- Starting price
- Free · Plus currently $5/month or $30/year
- Free tier
- Yes
- Platforms
- Web and installable PWA · native Mac, iPad, and iPhone apps planned
- Developer
- Testament Made LLC · Derek Castelli
- Launched
- 2026
- Updated
- Aug 9, 2026
The verdict
Harvous has a clear job and executes it with uncommon care: keep Bible study notes connected to passages, highlights, folders, tags, and thematic threads, then resurface them so learning does not disappear. Unlimited personal use, offline operation, export, 11 translations, human-first design, source visibility, current privacy detail, and extraordinarily active release notes make it easy to recommend for a reversible trial. It is still a young, solo-built cloud app. The current pricing page and home FAQ disagree on Plus price and space size; “private by default” is not end-to-end encryption; public share links require careful handling; Bible-version licensing and export completeness need confirmation; and source availability uses an O’Saasy restriction on competing hosted services. Start free, import copies rather than originals, test offline conflicts and full restore, keep periodic independent exports, and use Shared Spaces only after roles, removal, moderation, and participant privacy fit the group.
Try Harvous ↗Opens harvous.com
Harvous is a Bible study notes application rather than a Bible reader, devotional, sermon-transcription service, or AI answer engine. You bring a physical Bible or preferred reading app, write in a rich-text editor, and type references that become interactive Scripture pills. A note can contain passages from 11 English translations, highlighted phrases, annotations, links, headings, and lists. Automatic folders and tags provide structure, while threads manually connect notes across topics. Search, pinned items, Daily Passage, Easton’s Bible Dictionary, and Recall help a reader return to earlier material.
The personal product is currently free with unlimited notes, Scripture pills, highlights, threads, sharing, Recall, and offline sync. Harvous Plus hosts unlimited Shared Spaces for small groups and church study. The current pricing page on August 9, 2026 listed $5 monthly or a $30 founding annual price for the first 99, then $45 yearly, with up to 50 people per space and free participation for joiners. The home-page FAQ still stated $8 monthly, $64 yearly, a $45 founding price, and 100 people per space. We use the dedicated live pricing page for our headline but buyers should capture checkout terms because the two official sources conflict.
Harvous is a web app today and can be added to a device’s home screen as a progressive web app. Native Mac, iPad, and iPhone clients remain planned. The public application repository identifies version 2.54.4 and an official 1.0 release on January 8, 2026. Release notes showed multiple features and fixes shipping through August 9, including bulk actions, imports and exports, church resources, published study plans, rooms, planners, and teaching series. That pace is impressive, although rapid change can also outrun documentation and requires careful regression testing.
We reviewed the current home, pricing, about, release notes, privacy, terms, support links, public application and marketing repositories, README, documentation claims, and source license on August 9, 2026. We did not create an account, import notes, switch Bible versions, work offline, force a sync conflict, share or revoke a link, host a space, test roles, export and restore data, inspect a deletion, contact support, test the status service, install a native build, or perform a security, privacy, accessibility, translation-license, code, or penetration audit. Product behavior and reliability claims are developer statements unless noted.
✓ The good
- Focused product idea - every primary feature serves writing, connecting, finding, and remembering Bible study rather than competing for attention
- Exceptional free plan - personal users receive unlimited notes and the core Scripture, organization, recall, sharing, and offline tools without a card
- Scripture-aware editing - typed references become reusable pills with per-reference or whole-note translation selection
- Connected knowledge model - folders and automatic tags organize broadly while threads let one note participate in multiple lines of study
- Recall rather than streak pressure - the app resurfaces old notes, highlights, and passages instead of treating capture as the finished task
- Human-first AI posture - core note-taking currently has no AI generation, and future connectors are described as optional paid additions
- Private-by-default content - notes are not public unless the user deliberately creates a share link or contributes to a shared context
- Transparent current policy - the July 2026 privacy page names Clerk, Supabase, PostHog, and Audienceful and explains analytics choices
- Visible development - public source, detailed documentation, status link, support email, and rapid dated release notes make product change inspectable
✗ Watch out
- Official pricing drift - current pricing and the main FAQ disagree on monthly and annual prices, founding terms, and members per Shared Space
- Web-only today - native Apple apps are roadmap items, so mobile and desktop use depend on a modern browser or installed PWA
- Not end-to-end encrypted by claim - the provider stores account-linked content and can process it to operate sync, sharing, analytics, and support
- Share links are access objects - anyone who receives or forwards a live link may be able to view the shared content until it is revoked
- Translation detail is incomplete - 11 copyrighted English versions are named, but public pages do not explain providers, offline scope, quotation limits, or licensing terms
- Young solo operation - one founder currently builds and supports a rapidly growing product, creating continuity, capacity, and key-person risk
- Source-available, not unrestricted SaaS - the O’Saasy license allows broad use and modification but reserves competing hosted-service rights
- Data lifecycle needs proof - policy permits deletion requests but does not publish backup retention, recovery objectives, export schema, or deletion verification
- Church features are moving quickly - rooms, planners, resources, study plans, and teaching series may be ahead of stable administrator and safeguarding documentation
Best for
- Bible readers whose reflections are scattered across reader apps, paper, generic notes, and sermon documents
- People who want Scripture-aware organization and long-term recall without an AI system writing their conclusions
- Pastors and teachers maintaining lightweight passage, sermon, topic, and application notes outside a large scholarly library
- Small groups willing to test a Shared Space with non-sensitive material and explicit participation expectations
- Technically aware users who value source visibility and will maintain independent exports from a young cloud service
Avoid if
- You need a complete Bible reader, original-language research library, licensed commentary system, sermon transcription, or citation-generating assistant
- Your notes require verified end-to-end encryption, local-only storage, customer-managed keys, enterprise SSO, formal retention controls, or audited compliance
- Native Android, Windows, Mac, iPad, or iPhone applications are mandatory rather than a browser or PWA
- A church must manage hundreds or thousands of people, departments, campuses, children, roles, curricula, and records under a mature institutional SLA
- You cannot keep periodic exports or tolerate a young solo product changing pricing, limits, features, and documentation rapidly
What Harvous is
Harvous is a cloud-synced personal knowledge base with Bible-specific objects. Notes hold rich text and Scripture references; folders and tags group content; threads connect material across categories; highlights and annotations preserve observations; Recall resurfaces earlier work; and Shared Spaces add a group context. The system is intentionally complementary to a reader or physical Bible rather than trying to own the full reading experience.
It is not a pastor, church, Bible publisher, scholarly reference library, doctrinal arbiter, encrypted vault, archival guarantee, or full church-management system. Its dictionary and Bible text are conveniences; interpretation, teaching, permissions, citation, safeguarding, and long-term stewardship remain with the user or church.
Why serious readers use Harvous: it treats remembering as part of study
Most Bible apps center reading, audio, plans, streaks, or a library and add notes inside that structure. General note apps center blank documents and leave Scripture behavior to templates or plugins. Harvous starts after the passage catches your attention. The reference becomes a first-class object, notes can join several threads, highlights retain annotations, and Recall deliberately brings prior learning back into view. It reduces the distance between “I noticed this” and “I can find and use this months later.”
The app will not create a durable practice automatically. Use a simple convention: one question or observation per note, descriptive titles, references in canonical form, a small number of stable threads, explicit source attribution, and periodic review. Separate quotations from personal conclusions, name the translation, link books or sermons, and date changing interpretations. Export on a schedule. A well-structured modest collection is more useful than thousands of automatically tagged fragments no one revisits.
Notes, Scripture pills, highlights, threads, and Recall: a coherent study loop
The rich editor supports headings, bullets, dividers, links, and other familiar document structure. Type a reference and Harvous creates an inline Scripture pill; switch among KJV, NKJV, ESV, NIV, NLT, NET, BSB, NASB 1995, CSB, AMP, and MSG per pill or note. Text can be highlighted and annotated, including inside inserted Scripture. Automatic folders and biblical-keyword tags reduce filing, while one note can connect to multiple manually curated threads. Search and pins keep important items near the surface.
Recall, Daily Passage, and Easton’s dictionary turn storage into return. Evaluate whether Recall is controllable, explainable, and useful rather than merely random. Check reference parsing for ranges, multiple books, abbreviations, deuterocanonical conventions if relevant, translation changes, paragraph context, and copy limits. Bible versions differ materially; preserve the version with every quotation and verify text against an authorized edition before publishing or teaching. A generated pill is not a citation to manuscript evidence or interpretive context.
Offline sync, sharing, privacy, and export: test the recovery path before trusting the convenience
Harvous says it works offline and synchronizes when connectivity returns. Notes are private by default, and a user can deliberately create a unique sharing link and identify shared items in Settings. Export is available from the account’s data area; recent release notes also describe import and export tabs. The July policy says content is account-linked and names Clerk for authentication, Supabase for storage, PostHog for product analytics, and Audienceful for email. It says data is not sold and broad autocapture and session recording are not enabled by default.
Run a recovery drill with disposable notes: edit the same note offline on two devices, delete and restore, revoke a shared link, remove media, export every object, close the account, and verify what remains. Ask whether data is encrypted in transit and at rest, who can access content, whether support can impersonate, how backups retain deleted data, which export formats preserve threads and annotations, and whether a new account can restore them. Do Not Track limits analytics according to policy, but account-linked usage and error data may still be processed for operations.
Shared Spaces and church direction: collaboration adds governance to a personal tool
Plus hosts Shared Spaces, and current release notes show rapid expansion into rooms, planners, resources, published study plans, selections, series, channels, and church handoff. The product describes Harvous as a tool for education, never a substitute for the body, and makes joining a hosted space free. This can preserve continuity between weekly meetings and let a group build shared study material without forcing every participant to subscribe.
Before using it institutionally, test owner, administrator, leader, member, and guest permissions; invitations; removal; ownership transfer; export; moderation; edit history; notifications; public preview; file rights; and what happens when the paying host leaves. Do not place counseling, confessions, abuse reports, health details, children’s records, attendance judgments, or disciplinary material in a casual study room. Publish participant expectations and a removal path. A church should retain an independent copy of every curriculum and resource it must keep.
Pricing
Free
$0
Unlimited personal notes, Scripture pills, highlights, threads, mentions, dictionary, Daily Passage, offline sync, share links, and Recall. No card is required.
Harvous Plus monthly
$5/month currently
Adds hosting for unlimited Shared Spaces with up to 50 people per space according to the dedicated pricing page. Joining another person’s space remains free.
Harvous Plus annual founding
$30/year for first 99
The current pricing page marks $30 yearly as the founding price for the first 99 and says the later annual price will be $45. Confirm availability and renewal at checkout.
Future Plus features
Included when released
Review for practice and Challenges for guided study seasons remain listed as coming soon. Do not subscribe only for roadmap features.
Future AI Connector
Optional paid add-on planned
The product says a future connector may let Claude or ChatGPT reference study content. Price, providers, consent, scope, retention, and security are not yet published.
The free plan is the right starting point for nearly everyone. It is not a crippled teaser: the personal note system, Scripture behavior, organization, sharing, Recall, and offline sync are included.
The dedicated price page’s $5 monthly or $30 founding annual offer is inexpensive for a recurring small group. The main FAQ is stale or inconsistent at $8 monthly and $64 yearly, so save the checkout screen and renewal term.
Current pricing caps each Shared Space at 50 people, while the home FAQ says 100. Treat 50 as the published purchasing limit unless support confirms otherwise in writing.
Future Review, Challenges, native apps, and the AI Connector should carry no present value in a purchase decision. Evaluate what works now and revisit pricing and privacy when each ships.
The real switching cost is the note archive. Full, documented, restorable export matters more than a few dollars per month, especially while the product is built and supported by one person.
Where Harvous falls behind
Synchronize the pricing page, homepage FAQ, checkout, feature limits, founding eligibility, annual renewal, refunds, cancellation, and space size in one dated source of truth.
Publish a security page covering encryption, MFA and passkeys, sessions, support access, tenant isolation, secure development, vulnerability reporting, incident notice, backups, restore testing, RPO, RTO, and status history.
Document offline storage and sync: local encryption, cache lifetime, supported browsers, attachment behavior, conflict resolution, deletion, device loss, quota, failure warnings, and recovery.
Specify export and import schemas for notes, formatted content, Scripture versions, highlights, annotations, tags, folders, threads, links, files, shares, spaces, members, and history, plus a verified full restore path.
Explain each Bible text source, publisher permission, supported territory, offline availability, quotation limit, update process, attribution, API dependency, and behavior if a license changes.
Clarify public-sharing controls with link rotation, expiration, password or audience restriction, indexing rules, download controls, access log, bulk revoke, and unambiguous preview of exposed data.
Publish Shared Space roles, ownership transfer, moderation, audit history, host cancellation, member removal, export, child and safeguarding guidance, file rights, and organization continuity.
Before launching AI connectors, publish provider and model choices, per-note consent, minimum scopes, prompt preview, no-training controls, retention, logging, injection defenses, revocation, deletion, and administrator policy.
Harvous vs. YouVersion vs. Logos vs. Obsidian
YouVersion is a comprehensive free reader with translations, audio, plans, highlights, social features, and broad platform reach; Harvous is where deeper notes can continue after reading. Logos offers licensed books, original-language tools, search, citations, sermon work, and substantial complexity and cost. Obsidian stores local Markdown and enables powerful links and plugins with maximum ownership, but users design their own Bible behavior, sync, and review system. Harvous occupies a useful middle: opinionated Scripture-aware notes without a research suite or configuration hobby.
Choose based on the system of record. If reading history and plan participation matter most, stay in the reader. If scholarly sources and precise citation drive the work, use Logos or Accordance. If local files and long-term portability dominate, build a disciplined Obsidian vault. Choose Harvous when fast Scripture-linked capture, visual warmth, threads, recall, and small-group continuity outweigh native apps and enterprise controls. It can also sit alongside all three—provided you avoid duplicate uncontrolled archives.
The bottom line
Harvous is one of the most coherent young Bible-study products we have reviewed because it resists trying to replace reading, teaching, community, or thought. Its core loop is strong: write naturally, make references interactive, highlight and annotate, let basic filing happen automatically, connect ideas deliberately through threads, search the collection, and allow Recall to bring old work back. The free plan is genuinely useful. The privacy page names important processors and avoids exaggerated anonymity; core notes are not AI-generated; source and release activity are public; the 1.0 product is shipping improvements at an exceptional pace. Those strengths do not erase youth. The dedicated pricing page and home FAQ currently disagree on price and Shared Space capacity. Private by default means access-controlled cloud storage, not provider-blind encryption. Share links can escape their intended audience. Offline sync, export completeness, deletion, backup recovery, Bible text licensing, and rapidly expanding church roles need practical proof. The application license is source-available with a hosted-competition restriction rather than an unrestricted open-source grant. Start with the free plan and non-sensitive copies. Build a small real notebook, force sync conflicts, revoke a link, export and restore the whole structure, and keep recurring independent backups. If that passes, Harvous can become a beautiful memory layer beside the Bible tools you already trust.
Alternatives to Harvous
YouVersion BibleThe stronger free reader for translations, audio, plans, streaks, and community; Harvous is more deliberate about connected study notes.Logos Bible SoftwareA deep scholarly library, original-language, citation, and sermon platform with more power, complexity, storage, and cost.
Spirit NotesA dedicated Bible and sermon journaling alternative for comparing capture flow, organization, platforms, privacy, and export.
Pencil BibleA handwriting-oriented Bible study and annotation experience for readers who think spatially with a stylus.ObsidianLocal Markdown files, backlinks, plugins, and durable ownership for users willing to configure their own Scripture and review workflow.Apple Notes or NotionMature general notes with broad platform features but no native Scripture pills, Bible-aware threads, or focused Recall model.Frequently asked questions
Is Harvous free?
Yes. Personal use currently includes unlimited notes, Scripture pills, highlights, threads, mentions, dictionary, Daily Passage, sharing, Recall, and offline sync without a credit card.
How much is Harvous Plus?
The dedicated pricing page on August 9, 2026 listed $5 monthly or $30 yearly for the first 99, then $45 yearly. The home FAQ showed older, higher numbers, so confirm checkout and renewal terms.
How many people can join a Shared Space?
The current pricing page says up to 50 people per space and unlimited hosted spaces, with free joining. The home FAQ still says 100, another reason to confirm the live plan before organizing a group.
Which Bible translations does Harvous include?
The site names KJV, NKJV, ESV, NIV, NLT, NET, BSB, NASB 1995, CSB, AMP, and MSG. The app interface is English, and users can change the version per reference or note.
Does Harvous use AI?
The core note-taking experience currently does not. Harvous lists a future optional paid connector for Claude and ChatGPT plus future Review and Challenges features. Evaluate their privacy and behavior only after release.
Are Harvous notes private?
They are private by default and become accessible when you deliberately share content or collaborate. The provider still stores account-linked content to run the service; the public policy does not claim end-to-end encryption.
Is Harvous open source?
Its application source is public under the O’Saasy License. That permits broad use, modification, and distribution but reserves the right to offer a directly competing hosted SaaS service, so it is not an unrestricted open-source license.
Sources & further reading
More Christian Journaling Apps
Dreamnl Christian Dream JournalDreamnl captures dreams by text, voice or photographed paper, then adds AI reflection questions, prayer and a personal symbol library—but intimate dream content crosses a substantial third-party data surface.
Restore + Revive JournalA thoughtful topical Bible journal combines 450+ guided days, voice entry, SMS prompts, review sessions, commentary, and export—but its unusually broad content license and conflicting encryption disclosures deserve attention before you record private struggles.
Anchor Christian: Daily MoodA polished iPhone check-in turns mood, prayer, gratitude, confession, and Scripture into a small daily rhythm—but the subscription-only app does not disclose its public price, AI provider, prompt handling, theological review, or user-content retention clearly enough for sensitive spiritual journaling.Spirit NotesA one-person Australian studio built the sermon-notes app that types the verse for you and timestamps each line against the recording, so a tap replays the moment it was preached. Five notes are free with no account at all - then $49.99 a year for something YouVersion gives away.
NeurocycleA 63-day guided written-reflection program built on Dr Caroline Leaf's five-step method, sold on the claim of "up to 81% improvement in managing symptoms of anxiety and depression." Its own terms say the product is "NOT INTENDED, DESIGNED, OR IMPLIED TO DIAGNOSE, CURE, MITIGATE, PREVENT, TREAT OR PROVIDE THERAPY FOR ANY CONDITION" - which is worth reading next to the App Store title, Stress Therapy: Neurocycle.
PsalmlogPsalmlog turns the morning walk, the kitchen-counter pause, and the late-night drive into a real prayer journal - speak it, and Scripture comes back.