Why I can no longer recommend Logos Bible Software.

I certainly don't recommend it. Buy a king's ransom of books, that need a substantial subscription for 'the power of Logos' … until … well 'forever'. Don't think so.

If someone wants to just subscribe to features, and then look at them each day, well ok. But it's not just 'features' that's in the financial equation. Most people buy books. And those will need …. features forever.

I am still not sold on the "reasonable cost" - I guess to test drive it for a couple months or two (or if needed for a semester, with no desire to do anything but rent) - otherwise, new users go back to the free engine, free books that may be included with it and whatever books they purchase, should they decide to purchase beyond the free and included subscription books…. When asked, I make that point very clear - coming in as a new user, there is nothing beyond the features that are available in the Free Engine if you decide to stop subscribing…. (I can't personally recommend something that I would avoid if it were my decision as a new user)

It is okay that you no longer feel that you can recommend Logos to your friends. I personally like the new features and see many applications for them. They help now in the preparation of Bible Study Classes to teach.

Also think that Sword Searcher has a very good offering for a good price that would meet the needs of many as well

As long as you understand that you are spending thousands for all those resources and the moment you stop subscribing you are stuck with the Free Engine features for all that investment…. (It is that point that is the biggest reason I will not push the product any longer - I cannot in good conscience get someone caught up in the trap….) Now if they add an LFL type ownership model at some point in the future - I may be able to go back to the way it was in promoting Logos…

I just can't stand to see someone pay a premium for resources, as others have been pointing out (which was always looked past because of the cost to tag the resources), but if someone pays the extra for the tagging and then has a change in budget that prevents them from subscribing…. It can be a bad investment for them and I want nothing to do with that…

Taking away ownership of Features was a decision that the company made, but will have to deal with (and should have known the backlash would come, if not, poor planning) the potential consequences….

I believe that 'a' subscription model is an asset… I guess I just line up more with the post from Bob that I shared a while back with the chocolate and vanilla scenario…. Why settle for one, when you can offer both and have more customers??? But, again time will tell…

When the topic of Original Languages comes up, it raises many questions in my mind. Logos is definitely the leader when it comes to quality and quantity of resources. But why are people now recommending it as the best software for original languages?

This was never the case until the demise of Bibleworks and now Accordance. Accordance is still in business and still selling books. But it appears that on the forums, users have been discovering lots of mistakes in OL databases. No reasonable person would expect those problems to get "fixed" anytime soon after seeing similar promises about other issues linger for months and even years.

But why were both of these programs considered superior to Logos just a few short years ago?

What can AI possibly add to what those programs did (and still do for some people)?

Which leads me to another question … What new AI features is Logos going to come up with to fulfill their vague promises about original language study on the MAX plan?

Seems to me what made BW and ACC good in the past was simply integration of the OL texts, the favorite OL resources, and a multilingual search capability that the majority of users considered good enough. Part of what made those programs more desirable to the majority was not only the ease at finding the information they wanted, but the precision. The search results were exact, not fuzzy.

What could AI possibly add to this? Everything about AI is fuzzy and uncertain. All of its conclusions must be verified before they can be relied upon. In my thinking, the greatest gains Logos could make with MAX would be to construct complex searches easier. But this would be better done with conventional programming. AI is not well suited for this task.

It is obvious that "free" is the new entry level for Bible software. I think Logos gives a decent experience for a FREE tryout … last time I checked. Someone mentioned Olive Tree … which also has free apps for multiple platforms. Limited in resources compared to Logos … but a huge amount of free material. I heard a professor of Greek speaking highly of the Olive Tree mobile app recently. Was kinda surprising, he had formerly promoted Accordance. He specifically said he does not like Logos interface. Not sure if that was desktop or mobile. Last time I checked though, I thought OL in Olive Tree was limited to strongs number searches. Maybe that has changed?

What this shows me is that the future requires a good mobile app to complement a good desktop program. For some users the mobile app may even be all they ever want to use. I'm too old school to imagine that, although the mobile app is nice to have.

I personally think the Logos iOS app is really good. But they did not quite finish it before the end of L10. But still way ahead of the competition. Most of the free competition do not do OL well, and also do not have good mobile apps that synchronize. Even Accordance cannot claim the latter. But Olive tree can.

In response to the OP, I still recommend Logos as a free option to "try out", but always with a disclaimer. I always explain that "buying into" Logos long term now means perpetual payments.

Logos could have charged a subscription just for AI and "features" which required online services. I would like the company a lot more if they had done it that way.

Accordance no longer has any full-time programmers and they laid off almost all their content developers years ago. They released version 14 long before it was ready, to the consternation of everyone involved except the owner. It's still not "ready." They've recently advertised for a web developer, which tells me that's the direction they're headed. So don't be looking for any new search features from them any time soon.

The Accordance desktop version still crashes, they let go of their only Android developer years ago, and their iOS and iPadOS apps are barely in maintenance mode. Still, I imagine they can make enough through sales to keep going for quite a while. There are almost no updates coming out for any resources, which is the sign of a very unhealthy company. Updating resources becomes a very low priority when you're struggling financially since it doesn't bring in any short-term revenue.

Accordance would LOVE to move to a subscription model. They've wanted to do it for years but they don't have the ability to do it.

Finally, there is absolutely no incentive for Logos to buy Accordance (I wish this wasn't true!). The Accordance code base is ancient and Logos doesn't need Accordance's customers (they're all moving to Logos anyway).

All of this makes me very sad, because healthy competition is good for any industry.

I've had it crash a few times on my M2 MacBook Air.

This is interesting as I do not think there is that much of a difference in performance between the M2 Macbook Air and the M2 MacBook Pro. I am usually do the same type of task over and over in both A and L so I am not doing anything to crazy that push these programs to their limits.

I'd hate for Accordance to go bellyup. I like all my Accordance books. I think picky customers are not so impacted by Accordance's dalliance with feet-in-the-air. I love the graphics and timeline features (and wish Logos would start over on theirs). I have quite a few books that Logos has no equivalent. So, even daily, it continues to be a happy experience.

I corrected my comment! NJB does have notes … Logos presents them by chapter (uselessly). I thought Accordance went by verse (Genesis) but actually samples.

@BKMitchell Logos does the manuscript thing, by pointing to the web. And 'technically' that's better than user-owned imagery. The web continually expands the mss inventory, metadata, and quality. Available for searches.

That said, I do love to pull up my Accordance mss imagery and zoom in. There's something to the disciplined stylus-strokes and ink, that go beyond the coldness of lemmas, morphs, and syntax.

Yep, that was pretty amazing. I felt totally guilty using the versified mss's! Real hebrew-ists don't. Early on, with my neural-net analytics, I fed them only strict hebrew/aramaic. None of this mamby-pamby chapters, verses and 'vowels'/accents etc. Forced the net to figure it out.