Jump to content

Can someone explain the difference between Logos vs. Accordance?


wbarkley

Recommended Posts

Donovan,

 

You said it well. I'm still waiting for better Biblical text exporting format options, but when they come (soon please ;) ) Accordance will put a great distance between itself and any competitor.

 

Soli Deo Gloria,

Randy

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 year later...

Donavan said: "Public domain stuff is cool and I got a lot of it, but you have to sift through it and understand when recent discoveries have rendered older materials antiquated. Most users don't have the time to do this and mainly just need the most recent materials based on recent scholarship."

 

Thanks for your assessments. As to the older materials vs the new:
IMHO: There is a lot of modern garbage which consists of speculation and political correctness (anachronism). Of course new manuscript discoveries (Bible & Biblically related) are a giant boon. But if one looks at older British materials, one is likely to find men commenting who knew Greek and the classics from childhood in a way that few know it today. They are thus generally superior in understanding the grammar and idioms, as well as Hellenistic / Roman culture.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've used Logos for years and now getting more into Accordance, so here's a few tidbits on each program...

 

Logos:

 

1. Logos has a really large selection of books across their various brands (Logos, Vyrso, etc.). It's replacing my need for a lot of print books I read (Charles Stanley books, etc) as well as Bible study material.

 

2. Logos has a lot of good in-house datasets and resources now. FaithLife Study Bible is handy, so are all the datasets in v5.

 

3. Logos has "full" synchronization where everything's synced over your Logos account with a single password.

 

4. Logos mobile apps are very good, as well as offer the ability to "stream" resources instead of downloading them.

 

Accordance:

 

1. While Accordance has a "smaller" collection of resources, they have a good quality of resources. Accordance has a wealth of scholarly tools, as well as some scholarly tools that aren't on other platforms yet.

 

2. Accordance has its own datasets as well that are still very handy (syntax tools, diagrams, etc). Its 3D Atlas is the best Bible Atlas I've seen on any platform. I haven't played with the Timeline enough, but it's probably more searchable than Logos' Timeline. the collection of Bible photos available are great as well.

 

3. Accordance can still sync very well. Books sync to your Accordance account, and notes and stuff can sync over Dropbox. Dropbox and local syncing with iOS are pretty good as well.

 

4. Accordance mobile apps are great too. They don't let you stream books, but in turn performance is faster since books are loaded onto your iOS device. Also handy if you're on a weak cellular connection or have no service.

 

5. Accordance is FAST. It starts way faster than Logos, and searching is lightning fast. Logos' searching is getting faster with indexing, but I haven't found any Bible program that searches faster than Logos.

 

6. Accordance for Mac has a very Mac native feel to it. Logos has a good interface as well, but Accordance does have an edge when it comes to its Mac interface. I'm also getting used to the fluid workflow in Accordance 10 and really like it. The overall interface is snappier than Logos as well. The background syncing and shared codebase, while great, sometimes slows me down. Accordance lets me zip through everything.

 

All in all, I like having both. There's times I need to turn to Logos for things, and there's times I'll definitely turn to Accordance for things. I consider each a different tool in my Bible tool box, each right for a different job.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

5. Accordance is FAST. It starts way faster than Logos, and searching is lightning fast. Logos' searching is getting faster with indexing, but I haven't found any Bible program that searches faster than Logos.

 

 

Hi Nathan, if this is what you meant, you are the first person who I have heard say it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Hi Nathan, if this is what you meant, you are the first person who I have heard say it.

 

MAJOR typo! Meant to say Accordance! Sorry about that! :-)

 

Also, I wanted to point out that Accordance feels more stable. Stuff like Notes, I feel way more confident storing them in Accordance over Logos. All of Logos' fancy syncing features doesn't mean anything when I can't spend a decent amount of times in their note files without the program crashing. Some files are great in Logos and I don't mind using. For Bible note taking, hands down I'm sticking with Accordance.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...

I have just found that what I wanted in Accordance is now available in Logos. Now with Logos one can search for a particular Greek word and apparently bring up most of the Greek literature references to that word from Homer into the Church Fathers, using the rather inexpensive Perseus module with the LSJ attached to it. I just got a thrill out of seeing a long list of examples of apostas* (apostasis, apostasia, etc.) in much Greek literature. And they are also doing Loeb classics, so Loeb also is included in the search, along with commentary and lexical references to that word, even if not from the Heading entry, but as now only a select part of the Greek Loeb library is available via Logos. This makes a fantastic resource.

Edited by Enoch
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

I also note that Logos has done for LSJ what I wanted from Accordance with BDAG (and all lexicons),

namely used spacing and editing to separate meanings, make them easier to read; list words separately that in print are listed with abbreviation like using a hyphen ( -) to save space, like under Apostasia, the entry for apostasis might just be -sis, etc.

The rationale is that the print version required compacting, but the electronic version does not need compacting since there are no paper & trees to save.

 

Also Logos has Alford's Greek Testament and also the English version of Alf. Apparently both have been spaced out (as above) for legibility. And you can put the Greek Testament in parallel with the English version of Alf so that at least some of Alford's Latin quotations are translated into English for you.

Edited by Enoch
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...

I may have already mentioned this the link in my post above, but one big difference between Accordance and Logos is that in Accordance you can not only save Workspaces, but also have multiple Workspaces open at the same time. Logos does have Layouts (like Workspaces), but as soon as you open one, it replaces the one you already had open.

 

Regarding original languages, I often find myself with an LXX Workspace, a Hebrew Bible Workspace, and a Greek New Testament Workspace (with texts, lexica, etc. all open), all going at the same time. I don't believe this is possible in Logos.

 

It's become an indispensable feature of Accordance for me, though.

 

Also, to bkMitchell's point, there's recently been a fairly lively thread of complaint over at Logos recently about how they basically have let lapse their Original Languages Library with Logos 5. Apparently there still is something comparable to what was in L4, but you have to call customer service to even find out about it, and it's nowhere on their Website.

 

In this sense, Accordance really does continue to target those who are interested in original languages, academic biblical studies, etc.

 

Logos 5 replaced Original Languages with "Biblical Languages", but I believe it's only available to academic customers, not the general public. After upgrading to L5 Platinum, I "topped off" my L5 collection upgrade with the new Biblical Languages collection. It has some nice stuff in there I'll use, but it'd be better if they'd open the door up to the general public getting their hands on it.

 

For Accordance though, I've found Essential to be the ideal sweet spot to enter into the Accordance ecosystem. Gives me a good bit of Original Languages tools, plus all the fun graphics stuff. :-)

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Over the past couple of days, I've been prepping all my Bible programs for fall semester in seminary, and here's a few additional observations I wanted to share...

 

I'm really impressed by how clean, uncluttered, and user friendly the Accordance interface is. I've hooked up a gorgeous 27" monitor to my MacBook Pro, and I'm using it to create workspaces for my Greek and Hebrew classes. I'm amazed at how much content I am able to fit in each Accordance workspace all in sync with each other and without any of it getting in the way of my primary texts I'm using. I'm able to keep open all my required classroom materials, as well as keep a few additional texts and tools in parallel panes and zones for fun, and yet I can still easily focus on my required and primary texts and tools easily. I don't know how to easily do this in any other Bible program, even Logos. While I could simulate a workspace in Logos with the same texts and tools, there would still be some additional visual clutter in the way that's just not there in Accordance. It even led me to purposely purchase some modules in Accordance format I was thinking of getting in Logos format simply because Accordance's interface gives me a cleaner, more fluid workflow.

 

On the other hand, I still had to make some purchases with Logos this summer as well. My required Greek textbook wasn't available in Accordance, but was in Logos, in addition to a few additional textbooks. Instead of wasting money and space on print books, I decided to purchase them in Logos format so I can easily use them in papers, plus the iPad syncing allows me to still read them comfortably.

 

So bottom line is, I'll be using both programs for seminary this semester, Logos for the textbooks that aren't in Accordance and Accordance when I need to dig into the Biblical languages in a simple, uncluttered, powerful interface.

 

I just consider both tools in my toolbox. Each tool has a different function for a different job.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I just made the leap for both programs...granted I started off with Accordance first, but Accordance does feel more efficient (not just speed or space), but workflow. However, I do notice that Accordance works great when you know what type of resource you're looking for. Thankfully my hermeneutics prof taught us a little of when you're suppose to use what resource.

 

I could see for people who don't know where to look for answers to their questions that Logos may be appealing to them. In Logos, the Passage Guide, Topic Guide, Exegetical Guide, etc. gives them a bunch of information for their search. I find this approach to be helpful in some types of research, but for me I usually have a little bit of an idea of what resource I want to look up.

 

For example, for Romans 9, I would be look up a reformed commentary and see their typical response and then look for a commentary from a different view to see how they answer. Granted I'm still learning all this so I am still a newbie, but whenever I come back to Accordance I'm still amazed at how quickly I can find something if I have an idea of where to look.

 

In short, Logos does have some cool features, but I don't quite understand why some things do or do not show up. Again, this may be because I started off with Accordance first and I usually have an idea of what resources I need to turn to for an answer. Also, Logos, I'm still trying to understand their platform and searching methods.

Edited by yellowchops
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I just made the leap for both programs...granted I started off with Accordance first, but Accordance does feel more efficient (not just speed or space), but workflow. However, I do notice that Accordance works great when you know what type of resource you're looking for. Thankfully my hermeneutics prof taught us a little of when you're suppose to use what resource.

 

I could see for people who don't know where to look for answers to their questions that Logos may be appealing to them. In Logos, the Passage Guide, Topic Guide, Exegetical Guide, etc. gives them a bunch of information for their search. I find this approach to be helpful in some types of research, but for me I usually have a little bit of an idea of what resource I want to look up.

 

For example, for Romans 9, I would be look up a reformed commentary and see their typical response and then look for a commentary from a different view to see how they answer. Granted I'm still learning all this so I am still a newbie, but whenever I come back to Accordance I'm still amazed at how quickly I can find something if I have an idea of where to look.

 

In short, Logos does have some cool features, but I don't quite understand why some things do or do not show up. Again, this may be because I started off with Accordance first and I usually have an idea of what resources I need to turn to for an answer. Also, Logos, I'm still trying to understand their platform and searching methods.

 

One thing you may need to do is Prioritize Resources similar to how you've probably dragged your favorite resources to the top of each category in Accordance. Prioritizing Resources is done in the Library Window in the Prioritize pane. In both Logos and Accordance, once I learned how to Prioritize my favorite resources, as well as properly invest in my most frequently used resources, both programs became immensely more useful. I'm also glad Accordance has gotten in some of my favorites (like Butler) and made it affordable to crossgrade to them. That combo allowed me to kick my use of Accordance into overdrive.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...