How to choose from 7 of the greatest meditation apps

March Mindfulness is an annual Mashable series that explores the intersection of meditation practice and technology. This article is the second in a two-part series that looks at choosing an app based on your personality. The first story is here.

Searching for a meditation app that suits your personality and preferences can be hard enough. It’s worse if an app’s website offers little or no information about the app’s features. While that may pressure consumers into taking their chances on a free trial, it could also lead them to give up altogether.

That’s why Mashable put together this guide for choosing a meditation app. The first story in this series outlined three steps to help you select the right app: know what you want, take stock of your strengths and challenges, and trust your instincts.

This story focuses on seven popular apps: Balance, Calm, Headspace, Healthy Minds Program, Insight Timer, Simple Habit, and Ten Percent Happier. We asked each company to share key information — including what meditation traditions their app draws on, what features it offers, whether it has accessibility features, how much it costs, and where it can be downloaded.

Here’s a summary of what they reported, so you can be fully mindful about your meditation app selection.

Balance touts its “personalized program” for helping users meditate.
Credit: Balance

What’s this app about? 

Balance’s library includes meditations adapted from different traditions, including mindfulness and loving-kindness practices from Buddhism and pranayama and relaxation techniques from Hatha, Tantra, and Kundalini yoga lineages. The app pairs these practices with insights adapted from modern-day research and psychology with the goal of providing a “personalized meditation program” to help users improve their stress, sleep, focus, and mood.

What features does this app have? 

Balance breaks meditation practice into 10 trainable skills, like focusing on the breath and doing a body scan, that are taught through lessons and guided tracks. Each day, the app prompts users to answer questions about their meditation experience, goals, and challenges. Based on those answers, the app presents meditation suggestions personalized for the user.

Balance also offers an introduction to meditation for kids with tracks that focus on certain activities (eating, breathing, listening, moving, gratitude), as well as one devoted to sleep. 

Does the app have accessibility features? 

Currently, Balance only offers vibration meditations that are meant to calm the nervous system, and can be used by people who are deaf or hard of hearing. Balance told Mashable that it plans on adding other accessibility features in the future.

How much does this app cost? 

For a limited time, Balance is free for the first year. After that period, a monthly subscription is $11.99 and an annual subscription is $69.99.  

Where is this app available?

Apple Store(Opens in a new tab) and Google Play(Opens in a new tab). 

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Calm offers a large meditation library along with other wellness content.
Credit: Calm

What’s this app about? 

Calm’s meditation instructors draw on Zen, Mantra, and Vipassana meditation traditions, but primarily base their teaching on mindfulness meditation.

What features does this app have? 

Calm provides four different daily meditation tracks and mindfulness exercises. These include the Daily Calm and Daily Trip, both 10-minute guided meditations. The Daily Jay is led by former monk and greatestselling author Jay Shetty. The 7-minute session isn’t a traditional guided meditation but a session centered around wisdom, storytelling, and breathing. The Daily Move is a five- to seven-minute video for “mindful movement.” 

Calm’s extensive meditation library includes content for stress, anxiety, work, and focus. Calm features a number of A-list celebrities, with Harry Styles, Matthew McConaughey, and Idris Elba narrating sleep stories, and Keith Urban, Diplo, and Sam Smith offering lengthy music tracks for relaxation, reflection, and sleep.

Celebrities also feature heavily in the app’s kids’ content, which focuses mostly on narrated stories for mindfulness and sleep. The app also offers a daily check-in tool for tracking gratitude, sleep quality, and emotions. 

Does the app have accessibility features? 

Calm has some accessibility features. Its website can be made thoroughly accessible with the free download(Opens in a new tab) of an assistive technology application. The app includes functionality for screen readers and closed captioning and audio descriptions for some video content. Calm told Mashable that it hopes to include captions on non-video content in the future.  

How much does this app cost? 

An annual subscription is $69.99 and a lifetime subscription is $399.99.  

Where is this app available?

Apple Store(Opens in a new tab) and Google Play(Opens in a new tab). 

Headspace offers guided meditations along with yoga, exercise, and music content.
Credit: Headspace

What’s this app about? 

Headspace features techniques that stem from Burmese and Tibetan Buddhist traditions. In most of the app’s 10- or 30-day courses, there are eight core techniques that combine elements of Vipassana, otherwise known as insight, and Samatha, otherwise known as calming, meditations

Headspace aims to help users cultivate compassion and awareness using techniques like focused attention, visualization, loving kindness, and reflection. 

What features does this app have? 

In addition to meditation content focused on sleep, stress, mindfulness, and other topics, Headspace has collections on issues like women’s health, being a student, and navigating injustice. Headspace also offers various “modes.” The Move Mode features instructor-led “mindful” cardio and yoga sessions, alongside other types of exercise.

The app’s sleep content includes meditations as well as a new collection of guided tracks and “sleepcasts” set in famous national parks like Zion, Yosemite, and Joshua Tree. Music Mode offers original music and playlists from famous musicians and performers, including John Legend, Erykah Badu, Arcade Fire. 

A section for parents and kids features guided tracks for helping adults develop skills like self-compassion and being fully present, and introducing their children to concepts like relaxation, focus, and gratitude. Bedtime stories narrated by Sesame Street characters promise to help lull little ones to sleep. 

Does the app have accessibility features? 

Headspace offers captions and haptic assistance for some content. 

How much does this app cost? 

A monthly subscription is $12.99 and an annual subscription is $69.99. 

Where is this app available?

Apple Store(Opens in a new tab) and Google Play(Opens in a new tab). 

The Healthy Minds Program app is designed to help people learn the basics of meditation.
Credit: Healthy Minds Program

What’s this app about? 

The Healthy Minds Program app was developed at the Center for Healthy Minds at University of Wisconsin—Madison. The Healthy Minds framework is based on four pillars critical for mental health and emotional well-being: awareness, connection, insight, and purpose.

The app’s meditation draws on multiple sources, including Tibetan Buddhist teachings and psychotherapy approaches such as cognitive behavioral therapy. 

Healthy Minds Program is designed to give users a clear path for learning how to meditate and applying meditation in daily life. 

What features does this app have? 

The Healthy Minds Program app comprises hundreds of guided meditations and podcast-style lessons. The app offers practices that can be done sitting or while active. 

A one-month “foundations” series helps users develop basic skills like compassion and focus through a combination of lessons and guided meditation. The app also features individual guided meditations for topics like stress and relationships.

While there are no meditations specifically created for kids, most of the practices are kid-friendly and could be done by young meditators with an adult. 

How much does this app cost? Healthy Minds Program is free. 

Does the app have accessibility features? The Healthy Minds Program app has text-based versions of its lessons but not for its guided meditations. 

Where is this app available?

Apple Store(Opens in a new tab) and Google Play(Opens in a new tab). 

Insight Timer offers meditation instruction and other types of wellness content.
Credit: Insight Timer

What’s this app about? 

Insight Timer offers meditation instruction and other types of wellness content from more than 16,000 teachers. That means content is wide ranging and includes research-based mindfulness techniques, Zen Buddhism, Kundalini yoga, Christian centering prayer, and astrology. The app bills itself as inclusive of all religions and belief systems. 

What features does this app have? 

Insight Timer has what it promotes as the largest meditation app library in the world, with over 160,000 guided meditation and music tracks in 44 languages, many of them for free. It also hosts yoga, breathwork lessons, live events, and journaling. There are also sleep-specific meditations, bedtime stories, and long-form sleep music.

One of the app’s biggest draws: its roster of high-profile meditation teachers, including Tara Brach, Jack Kornfield, Sharon Salzberg, Ram Das, and Lama Rod Owens.

A five-day course for kids offers basic meditation instruction, and a kids section includes guided meditations, bedtime stories, and affirmations. 

How much does this app cost? 

An annual subscription for Insight Timer’s premium option is $59.99.

Does the app have accessibility features? 

Insight Time offers transcripts for some but not all of its meditation tracks. 

Where is this app available?

Apple Store(Opens in a new tab) and Google Play(Opens in a new tab). 

Simple Habit’s “On-The-Go” wheel lets users match their meditation to their activity.
Credit: Simple Habit

What’s this app about? 

Simple Habit offers content based on a range of traditions, including Zen, mantra, transcendental, Vipassana, and Qigong meditation. The app promotes techniques like focused attention, noting, body, and skillful awareness. 

What features does this app have? 

Simple Habit is broken down into the major categories of meditation, sleep, and move. The app’s “On-The-Go” Wheel is a collection of 5-minute meditations designed to be used no matter where people are. Resources for parents and kids include bedtime stories and guided meditations.

How much does this app cost? 

A monthly subscription is $11.99, an annual subscription is $89.99, and a lifetime subscription is $299.99.

Does the app have accessibility features?

Simple Habit does not have any accessibility features.

Where is this app available?

Apple Store(Opens in a new tab) and Google Play(Opens in a new tab). 

Ten Percent Happier has a vast library with guided tracks from expert teachers.
Credit: Ten Percent Happier

What’s this app about? 

Founded by former ABC News journalist Dan Harris, Ten Percent Happier contains resources and meditations for skeptics of meditation, beginners, and advanced meditators. The practices taught by instructors include Vipassana, Zen, and Tibetan traditions of meditation. The goal is to help users develop mindfulness skills like self-compassion, breath work, emotion regulation, and gratitude.

What features does this app have?

Ten Percent Happier has more than 500 meditations led by well-known instructors, like Sharon Salzberg, Sebene Selassie, Joseph Goldstein, and Diana Winston. In addition to individual guided meditations, the app offers courses for topics like focus, stress, anxiety, and building healthier habits. A recent course called the Dalai Lama’s Guide to Happiness features interviews with the Dalai Lama and guided meditations led by Buddhist teacher Roshi Joan Halifax. 

A subscription comes with ad-free access to the Ten Percent Happier podcast, which regularly features interviews with experts about meditation, emotional well-being, and mental health. The app has a handful of meditations to help children develop awareness and manage their feelings. 

How much does this app cost? 

An annual subscription is $99.99. For an additional $39.99 per month, subscribers can access live meditation, practice groups, and class sessions with experts. For $139 per month, subscribers can access those features, plus two one-on-one sessions with a meditation coach. 

Does the app have accessibility features?

Ten Percent Happier has captions for almost all of its content. 

Where is this app available?

Apple Store(Opens in a new tab) and Google Play(Opens in a new tab).