Seraph vs Universalis
A Catholic missal and breviary you buy once, and a quieter flame that never asks for an account. This page is written by the maker of Seraph — read it knowing that — and it will be generous to Universalis, because Universalis has earned it.
Our bias, declared: we make Seraph. The linked Universalis sources support the specific paid-app price, web Hours and Mass, optional audio add-ons, store listings, and privacy wording identified below; this is not an independent review of either app. Our product details describe Seraph’s current published offering. If we've got something wrong, tell us and we'll fix it.
The main difference
Consider Universalis if you want the Roman Catholic Liturgy of the Hours and the Mass as a missal you keep: one purchase, offline, any date. Their iOS app page: “It lasts for ever and you never need to pay again.” Buy for £9.99 ($9.99 or €9.99); “The App Store will tell you the exact price in your country.” The US listing lockup on this check is “$9.99 · In-App Purchases,” seller Universalis Publishing Limited, subtitle “Liturgy of the Hours and Mass.” That listing: “Single purchase: the app lasts for ever. It does not need a subscription to make it work.” Spoken audio is the add-on, not the license. The catch is the door, and the product. The iOS app is a paid entry — not a free Hours client you download and keep. Their homepage does serve About Today, Readings at Mass, and the Liturgy of the Hours on the web under “Free on the Web,” with less than the apps. And the product is the multi-hour Breviary plus Mass, not a silent one-flame office with a full Bible you can finish.
Choose Seraph if you want something quieter: one flame kept daily, the whole King James Bible readable free, guided prayer paced by breath — and a hard privacy line: no account to create, no ads, and a public vow of no prayer analytics. Your prayer life stays on your device. Seraph+ is $6.99/mo or $59.99/yr on our US App Store listing and on our pricing page. The daily office is free. Sacred Seasons, including Advent, are not. There is no Seraph+ trial.
Side by side
| Feature | Seraph | Universalis |
|---|---|---|
| Annual price | $59.99/yr | No yearly plan for the Hours and Mass themselves. The US App Store listing (id284942719) is “$9.99 · In-App Purchases,” re-read September 9, 2026. Their iOS app page: “It lasts for ever and you never need to pay again.” Optional spoken Hours are a separate yearly add-on: the Hours audio page prices that at £27.49 per year ($29.99 or €31.99). The US listing’s In-App Purchases list includes All Hours $29.99. Prices vary by storefront. |
| Monthly price | $6.99/mo | None for the missal and breviary. The US listing: “It does not need a subscription to make it work.” Optional spoken Hours: the Hours audio page is £2.99 per month ($2.99 or €3.49); the listing shows All Hours $2.99. Optional Mass readings audio: the Mass audio page is £1.99 per month ($1.99 or €2.49) or £18.49 per year ($19.99 or €21.49); the listing shows Daily Mass Readings $1.99 and Daily Mass Readings $19.99. Their iOS page also sells a different app, Catholic Calendar, at £0.79/month ($0.99 or €0.99). That is not the Universalis app’s plan price. |
| Family plan | — | No family SKU published. The iOS app page: “One purchase covers all your iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch devices.” The US listing Supports section: “Some in-app purchases and subscriptions may be shareable with your family group when Family Sharing is enabled.” We print both. We do not invent a family plan price. |
| Free trial | None — the free tier is the trial | A one-month trial of the apps, then a buy decision. Their homepage: “You can get a free trial of everything for a month. After that, you can choose whether you want to buy.” The same page links “Free trial of the app for iPhone / iPad / iPod Touch.” Spoken add-ons: that homepage, “you can listen to a free sample before deciding, and the first month of each subscription is free.” The Hours audio page: “In most cases your subscription will be free for a certain period (a week or a month) before Apple start to charge you. The App Store will tell you if this is the case.” We print both. |
| Free, forever | Daily verse · 2 guided sessions · the whole KJV Bible (1,189 chapters) · every reading plan · streak flame · reminders | The website Hours and Mass they describe, not the iOS app. Their homepage section “Free on the Web” names About Today, Readings at Mass, and Liturgy of the Hours, then says the apps “give you more than the website does.” The US listing is a $9.99 purchase with In-App Purchases, not a free download. Their iOS page names The Rosary as free of charge inside the app. The same page lists The Angelus as a heading with no free tag. We do not invent a free core Universalis app tier. |
| Subscription opens | Full guided-prayer library (12 sessions) · Sacred Seasons (Advent & Lent) | Spoken audio, not the Hours text. The US listing: optional add-on spoken audio “needs a subscription”; Spoken English Liturgy of the Hours monthly or annual; Spoken English Mass Readings monthly or annual; Sung Latin Compline (Night Prayer) “Single purchase.” Their Hours audio page and Mass audio page are those two subscriptions. Their Sung Latin Compline page: “A single in-app purchase” at £3.99 ($3.99 or €4.99). The listing’s In-App Purchases list also names Sung Latin Compline $3.99, plus other add-ons (Daytime Hours, RSV Hours, Daily Books) we do not restate as plan prices. |
| Account required | No — no sign-up exists | No Universalis account sentence for praying the Hours or Mass. The US listing names a daily email service among extras; it does not say you must create an account to open Lauds. Their iOS privacy page: “If you sign up for daily emails / We store your email address and the list of pages you have asked to be sent to you.” That is optional mail, not an app login. We do not invent an account requirement from Apple ID or from that email form. |
| Liturgy of the Hours | Quiet daily office paced by breath. Not the Roman Breviary. No Invitatory-through-Night-Prayer cycle. | The product. Their iOS app page: “Every Hour in the Liturgy of the Hours: Morning, Mid-Morning, Midday, Afternoon, Evening and Night Prayer, plus the wonderful Office of Readings.” The US listing: “The complete official Liturgy of the Hours of the Catholic Church, as used worldwide. Morning (Lauds), daytime (Terce, Sext and None), evening (Vespers), night (Compline) and the deeply reflective Office of Readings.” |
| Mass readings | None. Not a missal. No Order of Mass. | The other half of the product. The US listing: “All the Mass readings plus all the Liturgy of the Hours”; “Universalis is a missal and a breviary”; United States Mass readings “the official NAB version”; “Mass Today” is Order of Mass plus today’s readings and prayers. Their iOS page: USA gets the New American Bible; Great Britain the ESV; elsewhere the Jerusalem Bible with the Grail Psalms. |
| Spoken audio | None. Breath-paced guided prayer, not a spoken breviary. | Optional, after the app purchase. The homepage: in the apps, “all the Mass readings and all the Hours spoken in English”; “You need a subscription for these.” The Hours audio page is every Hour of every day, spoken English, live highlighting, then offline after download. The Mass audio page is First and Second Reading and the Gospel; “Jerusalem Bible translation only” on the US listing. Sung Latin Compline is one-time on the Compline audio page. |
| Prayer analytics | None — a public vow. Prayer data never leaves your device | Three first-party pages do not say the same sentence. Apple’s App Privacy label on the US listing (self-reported, not verified by Apple): Data Not Linked to You — Diagnostics. This check found no “Data Linked to You” section and no “Data Used to Track You” section. Their Google Play Data safety section: “No data shared with third parties”; “This app may collect these data types” — App info and performance and Device or other IDs; Data is encrypted in transit; Data can’t be deleted. Their iOS privacy page: “Apple give us no information about you.” “We collect no information about you ourselves.” Daily-email signup stores the address and requested pages. We print all three. We do not restate rating or ranking marketing from those pages. |
| Bible | Full KJV bundled; offline on iPhone | A missal and breviary, not a Bible library you can finish. The US listing: Hours scripture in the United States is RSV; Mass readings in the United States are NAB. Their iOS page repeats NAB for USA Mass, ESV for Great Britain, Jerusalem Bible elsewhere. We do not invent an offline Bible of 1,189 chapters inside Universalis. |
| Platforms | iPhone and web | The US listing Information section names iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Apple Vision, and Apple Watch. The same listing’s lockup prints “Designed for iPad. Not verified for macOS.” We print both. Their Google Play listing is a paid Android storefront on this check: “$12.99 Buy,” developer UNIVERSALIS PUBLISHING LTD. Their homepage is a web office, plus Windows and Mac program trials. Prices vary by storefront — iOS $9.99 is not the Play price. |
| Tradition | Broadly Christian, KJV | Catholic Liturgy of the Hours and Mass. The US listing seller is Universalis Publishing Limited; it quotes “The Divine Office is... the prayer not only of the clergy but of the whole People of God,” and calls the Hours “the complete official Liturgy of the Hours of the Catholic Church, as used worldwide.” Local calendars on that listing include USA, Canada, Singapore, Ireland, and every diocese in Australia, New Zealand and the UK. Latin is optional, “by itself or alongside the English.” |
| If you cannot pay | No scholarship or sponsorship path published. Advent and most guided sessions require Seraph+. | Use the web Hours and Mass they already publish. Their homepage “Free on the Web” is that path. The iOS app is a paid purchase after the trial they describe. The same homepage: “Universalis does not depend on donations to keep it going.” No scholarship path for the paid app is named on the pages cited here. |
Universalis’s US listing sells a permanent license, then optional audio. Their Hours audio page is a subscription on top of that license, not the price of Lauds. No worldwide cheapest-price claim is made here — iOS $9.99 and Play $12.99 are different storefronts. Their own privacy pages do not agree on what is collected; read the table, not a single label.
What Universalis does better
The missal and the Hours themselves. If “Lauds through Compline, plus today’s Mass, with the ribbons already placed” is the requirement, they meet it. Their listing is a missal and a breviary as text, offline, any date. We are a simpler daily office. We gate ten guided sessions and Sacred Seasons behind Seraph+. They sell the Hours once. Spoken audio is the thing they put on a subscription, not the office on the page.
They also ship Android, serve Hours and Mass on the web without buying the app, and keep Latin beside English. Their iOS app page has called the purchase permanent. If you want the Catholic Liturgy of the Hours and the Mass as a paid license you keep, Android, local calendars, or spoken Hours with highlighting, Universalis is the honest recommendation, and we are not in that contest.
What Seraph does differently
Restraint as a feature, and a Bible you can finish. No account between you and prayer — Universalis’s iOS privacy page stores an address only if you ask for daily emails, and we found no matching app-account sentence on the listing. Prayer data never leaves the device; their US listing reports Diagnostics as not linked, and their Play listing reports App info and performance and Device or other IDs collected. Two prices, written in plain numbers: $59.99 a year or $6.99 a month, auto-renew, cancel anytime. The entire KJV free — not a day’s office of psalms — bundled offline on iPhone, every chapter. A public web office you can open without buying an app. A streak that forgives a missed day instead of shaming it. No ads on free or paid. Guided prayer paced by breath. Compare the plan and features that fit your use, rather than assuming one worldwide price difference.
Three disclosures that belong here. The web subscription and the iPhone subscription are separate purchases and do not unlock each other. The complete offline Bible is the iPhone app; on the web, chapters you have already opened stay readable. And restoring a web subscription in a new browser emails a magic link, so we will not claim “no email ever.” There is no Seraph+ trial: you never try a paid session before buying it. The daily office is the trial of Seraph, not of the paid library.
When each app wins
Universalis — if you want the Catholic Liturgy of the Hours and Mass as a license you keep
Start from their homepage or the US listing. Use the web Hours if you have not bought. Take the month’s trial they describe, then buy if the missal is the work. Pray Lauds. Take Compline. Use Android if that is your phone. Subscribe to spoken Hours or Mass only if you want a voice on top of the text — that is an add-on, and their Hours audio page says so. Sung Latin Compline is a one-time IAP on the Compline audio page, not another month. Do not come here first for a full Bible you can read offline, or for a silent one-flame office with no account and a public vow that prayer never leaves the device. They are Universalis Publishing’s missal and breviary, and they say so.
Seraph — if you want a quiet office with no account, a full KJV, and a price you can read before you install
Ours, last on purpose. A flame, the KJV, two free guided sessions, reading plans, no sign-up. Paid for the remaining sessions and Sacred Seasons, free for the office. Small, new, iPhone-and-web only. If none of those sentences is what you came for, Universalis is the better fit, and we would rather you found it here than felt sold to.
Sources and scope
Checked against the following official Universalis pages on . These references do not establish an independent review or endorsement of Seraph. Subjective product fit remains our assessment.
- Universalis homepage
Supports “Free on the Web” for About Today, Readings at Mass, and Liturgy of the Hours; apps giving more than the website and not requiring an Internet connection; a one-month free trial of everything, then a buy decision; “Free trial of the app for iPhone / iPad / iPod Touch”; spoken Mass readings and Hours in the apps needing a subscription, with a free sample and “the first month of each subscription is free”; Sung Latin Compline available for purchase; “Universalis does not depend on donations to keep it going.” We do not reuse download, rating, or testimonial marketing from that page.
- Universalis — iOS app
Supports the Hours listed (Morning through Night Prayer plus Office of Readings), Mass readings and prayers, Lectio Divina, Spiritual Reading, any date; “It lasts for ever and you never need to pay again”; one purchase covering iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch; no Internet connection needed; “Buy for £9.99 ($9.99 or €9.99). The App Store will tell you the exact price in your country”; and an extra registration code for other devices at an extra £9.99. We do not convert that code into a USD SKU.
- Universalis — iPhone / iPad / iPod Touch
Supports the $9.99 Universalis purchase versus Catholic Calendar at $0.99/month as a different app; Hours in English or Latin; USA Mass as New American Bible, Great Britain ESV, elsewhere Jerusalem Bible with Grail Psalms; Mass Today; spoken Mass readings at $1.99/month or $19.99/year; spoken Hours at $2.99/month or $29.99/year; Sung Latin Compline at $3.99; The Rosary as free of charge inside the app. The Angelus is listed on that page without a free tag. Catholic Calendar is not a free Universalis core tier.
- Universalis — spoken Liturgy of the Hours
Supports spoken English Hours (Office of Readings, Lauds, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, Compline), every day of every year, live highlighting, download-then-offline, £2.99 per month ($2.99) or £27.49 per year ($29.99), cancel anytime, a free sample, and that Apple may offer a week or a month before charging. This is an add-on subscription, not the price of the app.
- Universalis — spoken Mass readings
Supports First Reading, Second Reading, and Gospel for every day; £1.99 per month ($1.99) or £18.49 per year ($19.99); cancel anytime; a free sample. The US listing’s “Jerusalem Bible translation only” line for this add-on is cited separately above.
- Universalis — Sung Latin Compline
Supports Sunday Compline sung in Latin by the Schola Cantorum of The London Oratory School, “A single in-app purchase,” £3.99 ($3.99 or €4.99), and a free sample. This is not a subscription.
- Universalis — iOS privacy policy
Supports “Apple give us no information about you,” “We collect no information about you ourselves,” for app purchasers and for music and subscriptions; daily-email signup storing the address and requested pages; App Store subscriptions renewing automatically until auto-renew is turned off; Universalis not allowed to start, alter, cancel or refund those subscriptions. The US listing’s App Privacy label is cited separately above.
- Universalis US App Store listing (id284942719)
Supports “$9.99 · In-App Purchases,” “Designed for iPad. Not verified for macOS,” seller Universalis Publishing Limited, “Single purchase: the app lasts for ever. It does not need a subscription to make it work,” missal and breviary copy, Hours and Mass, optional spoken Hours and Mass audio as subscriptions, Sung Latin Compline as a single purchase, In-App Purchases Yes with All Hours $2.99 / $29.99, Daily Mass Readings $1.99 / $19.99, Sung Latin Compline $3.99, Family Sharing language for some IAPs and subscriptions, App Privacy as parsed from the live HTML (Data Not Linked to You — Diagnostics; no Track section and no Linked section on this check), and the Information device list (iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Apple Vision, Apple Watch). We do not restate their rating or download marketing.
- Universalis on Google Play
Supports an Android listing, “$12.99 Buy,” In-app purchases, developer UNIVERSALIS PUBLISHING LTD, Liturgy of the Hours and Mass copy, and Data safety “No data shared with third parties” / may collect App info and performance and Device or other IDs / Data is encrypted in transit / Data can’t be deleted. We do not restate review counts or install totals from that page.
Daily office free, with no account · Seraph+ $6.99/mo or $59.99/yr · auto-renews · cancel anytime
Web and iPhone subscriptions are separate purchases and do not unlock each other