St Bede reading the Bible

Introduction

Are you searching for a good freeware Bible Software package that you are comfortable with? I understand and after searching for weeks to find just the right Bible software package for myself I decided to share my results with everyone.

Below you will find links for those that I have found so far... If you know of a freeware bible that is not listed please e-mail me and let me know so I can add it to this page. I do my best to rate each package on a scale of 1-5 however I have a bias as a preacher, if package doesn't include a commentary such as Matthew Henry's or Matthew Poole's then I tend to underestimate its usefullness. Speaking of Matthew Poole's commentary I have decided that chasing this fine commentary down over the Internet is too much work so I have made Poole's Study Notes available here (in a zipped file format) as a module for use with the "E-Sword" Bible Software package. The Online Bible sells a CD which also has Poole's.

Clicking on the "Download" link will take you to that package's homepage, with the exception of the FreeBible by Steven Kollmansberger which is no longer being developed. However, the software package he developed was so nice I have kept it on the list and made it available for download from this site.

Please let me know if you find any of the information on this page outdated.

The List

Theophilos v3.1.6
My rating: 4.7 [Download] Theophilos is a complete freeware multilingual Bible study suite for Windows 95/98/ME/2000/NT/XP/Vista/Windows 7 with multimedia features. Most, if not all of the updates to this package for the past year have been to insure that the program works in the newer operating systems. Many add-ons which do cost however there are also many free add-ons for this product. Multi-Platform pkg.
Online Bible v4.14.02
My rating: 4.8 [Download] Bible software for Windows and Macintosh. Online Bible program with hundreds of public-domain English & foreign language Bible translations, commentaries, & note sets to choose from. This is a Multi-Platform pkg for both Windows and Macintosh and has really made some major improvements over the past year.
The Sword Project v1.5.11
My rating: 4.6 [Download] The CrossWire Bible Society's flagship offering. The basic package is similar to the Online Bible. The Sword project has over 200 texts & 50 Bible versions available as add-ons. The website is confusing which makes finding everything for your version of the program difficult. Multi-Platform pkg.
e-Sword v10.2.1
My rating: 4.8 [Download] This Rick Meyers 51.6MB offering is awesome. The program has undergone a total rebuild so you will lose some things if you upgrade from v8. Over 30 English bibles and over 50 add-ons, all free! Also supports the STEP files format used by QuickVerse, WORDsearch, Bible Companion, and others. Now rated as a Multi-Platform pkg and with integrated audio sermons from SermonAudio.com!.
Bible Analyzer v4.4.4.01
My rating: 4.6 [Download] Developed by Tim Morton this very nice program was created to provide a feature rich environment among which you will find text comparison, proximity searches, detailed statistics, etc. (some of these you will not find even on commercial programs). The basic program download is much improved over earlier versions and the "modules" section allows you to make some massive customizations. Runs under the Windows and Linux operating systems.
Bible Desktop v1.6
My rating: 3.6 [Download] A Free Bible Study tool that will run almost anywhere. It uses Java to run from your browser, so long as you have that it should be easy. In the past year the tab style interface has been cleaned up which makes using the program much easier. Bible Desktop uses the J-Sword project to read modules in "The Sword Project" format. No new developments were made in 2011.
Bible Plus
My rating: 3.0 [Download] This free Bible study tool comes without advertising or nags. It is totally free. Bible Plus is also very quick and easy. Development of the program has stopped so I do not know if the program will run on PC's with the Vista or Windows7 OS. Since it's so small (2.9mb) you can easily use it in conjunction with more powerful Bible study tools.
The WORD v3.2.1.1167
My rating: 4.7 [Download] Costas Stergiou, from Athens Greece, provides us with this very nice program created to run on the PC, There is also an option to make the program portable so it will run from a thumb-drive. This is the most improved package over the past year that I have seen (again in 2011). Multiple translations (over 40 languages) of the Bible are provided via download. Very well laid out for study and note taking.
BiblePro
My rating: 3.8 [Download] This BibleOcean PC program (v12.7.5) has 5 discrete donation requests on the first page! The layout and initial resources place it on a level somewhere between The FreeBible and e-Sword. For any upgrade beyond that you need to buy/donate for the CD and I find no updates or development in 2011. The program now operates on the iPad, iPhone and Android and they have a Web-Version but with the ads I found that to be confusing.
BerBible v2.50.2
My rating: 4.0 [Download] The biggest benefit to the Berean Bible Study Freeware that I can see is the number of newer Bible translations that are free with this package. The emphasis of the package is Bibles so the standard download will have over a dozen different Bible translations right from the start. The layout is a little clunky but given the number of resources they provide it works well and it is fast. I am reminded of early "Sword Project" versions when using this package and I find no updates or development in 2011.
The FreeBible v1.3.1
My rating: 3.4 [Download] Nice "user friendly" basic package with commentaries, maps, clipboard etc. No longer supported by the author Steven Kollmansberger. You can still download this 16.1 megabyte package from itsthebible.com. Still decent but it's age is finally starting to show.

Top of page