Story of the QuranApp

How it started?

I started the development in early 2021 to utilize my free time at home. I saw there are many apps for reading the Quran, but they lacked one or more features. Some don’t have good UI, some have ads and some are paid. I wanted to create an app that is simple and easy to use while having all the basic and advanced features.

My initial motive was to create an app used for not just reading the Quran, but also for exploring it in its entirety. I have kept this motive in mind while developing the app until today.

I didn’t think of making it open-source at first, but I decided to keep it free. By the end of 2021, I had a working app with all the basic features and many advanced features. After a few months of testing, I released the app on the Play Store on January 24th, 2022.

Initial release

The initial release had the following features:

• 15 translations in total. 3 included in the app and others could be downloaded. Downloading was not possible without an account. I used Firebase for authentication and database.
• About 6 reciters
• No tafsir
• Other basic features which the app currently have like bookmarks, night mode, etc.

The app was not very popular at first. I didn’t do any marketing. I just shared it with my friends and family. It was mostly used by the people who knew me. I was happy that I was able to create something that people are using.

Plan for making it open-source

I wanted the app to reach the maximum number of people in different countries. It was not possible for me to translate the app in all the languages. So by the end of 2022, I started to think about making it open-source. Since I didn’t think of making it open-source at first, I had to refactor the code to organize it so that it is easy to understand the project structure.

Open-source release

On January 26th, 2023 I made the QuranApp open-source. Since then, it has gained a significant popularity. People from various countries and places has contributed to the repository by translating the app, reporting issues, creating community groups and various other ways. I am very thankful to all the people for their contributions.

Various features have been added to the app since then. An overview of all the features can be found here.