Resource Review · Lds App
Gospel Library
The official study app of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — and the most polished single-tradition Bible app on either app store.
- Editor rating
- 4.7 / 5
- Starting price
- Free
- Free tier
- Yes
- Platforms
- iOS · Android · Windows · Web
- Developer
- The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
- Launched
- 2008
The verdict
For Latter-day Saint members, Gospel Library is best-in-class — the entire standard works, the full Come Follow Me curriculum, every General Conference talk back to 1971, magazines, hymns, manuals, and audio, all free and beautifully integrated. For non-LDS readers, it is still a genuinely impressive Bible reader, but most of its depth is built around LDS scripture and curriculum.
Try Gospel Library ↗Opens churchofjesuschrist.org
Gospel Library has quietly become one of the most-used religious apps on the planet. It is the official study app of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, published directly by the Church and used by roughly 17 million members across the world. Open it on any given Sunday morning and you are looking at the same screen sitting on millions of laps in chapels from Salt Lake City to São Paulo.
It is also one of the most quietly ambitious apps in the religious-software category. It doesn't try to sell you a premium tier. It doesn't run ads. It doesn't gate the good stuff. Every scripture, every Conference talk, every lesson manual, every issue of every Church magazine, and the full audio library is free — for everyone, on every supported platform, forever. The business model is that there isn't one.
This review is written for two audiences. Latter-day Saint readers already know Gospel Library — what they want to know is how it stacks up against newer entrants like ScripturePlus, what's worth turning on in settings, and whether the offline experience holds up on a long flight. Non-LDS readers may be curious what their LDS neighbors are studying from, or evaluating it as a general-purpose KJV Bible app — there is a real answer there too, and we get to it below.
✓ The good
- Completely free, completely ad-free — no premium tier, no upsells, no paywalled content anywhere in the app
- Comprehensive content library — KJV Bible, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, Pearl of Great Price, plus every General Conference talk since 1971, all manuals, magazines, and hymns
- Come Follow Me integration is best-in-class — the weekly curriculum opens to the right lesson on the right week without you doing anything
- Excellent offline mode — you can download everything (scripture, every back issue of the Liahona, the whole Conference archive) for true on-a-plane access
- Powerful cross-referencing — footnotes, Topical Guide, Bible Dictionary, and Joseph Smith Translation excerpts all link inline
- Audio is included for almost everything — narrated scriptures, every Conference talk, every magazine article, with adjustable speed and background playback
- Annotations sync across devices — highlights, notes, tags, and study notebooks follow your Church account everywhere
✗ Watch out
- Original-language tools are minimal — no inline Greek or Hebrew lexicon, no morphology, no parallel translations beyond the JST excerpts
- KJV is the only English Bible translation — readers who want NIV, ESV, or NASB will need a second app
- Interface density can overwhelm new users — the sheer volume of content means menus go deep, and discovery is uneven
- Search is solid but not semantic — it finds words and phrases reliably, but does not handle conceptual queries the way newer AI tools do (yet)
- Non-LDS readers will find most curriculum, manuals, and Conference content built around LDS doctrine and practice — the Bible reader is great in isolation, but the surrounding context assumes a Latter-day Saint frame
Best for
- Latter-day Saint members of any age studying weekly Come Follow Me at home or in class
- Anyone preparing a Sacrament Meeting talk, Sunday School lesson, or seminary lesson
- Returned missionaries and lifelong members building a long-term annotated study library
- Anyone who wants every General Conference talk back to 1971 in one searchable place
Avoid if
- You want side-by-side English Bible translations (NIV, ESV, NASB, CSB) inside one app
- You need a first-party Greek or Hebrew interlinear with parsing and lemma search
- You're looking for a non-denominational devotional app with reading plans from many publishers
- You prefer a minimalist Bible reader without curriculum, magazines, and Conference content built in
What Gospel Library is
Gospel Library is the official mobile and web study app of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It bundles the LDS standard works — the King James Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price — alongside the full Come Follow Me curriculum, every General Conference talk from 1971 onward, the Liahona magazine (and the older Ensign), the Friend and For the Strength of Youth, the current hymnbook and Children's Songbook, manuals for every class and calling in the Church, and audio narrations for nearly all of it.
Functionally, it is a reader, a curriculum app, a media library, and a personal study notebook in one. You can highlight in five colors, attach notes, tag passages, group passages into custom study notebooks, and have all of that sync across your phone, your iPad, your spouse's laptop, and the web reader at churchofjesuschrist.org/study. Footnotes link inline, scripture references resolve with a tap, and audio plays in the background while you keep scrolling.
Why Latter-day Saints use Gospel Library
The single biggest practical difference between Gospel Library and any other Bible app on the market is that it is built around LDS scripture and the LDS weekly study rhythm — and it is built by the institution that publishes both. Other apps host LDS scripture (ScripturePlus, YouVersion). None of them ship the official curriculum the week it drops, with the right footnotes, the right hymns linked from the right manuals, and the right Conference talks already cross-referenced.
This sounds like a small thing. In practice it is transformative. On a Sunday morning, a Latter-day Saint parent can open the app and the home screen already shows this week's Come Follow Me lesson, the associated scripture block, the hymns the family is supposed to sing, and the related Conference talks. There is no setup. There is no plan-picking. The institution is doing the work behind the scenes so the reader can just study.
Come Follow Me integration: the weekly study spine
Come Follow Me is the global LDS home-and-church study curriculum — one rolling four-year rotation through the Old Testament, New Testament, Book of Mormon, and Doctrine and Covenants. Gospel Library treats it as a first-class citizen. The current week's lesson is surfaced on the home screen automatically. The lesson page links directly to the scripture block, related Conference talks, hymn suggestions, and the corresponding pages in the Liahona and Friend magazines. There is a Sunday School manual, a primary manual, a youth manual, and a home-study manual, and Gospel Library auto-routes the right one based on your settings.
The reason this matters is that Come Follow Me is genuinely how most Latter-day Saint families study during the week — and the alternative to having it auto-surfaced is a lot of tab-switching. The integration is so clean that families who have been on the curriculum for years often forget the app is doing this work. It is the kind of feature you only notice when you try to study from a different app and discover you are suddenly responsible for assembling the week yourself.
The Talks library: every General Conference back to 1971, fully searchable
Every six months, the global leadership of the Church holds General Conference — two days of talks delivered to a worldwide audience and immediately preserved as canonical-adjacent reference material. Gospel Library hosts the complete archive back to April 1971, when the Ensign began publishing the talks in full English text. That is over fifty years and roughly ten thousand talks, each with its full text, audio narration, footnotes, and (for recent decades) video. Every talk is searchable by speaker, by year, by topic, and by full-text keyword. Tap a scripture inside a talk and the reader jumps to the passage; tap a footnote and you go to the source.
For Latter-day Saint readers preparing a lesson or a talk, this archive is the workhorse. You can search 'faith' across fifty years of Conference and instantly see every time President Hinckley, President Monson, or President Nelson taught on it. For researchers, journalists, and curious non-LDS readers, it's the single best window into how LDS doctrine and emphasis have evolved across the modern era of the Church — entirely free, with no academic-database paywall in the way.
Audio and offline downloads: the long-flight test
Almost every text in Gospel Library has a professional narrated audio track — the standard works, every Conference talk, every magazine article, the manuals, even the children's content. Playback supports variable speed (0.5x to 2x), background play, sleep timer, lock-screen controls, CarPlay, and Android Auto. A 'Continue reading' rail picks up wherever you left off across devices and across modalities — you can read on the train, switch to audio in the car, and the same place follows you.
Offline is the part that quietly outperforms the competition. You can download individual books, individual Conference sessions, individual magazine issues, or — and this is the killer move — the entire library. The full LDS standard works, decades of Conference talks, the current curriculum, and the magazines together fit comfortably on a modern phone, which means a missionary in a low-connectivity area or a family on a long flight has the whole thing available without a signal. Downloads survive app updates and OS upgrades, which sounds obvious but is genuinely not standard in this category.
Pricing
Gospel Library
Free
The entire app. All scripture, all Conference talks, all curriculum, all magazines, all hymns, all audio, on every platform. No account required to read; a free Church account unlocks sync, highlights, and notes.
Gospel Library is free. Not free-with-a-premium-tier, not free-with-ads, not free-but-pay-for-the-good-translations. The entire app, every piece of content, on every supported platform, with full audio and full offline download, costs nothing and never has.
A free Church account (the same one members use for Sacrament Meeting attendance, calling materials, and donations) unlocks cross-device sync for highlights, notes, tags, and custom study notebooks. You can use the app without an account if you just want to read.
There are no in-app purchases. There is no subscription. There is no 'Plus' tier. The Church publishes the app as part of its institutional mission, which makes it one of the few apps in any category — religious or not — where the pricing recap is genuinely one sentence long.
Where Gospel Library falls behind
No first-party Greek or Hebrew tools. The reader includes Joseph Smith Translation excerpts and a Bible Dictionary, but there is no inline lexicon, no morphology tagging, no parsing, and no original-language interlinear of the kind Logos, Olive Tree, or Blue Letter Bible ship. Readers who want to dig into the Hebrew of Genesis 1 or the Greek of John 1 will need a companion app.
Only one English Bible translation. The Bible inside Gospel Library is the King James Version with LDS footnotes, period. There is no NIV, ESV, NASB, NLT, or CSB inside the app. For comparative reading across English translations you'll want YouVersion or Bible Gateway open alongside.
Search is good, not great. It handles word and phrase queries cleanly, scopes by book, and supports proximity operators. But it is not yet semantic in the way newer AI-powered Bible search tools are — typing 'what does Jesus say about anxiety' returns hits on those literal words, not a thematic concept list (yet).
Onboarding is sparse. The app assumes you already know what the standard works are, what Come Follow Me is, and what the Liahona is. For an LDS member that is fine. For a curious non-member opening the app cold, the home screen can feel like walking into a library with no signs at the entrance.
Gospel Library vs. ScripturePlus vs. YouVersion
These three apps are the practical shortlist for most Latter-day Saint readers, and they are genuinely complementary rather than competitive. Different strengths. Gospel Library is the official source of truth — the curriculum, the Conference archive, the magazines, the hymns, the manuals, all published and maintained by the Church itself. ScripturePlus, built by Scripture Central (the team behind the Book of Mormon Central research project), layers commentary, ancient-context maps, KnoWhys, and study videos on top of the standard works. YouVersion is the broad ecumenical Bible app — 2,000+ Bible translations in 1,800+ languages, reading plans from thousands of publishers, and a social layer for sharing.
Most active Latter-day Saint readers end up with Gospel Library as the daily driver and one of the other two installed as a sidecar. ScripturePlus is the natural pairing if you want richer scholarly context around the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants — it is built by LDS scholars for LDS readers and does not duplicate Gospel Library so much as deepen it. YouVersion is the natural pairing if you want translation-comparison across the Bible, a global library of reading plans, and a way to study alongside friends in other Christian traditions.
The honest answer for most Latter-day Saint households is: start with Gospel Library, add ScripturePlus when you want commentary, add YouVersion when you want translation comparison or a non-LDS reading plan. None of the three is trying to replace the other two, and the storage cost of having all three installed is negligible.
The bottom line
Gospel Library is, by a wide margin, the best app in its category — the polished, deeply integrated, completely free official study app of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. For active members, it is essentially non-optional: the curriculum, the Conference archive, and the magazines all live here, and no competitor ships the same week-to-week integration. For non-LDS readers, it is still a quietly excellent KJV Bible reader with one of the best offline experiences in the category, with the caveat that most of the surrounding content is built for a Latter-day Saint audience. The gaps — Greek and Hebrew tools, multi-translation comparison — are real, but they're worth knowing about going in rather than dealbreakers.
Alternatives to Gospel Library
YouVersion
The broad ecumenical Bible app — 2,000+ translations, thousands of reading plans, and a social layer. Natural companion if you want translation comparison alongside Gospel Library.
Bible Gateway App
Strong multi-translation reader from the publishing world — useful as a second app when you want NIV, ESV, NASB, or CSB inside a clean interface.
Olive Tree
The serious-study Bible app — original-language tools, commentaries, and a deep library of paid add-ons. The first place to look if you want Greek and Hebrew alongside the KJV.
Frequently asked questions
- Is Gospel Library really completely free?
- Yes. The entire app — all scripture, every General Conference talk, every magazine, every manual, every hymn, every audio narration, on iOS, Android, Windows, and the web — is published free by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. There is no premium tier, no in-app purchase, and no advertising anywhere in the app.
- Do I need a Church account to use it?
- No. You can install the app and read anything in it without signing in. A free Church account unlocks cross-device sync for highlights, notes, tags, and custom study notebooks — useful if you study on more than one device, but optional.
- Does Gospel Library work offline?
- Yes, and the offline experience is one of the app's quiet strengths. You can download individual books, individual Conference sessions, single magazine issues, or the entire library at once. Downloads include audio, survive app and OS updates, and work the same in airplane mode as they do online.
- Can non-LDS readers use Gospel Library as a Bible app?
- You can. The Bible inside Gospel Library is the King James Version with LDS footnotes and an extensive Topical Guide, Bible Dictionary, and Joseph Smith Translation excerpts. It is a clean, fast, audio-equipped KJV reader. The caveat is that most of the surrounding content — the curriculum, the manuals, the Conference talks, the magazines — is built for a Latter-day Saint audience and will feel less directly applicable if you are not LDS.
- What is Come Follow Me?
- Come Follow Me is the global home-and-church study curriculum of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — a rolling four-year rotation through the Old Testament, New Testament, Book of Mormon, and Doctrine and Covenants. Gospel Library auto-surfaces the current week's lesson on the home screen and links it to scripture, hymns, magazine articles, and related General Conference talks.
- How far back does the Conference archive go?
- Full text, audio, and (for recent decades) video for every General Conference talk from April 1971 forward — over fifty years of talks. Everything is fully searchable by speaker, year, topic, and keyword, with footnotes linking inline to scripture.
- Should I use Gospel Library or ScripturePlus?
- Most active Latter-day Saint readers use both. Gospel Library is the official source — the curriculum, the magazines, the Conference archive. ScripturePlus, built by Scripture Central, layers scholarly commentary, ancient-context maps, KnoWhys, and study videos on top of the standard works. They are complementary rather than competitive, and both are free.