DisplayWord vs FreeShow

DisplayWord is worship presentation software for Christian churches, from small gatherings to congregations with worship teams and auditorium setups. It runs on Windows 10/11 and macOS, with browser screens available on phones and tablets, and can operate fully offline. The free Church edition includes a hall screen, Bible search by passage or text, up to three translations at once, sermon plans, a song library and editor, media and backgrounds, and printable chord sheets. The editor supports chords within lyrics, vocalist-specific keys, and automatic transposition. Connect adds stage and preacher screens, live modulation, and musician cues that can be customized. Team adds browser-based musician screens, tablet setlist and sermon preparation, multi-device screen control, and laptop sync; those browser screens use the local network and need neither internet nor an app installation. Church is free. Connect costs $24 a month and Team costs $48 a month, each billed monthly and cancellable anytime. Every edition includes Team features for 60 days after installation. DisplayWord calls itself a pilot product and invites email reports, prioritizing problems that interrupt services.

FreeShow is free, open-source presentation software for lyrics, slides, scripture, and media, with a focus on worship presentations. Its editor changes text font, size, and color, adds outlines and shadows, and allows edits during a presentation. Slides can autoplay on timers; countdowns and MIDI commands can control slide changes or external actions. FreeShow supports simultaneous output views, web output for mobile devices, NDI output, and mobile remote control. Images and videos can serve as slide backgrounds, and built-in YouTube and Vimeo players are listed. Users can look up scripture passages and create song slides from song-title searches; the features page describes access to over 200 Bibles through API.Bible. The software imports from PowerPoint, ProPresenter, EasyWorship, and OpenSong and exports content in multiple formats. Cloud sync supports collaborative work across computers, covering songs and settings; media uses a repository linked to the local file system. FreeShow runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux. The project began in late 2021, and its first release was in February 2022.