Logos or Accordance? (Bible Software) and why you should spend the $$$

Some thoughts from a switcher

7 min readFeb 13, 2018

If you end up signing up with Logos, this link will give you $100 off (and my brother in law who is studying full time at Bible college will get $100 credit as well.)

UPDATE: I’ve realised there was something missing from this article, perhaps the most important thing. It’s this: The decision between Accordance and Logos doesn’t really matter all that much. Both are excellent, world class, and ultimately both do everything you would need to do in ministry just fine. Better than fine — it’s incredible. There are people doing excellent ministry who use one, and people doing excellent ministry who use the other. It’s kind of like trying to work out whether iPhone or Android will help your ministry more… probably as long as you have a phone you’re going to be ok. If you spend more than a few hours making this decision, I would suggest that you would probably have a better outcome if you just picked one or the other and then invested those hours in watching the training videos on how to use it. That’s a step people skip, and so they end up only ever using their thermomix to boil water (so to speak).
Ok, that said, here’s the rest:

I used to use Accordance, but now I use Logos.

I bought Accordance in 2012, the ‘Ultimate’ package, loved it, used it heaps. Then in 2015 started using Logos. In the end I liked it so much that I sold my Accordance package and went to Logos. I’m super happy with it.

You need a fast computer though. [Update: In 2022, Logos released an update that has made it much faster, especially if you are on a Mac with Apple Silicon. It is still true that you need a fast computer, but these speed improvements have helped a lot and on my 2020 Macbook Air with M1 chip it is very, very fast now.]

The thing that drove me over the edge in the end was the reading experience. Accordance doesn’t seem to realise they are an electronic book seller, they have not developed a nice reading set up. Logos is amazing to read in, whether tablet or laptop.

Logos has a ton more features, some of which I even use; a couple that I love. The longer I use Logos the more I love it. For a Bible College student, the most important aspect is the ability to do quick exegetical work in the text. Logos used to be poor at this but in the last few years they have improved to be on par with Accordance, especially if you know how to set up your workspace well.

I used to say that the original language tools on Logos’ mobile apps (iOS, Android) were inferior to Accordances. They have made huge steps forward in this lately. I now think their mobile apps are far better than Accordance’s offering.

Downsides of Logos:

[OUT OF DATE]: As I said, you do need a fast computer — but in the future this will matter less as they are constantly improving its speed while computers continue to get faster too. [Update — as of 2022, this is really a non-issue now for most people I think. A Macbook Air for less than $1400 AUD can run this program really really really well]
In general you will pay a bit more on Logos for everything, but that’s because they are (a) the market leader, and (b) do the most stuff. They are the Apple of the Bible software world. But I think the price difference is closing: the Accordance packages used to be incredible value, but a few years ago they wrecked them. [This is probably out of date too — I haven’t compared the packages for several years now].

Whichever way you go, set aside an hour a week to watch introductory videos. You won’t be doing this for the rest of your life but if you’ve invested in it you might as well know how to use it. I’ve found Logos’ quick start videos invaluable.

In fact let me emphasise this point: I see people agonise over the decision of whether to get Accordance or Logos, and spend hours and hours researching. Honestly, you would be better to flip a coin, buy whatever comes up, and then put those hours into learning to use the software instead. Again, these software tools are powerful, but if you don’t invest the time learning to use them, it would be like owning a $2000 Thermomix and only ever using it to boil water. Don’t be that guy. Set yourself a deadline to make this decision and leave a bunch of hours left over to do the intro videos and learn the ropes.

TDLR: Logos is better, especially since the release of Logos 10. Accordance’s advantage used to be its speed but I think they’ve lost that edge and both are plenty fast now.

But it’s so much money!

Whichever way you go, it might feel immoral or wasteful to spend so much money. Let me explain why I think it’s dumb not to.

A friend said ‘for this price I could buy a small car!’ That’s actually a good analogy. All workers buy the right tools to do their job. For my friend who is a waterproofer, that included a $30,000 Ute. For a doctor it includes a $250,000 microscope.
Lucky for us, the best tools available cost 1% of that.

I sometimes see people at Bible College scrimp on their library (electronic or paper), and when it’s for genuine financial necessity then you can’t fault them. But if it’s for any other reason, it is a false economy. Here’s why: You are spending $20,000 per year on your degree, plus an additional $50,000 (or more) in lost income because you’re not working. So if you “save” $2000 by not buying a program and then lose a couple of hours every week for 4 years going to the library or doing things slower, it’s a net loss.

As a minister you will cost the church $100,000 per year. They will want us to do our job well in that year. They don’t want to pay us almost $2,000 every week for us to spend a day every week going to a public library and flicking through books. That’s false economy. It’s cheaper just to buy the right tools so that we can do the job quickly and efficiently.

Of course the law of diminishing returns means there does come a point where too much has been spent on tools. But sometimes I think we can be too reluctant to spend money on things that are actually good investments. My view is that no good builder skimps on his tools, and neither should a pastor. Often ‘saving money’ by buying cheap tools is false economy. It’s not wrong and it’s not selfish to spend money on the resources you will need to do your job well.

What to buy

NOTE — Logos is about to move to a subscription model. It’s not quite clear how this will play out, but I think it will be a good thing. It will lower the upfront costs for people, even if it does cost more over the very long run. I suspect that buying books/resources will still make sense, but that we will end up renting the features. You may want to avoid investing too heavily in features. As they move to the subscription model, they are likely to give people a good window of time to buy the features (rather than rent them) so you will probably still have this option. If you keep an eye on the Logos page every few weeks, esp in the second half of 2024, you will get plenty of warning I am sure. There may also be good discounts around at that time.

Below is what I had written before I found out about the subscription model:

For what it’s worth if you went the Logos route I would do this:

Get the student discount before you buy anything — it’s heaps cheaper. But bear in mind you will only be able to resell things bought with a student discount to other students. I’m ok with that since I’m planning to use my library until I die and leave it to someone in my will.
Buy the [insert package here] (or higher) — not including features, just books. Earlier versions of this article recommended a particular package but they’ve changed it up so much that I haven’t kept pace. But most of the time its a good idea to buy a package. I have a friend who thought “I’ll save money if I just buy what I need when I need it”. Three years later we added up what he spent on them versus what it would have cost to get it in a package, and he spent more than he had to.
You probably look at it and think, I won’t use all those things. Firstly, that’s not really relevant: it includes a bunch of really good resources that you will definitely use which would cost a lot more if you bought them separately. But additionally, you’ll be surprised how much you use the other stuff. Logos is pretty good at directing you to find answers/gems in resources you forgot you even had (this is one thing that makes it better than Accordance).

A good combo, if you can get it, would be the Academic “essentials” feature set (you might even get it half price through your educational institution) plus the Logos 7 Platinum legacy package, which includes a great range of useful resources.

For Bible College students, you will probably want to make sure you get:

Get BDAG (and HALOT if you’re a Hebrew student) — these are the industry standard dictionaries and you will need them at Bible College. It’s a shame they are so expensive, but that’s what quality costs. (You can get BDAG, but not HALOT, in some other bundles e.g. this one)
Buy the Stuttgatensia package — this gives you all the standard text critical texts.
Keep an eye out for sales and gradually add commentaries as they go on sale.
When you do all this, email a customer service representative and ask them if they can do you a better deal. But watch out for upselling. Also mention me and see if they’ll give me referral credit ;) [4 years later, a lot of people have read this article but I still haven’t seen any of that referral credit haha]