sunni madhabs (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i, Hanbali) and the Twelver Ja'fari school: apostasy, marriage age, hudud, polygamy, jizya, FGM, and more. • TAFSIR — Major classical exegetes (Tabari, Ibn Kathir, Qurtubi, Razi, Tabarsi, Zamakhshari) with their distinctive readings of famous verses. Every flag is sourced. Each section cites a specific ayah (Q surah:verse), a hadith number (Bukhari 5134), a sira page (Ibn Hisham 2:240), or a madhab manual (al-Mughni 9:486) so a curious reader can verify the claim in any translation. The eleven flag categories: • Violence • Misogyny • Slavery • Hostility to unbelievers • Anti-LGBTQ teaching • Harm to children • Scientific errors • Historical errors • Contradictions • Moral problems • Logical issues Filter by flag to focus on one kind of issue at a time. Tap any flag to expand its full annotation. The reading level is middle-school to high-school. The tone is editorial, not polemical — the reader assumed throughout is someone who was told the tradition was perfect and noticed otherwise, and wants substantive engagement with what mainstream critical scholarship has actually said. SOURCES Patricia Crone, Michael Cook, John Wansbrough, Gerd-R. Puin, Christoph Luxenberg, Tom Holland, Robert G. Hoyland, Fred Donner, Joseph Schacht, G.H.A. Juynboll, Ignaz Goldziher, Jonathan Brown, Wael Hallaq, Ibn Warraq, and the Skeptic's Annotated Quran. Classical sources cited directly include the Six Books of Sunni hadith, al-Kafi, Ibn Hisham's recension of Ibn Ishaq, al-Tabari's history, and the classical tafsirs of Tabari, Ibn Kathir, Qurtubi, Razi, Tabarsi, and Zamakhshari. Critica is the Islamic-tradition companion to Decanon (the same critical-edition treatment applied to the Protestant Bible).

About

Bible Explorer by OCC

Features
Read full description

The whole Bible, with the tools to study it, on your phone. No signal needed. Bible Explorer is built by Ontario Community Church, a congregation of about sixty-five in Ontario, Oregon. Everything in it is public domain, and the Bible and its study tools ship inside the app, so it works on a plane, in a canyon, or in the back row — what a small church can do with a little, given back. READ • Twelve translations: King James, American Standard, World English, Young's Literal, Darby, Webster, Douay-Rheims, Geneva (1599), Revised Version, Tyndale New Testament, JPS Tanakh, and Brenton's Septuagint • The church's own serif type, gold verse numbers, four reading themes (OCC, Parchment, Slate, Midnight), your text size and spacing • Tap any verse for commentary in a split-view pane, cross references, Strong's, and the verse in every translation at once • Tap any reference inside a commentary and it opens right there in a half sheet, with translation chips to compare it on the spot • Type a reference like John 3:16 and jump straight there, or search a phrase across the whole Bible • Focus mode, a verse of the day, top verses, your own reading streak, and picking up right where you left off STUDY • Nine commentaries, all built in: Matthew Henry, Jamieson-Fausset-Brown, Adam Clarke, Keil & Delitzsch, John Wesley, Barnes' Notes, the 1599 Geneva Bible's own marginal notes, John Calvin, and John Gill • Strong's Hebrew and Greek under every word, with that word's occurrences across every translation • Nearly a million cross references and more than 32,000 topics • Six Bible dictionaries: Easton, Smith, Hitchcock, ISBE, Nave's, and Torrey's • More than 3,000 people and 1,300 places, each with a map, its dictionary entries, and every verse that mentions them • Gustave Doré's 1866 Bible engravings, a downloadable illustrations pack linked right to the people, places, and chapters they depict • 718 hymns tied to the verses that inspired them • 24 reading plans, each with a preview before you start SAVE • Bookmarks, highlights, and your own notes and study notes, sorted by reference • Share cards for any verse, in four scenes to match the app's own themes • Everything syncs across your devices through your own iCloud account ALSO • An Apple Watch app: verse of the day, today's plan reading, bookmarks, and a full KJV reader on your wrist • A Messages app: send a verse card in iMessage straight from Verse of the Day, Bookmarks, or a KJV search OFFLINE • No account, no ads, no tracking, no subscription, no AI. Every translation, the nine commentaries, and the six dictionaries are built in. More books and art, and the Greek and Hebrew originals, are free optional downloads • Every translation, every commentary, and every dictionary in Bible Explorer is public domain WHAT MAKES IT DIFFERENT No account. No ads. No tracking. No subscription. No AI. Just the Bible and the tools to study it, built by a small church and given away.

Screenshots

Critica4 screens
Bible Explorer by OCC4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Bible Explorer by OCC at none against Critica's 1. Bible Explorer by OCC also leads on update cadence (every 9 days vs monthly) and device support (6 vs 2). On price, ads 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. Critica sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Bible Explorer by OCC asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Critica ships an update monthly, Bible Explorer by OCC every 9 days. The most recent releases landed on October 25, 2026 and October 24, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences · 6 level
Critica versus Bible Explorer by OCC: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterCriticaBible Explorer by OCC
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (1 ratings) — better—
Number of ratings1 — better—
Update frequencyMonthlyEvery 9 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFree—
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV, Apple Watch, Vision Pro — better
Requires iOS17.016.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size19 MB219 MB
Age rating17+4+
DeveloperOMAR DANIEL GRAZIANOPatrick Dailey

In-app purchases

1 purchases

Critica

One-time1
  • Full Access$9.99
None

Bible Explorer by OCC

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Critica free?
Critica is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Bible Explorer by OCC free?
Bible Explorer by OCC is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Critica or Bible Explorer by OCC have ads?
Neither Critica nor Bible Explorer by OCC shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Critica or Bible Explorer by OCC?
Critica ships an update monthly, and Bible Explorer by OCC every 9 days. Most recently, Critica was updated on October 25, 2026 and Bible Explorer by OCC on October 24, 2026.

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