Choosing a word by word Quran app
If word level study is your reason for installing anything, the app to install is probably not ours, and it is fairer to say that in the first paragraph than in a footnote. "Word by word" means two different features: a meaning under each Arabic word, and a highlight that follows the reciter as the audio plays. Most apps ship one of them and most do not say which. Of the seven other apps whose own materials we have read, one claims a meaning under each Arabic word in its phone app; the other six do not claim it at all. That same app is also the only one claiming the layer underneath it, the roots, lemmas and grammar that turn reading into study. Quran Habit has the meanings and not that layer, which is why the app that beats us is named in the second screen of this page rather than the last.
Read this first
We make one of these apps. Quran Habit is ours, it has word by word, and we would obviously like you to install it. That is exactly why this page gives you checks you can run yourself instead of a verdict you have to take from us, and why it opens by naming the app that beats us. We do not claim Quran Habit is the best Quran app, and nothing on this page is written to say so. Everything here is a fact you can check for yourself, in the app or in the sources we link. Which app is best is your decision, and it is a decision worth making on your own reading rather than on anyone’s ranking, ours included.
What "best" is being judged on here. Five things, listed below before any app is named: which of the two features it actually has, which languages the gloss is really finished in, whether there is a grammar layer, whether the audio highlight stays on the right word, and whether any of it works offline. Each is written so a stranger can answer it on any app in a minute or two. If a check here cannot be answered without taking someone's word for it, it does not belong on this page and we have got it wrong.
What was checked, and when. For every other app: its own website, help centre and store listings, read on the date printed in its row below, and nothing else. We print what those documents claim and we do not fill in the gaps. For our own app: the shipping build, with the fourteen language files requested one at a time on 7 September 2026 alongside eleven that had to answer 404 for the test to mean anything. The app is free to install and the whole Quran is free to read on this website with no account at all, so the cheapest way to test any sentence below is to open the thing it is about and look.
What was not checked. Nobody read a juz in every app on this page, so nothing here is a review of how a gloss reads in practice, and nobody has audited anyone's word data for accuracy, ours included. A claim in a store listing is a claim, not a measurement, and the table below is labelled that way. No ratings and no download counts are quoted. Five checks is our judgement about what matters: yours may weigh them differently, which is why they are published separately from the evidence.
Where we are beaten, first rather than last
Al Quran (Tafsir & by Word) is the free word-by-word Quran and tafsir app from the Greentech Apps Foundation.
On word by word, which is the thing most people come to this app for. Their materials claim word-by-word translation in 15+ languages against our 14, and they carry root and lemma, grammar, morphology, occurrences and verb forms for each word, none of which Quran Habit offers. They are also free with no ads, work fully offline, and run a khatmah planner, streak badges and daily goals of their own. If word-level meaning is your main reason for installing anything, install theirs.
Facts last read 7 September 2026. The full comparison, including the rows where we win.
The five checks
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Which of the two features does it actually have?
A gloss under each Arabic word and a highlight that follows the reciter are built from completely different data, and "word by word" on a feature list can mean either. An app can be excellent at one and have none of the other.
How to check it on any app: Open a verse and look under the Arabic. Then press play and watch. Two seconds each, and no feature list survives it.
Quran Habit: Both. The gloss is one of the 4 scripts in the app, and the highlight runs for 11 of the 40 reciters there. On this website the highlight runs for one reciter and the gloss is not published at all, for a reason given below.
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Which languages is the gloss actually in?
Almost every app in this subject advertises a language count and most of them count something else: interface languages, verse translations, or a language that exists for some surahs. The number that matters is how many languages have a meaning under every Arabic word.
How to check it on any app: Switch the word language to the one you want, then open a page deep in the mushaf rather than Al-Fatihah. If the glosses vanish or fall back to English, the language is listed rather than finished.
Quran Habit: 14, and that number was probed rather than copied: on 7 September 2026 each language file the app downloads was requested directly, fourteen answered and eleven others answered 404, including a nonsense code. Without the 404s a 200 proves nothing.
Where the language is set, in the app rather than at install time. This capture is on Azerbaijani. -
Is there a grammar layer, and do you need one?
Root, lemma, morphology, verb forms and occurrences are a different product from a gloss. They are what turns word by word from reading into study, and they are also what most readers never open. Knowing which of the two you are buying is the whole decision.
How to check it on any app: Tap a single word rather than reading the line. A gloss app shows you a meaning. A study app shows you a panel.
Quran Habit: No. No root, no lemma, no morphology, no verb forms. We give the meaning and stop. This is the one axis in the entire comparison where we lose outright, and it is why the section above sends you to another app if study is your reason for installing anything.
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Does the highlight stay on the right word to the end of a long ayah?
Word timings belong to one specific recording. Paired with a different recording of the same reciter they drift, and a highlight that is one word out is worse than none, because you learn the wrong boundary.
How to check it on any app: Play the longest ayah you can find, not the first one, and watch the last few words. Then change the reciter and do it again.
Quran Habit: 11 of the 40 reciters in the app carry word-level timing, and on this website exactly one does, because his playback is pinned to the recording the timings were generated against. One reciter correct beats forty approximate, and you can test that claim in your browser in the next minute.
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Does any of it work with the connection off?
Word data is large and is very often streamed. An app whose glosses disappear on a commute has a feature you can only use where you least need it.
How to check it on any app: Aeroplane mode, close the app completely, open a verse you have not opened before. Thirty seconds, and it cannot be argued with.
Quran Habit: Our store listings state the offline scope in words: the full Quran offline in four scripts, word by word among them. Audio is the part that is a download, by surah or in full.
What each app claims, in its own words
Two columns, because the two features are two products. Is there a translation under each individual word? is the first. Are root, lemma, morphology or verb forms shown per word? is the second. Every sentence is taken unchanged from the comparison cluster, where it traces to a document you can open, and the date is when that app's facts were last read end to end. Not stated means the materials do not say, never that the feature is absent.
| App | Meaning under each word | Roots and grammar |
|---|---|---|
| Quran Habit ours | Claimed Word-by-word meaning in 14 languages, with per-word audio. | Not claimed No root, no lemma, no morphology, no verb forms. We give the meaning and stop. |
| Quran.com Facts last read 7 September 2026. | Not stated On their website, yes: the footer of their about page says Quran.com provides "word-by-word translation". For the mobile apps their materials name only "follow along word by word" as an audio feature, and neither store listing claims a word-by-word display, so for the apps this is not stated rather than absent. Quran.com's own site, their App Store listing, their Google Play listing. | Not stated Not stated for the mobile apps. their App Store listing, their Google Play listing. |
| Tarteel AI Facts last read 7 September 2026. | Not stated Not mentioned. Their word-level claims are about mistake detection, not translation. their App Store listing, their Google Play listing. | Not stated Not mentioned. their App Store listing, their Google Play listing. |
| Muslim Pro Facts last read 7 September 2026. | Not stated Not advertised in their materials. Muslim Pro's own site, their App Store listing. | Not stated Not advertised in their materials. Muslim Pro's own site, their App Store listing. |
| Quran Majeed Facts last read 7 September 2026. | Not stated Not claimed. They offer a root and affix SEARCH, which finds words rather than translating each one in place. their App Store listing, their Google Play listing. | Not stated The root and affix search is the closest thing their materials name, and it is a search feature. their App Store listing, their Google Play listing. |
| Quranly Facts last read 17 September 2026. | Not stated "Word by Word Verses" appears in their App Store release notes. It is not in the current listing description and no languages are named. their App Store listing. | Not stated Not stated. their App Store listing. |
| Ayah Facts last read 7 September 2026. | Not stated Not mentioned in their materials. their App Store listing, their Google Play listing. | Not stated Not mentioned in their materials. their App Store listing, their Google Play listing. |
| Al Quran by Greentech Facts last read 7 September 2026. | Claimed The core of the app, and the deepest here: "word by word translations of the Quran in 15+ languages". Al Quran by Greentech's own site, their App Store listing, their Google Play listing. | Claimed Word root and lemma, grammar, morphology, occurrences in different forms, and verb forms. Al Quran by Greentech's own site, their App Store listing, their Google Play listing. |
Try the highlight here, before you install anything
The audio half of this is running on this website right now, for one reciter, and it is the cheapest way to see what the check above is asking about:
- Al-Mulk recited by Alafasy, with the word highlight, which is the long-ayah test in check four.
- Al-Fatihah 1:1, a single ayah with the same player.
- What word by word does in the app, if what you wanted was the feature rather than the comparison.
The word meanings are not on this website and that is a licensing position rather than a shortage: part of the data behind them comes from a source we have not cleared for a public website, and the rest is not built into these pages yet. Our licences page names the source for every piece of data on this site and in the app, including the ones where the permission is still being chased.
Where this page sends you elsewhere
- 7 Quran apps compared, the whole field in one table, with a section for each app.
- How to judge a Quran app yourself, twelve checks you can run on any app, naming none.
- Reading with tajweed colour, the other layer people mean when they say they want to read closely.
- Learn to read the Arabic script, which is the thing a gloss cannot do for you.
Get Quran Habit
Quran Habit is on Google Play and the App Store. Free, no adverts, word by word in 14 languages, and no grammar layer, which this page says in its first paragraph rather than its last.
How we compared
The rules are written once, at the foot of the ranked list, where a reader who has just read a claim can check how it was arrived at: how we compare apps. In short: every fact about another app comes from that app's own public materials, each entry carries the date it was last read, and where an app's materials do not state something we write that they do not rather than guessing.
Every other app and company name on this page is the trademark of its owner, used here only to say which app is being compared. Quran Habit is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by any of them. Apple and the Apple Logo are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. App Store is a service mark of Apple Inc. Google Play and the Google Play logo are trademarks of Google LLC.
Questions
Is "word by word" one feature or two?
Two, and most apps ship one of them. A word gloss puts the meaning of each Arabic word underneath it. A word highlight lights the word a reciter is on as the audio plays. They are built from completely different data, so an app can be excellent at one and have none of the other, and a feature list that says only "word by word" has told you nothing about which.
Which app is best for word by word?
If word level study is the reason you are installing anything, ours is not the one to install, and we say so on our own feature page as well. The section above names the app whose own materials claim the deepest word data, quoted from those materials, and links to the full comparison including where we win.
How many languages have real word by word meanings in Quran Habit?
Fourteen, and that number was probed rather than copied from a document: on 7 September 2026 each language file the app downloads was requested directly, fourteen answered and eleven others answered 404, including a nonsense code. Without the 404s a 200 proves nothing. The fourteen are English, Indonesian, Urdu, Bengali, Turkish, Russian, French, German, Malayalam, Tamil, Hindi, Persian, Chinese and Albanian.
Does Quran Habit show roots, lemmas or grammar per word?
No. No root, no lemma, no morphology, no verb forms. You get the meaning of the word and nothing else. This is the one axis in the whole comparison where we lose outright, and it is the first thing on this page rather than a footnote.
Can I read word by word on this website?
The highlight, yes, on the listen player and on single ayah pages. The meanings, no: part of the data behind them comes from a source we have not cleared for a public website, and the rest is not built into these pages yet.
Why does the website highlight work for only one reciter?
Because word timings belong to one specific recording. The timings we hold were generated against a particular set of recordings, and playing them over a different recording of the same reciter drifts the highlight onto the wrong word. One reciter correct beats forty approximate. In the app the same feature runs for eleven of the forty reciters, because eleven of them have timings.
How do I test an app’s word by word before I trust it?
Open Al-Fatihah and read the glosses on a verse you already know. Then play the audio and watch whether the highlight is still on the right word at the end of a long ayah. Then turn the connection off and try both again. Three minutes, no feature list, and it separates the apps that built the feature from the ones that listed it.
Is there audio for each individual word?
In the app, yes: tapping a word plays that word. On this website the audio is ayah by ayah with the word highlighted as it is reached, which is a different thing and is worth checking for separately on any app you are comparing.
Does word by word cost anything in Quran Habit?
No. The text and the word-by-word meaning are never put behind a paywall, in the app or on this website, and the word-by-word reading on this site needs no account at all. That is worth checking on anything you compare: word-by-word is the feature most often used as the reason to charge.
Is the word by word language the same as the app language?
No, and the two counts on this page are different for that reason. The app's own interface is in 13 languages, the menus and settings and reminders. The word-by-word meanings are a separate set of 14. You choose them separately, so you can read the app in one language and the words under the Arabic in another.
The Quran, word by word, and a daily reading habit in one free app.