Meditation is a great way to calm the mind and has been used for thousands of years in cultures around the globe, providing long term health benefits – both mental and physical. But how are us busy folks supposed to regularly incorporate meditation into our routine? Luckily, you don't need an in-person class to recieve the benefits of meditation: there are tons of resources available from experts online and through apps, letting you take your practice with you wherever you are!
The great news is that meditation apps work perfectly for improving your mental health at home or on the go. The less great news is that there are hundreds of meditation apps out there, making it a little hard to figure out which one is the best fit for your needs (how can you decide between Breethe vs. Calm vs Headspace??) – that's why we've created this list to help you find your meditation fit!

We’ve compared* eight of the most popular meditation apps based on:

• Price
• Best feature
• Total users
• Customer reviews
  
  

Breethe

Omvana

According to their website, Omvana’s goal is “not to get you better at meditation – it's about getting you better at life.” This app offers a variety of meditation options, both narrated and self-guided. It boasts thousands of tracks of white noise, ambient sounds, and narrated meditations from a professional meditation teacher. You can also integrate Omvana with your smartwatch to track meditation sessions. Omvana breaks down sessions into categories, including fitness and health, better sleep, focus and productivity, and mastery of performance.

• Price: Free, with some premade playlists and classes behind a paywall of $0.99–$59.99
• Best Feature: Ability to create playlists by mixing multiple tracks into one continuous stream
• Total Users: 100,000+
• Customer Reviews: 4.8/5 on the App Store, 4.9/5 on Google Play
  
  

Chopra

Inspired by our partner himself, Deepak Chopra, the Chopra app seeks to simplify self-care in one easy to navigate app. With personalized support, comprehensive meditation guides, expansive tools, access to wellness experts, well-being challenges, and a helpful library of articles to keep you balanced and grounded, Chopra is the perfect all-in-one app for stress relief, relaxation, and holistic health. This app is perfect along side our Chopra courses and certification programs!

• Price: Chopra offers a free version with limited access to all resources; Yearly subscription $69.99 USD
• Best Feature: Personalized support with comprehensive quizzes that can help you understand your doshas, mind-body type, and more (plus hundreds of helpful meditation guides for beginners, intermediate learners, and pros alike)
• Total Users: 100,000+
• Customer Reviews: 4.9 on the App Store (not available on other app stores)
  
  

Insight Timer

Insight Timer provides guided meditations and motivational talks led by mindfulness and meditation experts, psychologists, and neuroscientists, with music from award-winning artists. Some of their featured teachers include IIN graduate Melissa Ambrosini, Jack Kornfield, Dr. Karolien Notebaert, Russell Brand, and Dr. Tara Brach. The app adds more than 80 free guided meditations each day. Insight Timer does also offer a free playlist of meditation and music tracks to calm the mind, manage stress, improve sleep, and reduce stress and anxiety. They even have classes for kids!

• Price: Free, but offers some additional features for $9.99/month
• Best Feature: A variety of completely free courses led by experts
• Total Users: Over 19 million
• Customer Reviews: 4.9/5 on the App Store, 4.9/5 on Google Play
  
  

Calm

Calm combines a large library of guided meditations with a variety of topics, including sleep, mindfulness, relationships, focus and concentration, self-esteem, and gratitude. Guided meditations range in length from three to 25 minutes, so you can always find one to fit your schedule. Calm offers free basic guided meditations, but most of their features require a subscription. The Daily Calm is a personalized 10-minute program that’s new every day for subscribers. Calm also offers a wide range of over 100 Sleep Stories – bedtime stories designed to help you fall sleep, narrated by celebrities like Matthew McConaughey, Stephen Fry, and Bob Ross.

• Price: A basic free version is available, but most features require a subscription of $14.99/month, or a lifetime subscription for a onetime fee of $399.99
• Best Feature: Sleep Stories (soothing bedtime stories for kids and adults alike)
• Total Users: Over 100 million
• Customer Reviews: 4.8/5 on the App Store, 4.3/5 on Google Play

Buddhify

Buddhify focuses on mobile meditation, allowing people to practice mindfulness wherever they are. Buddhify includes over 200 guided meditations to help overcome challenges like anxiety, pain, and stress and help promote sleep and mindfulness. The app integrates with smartwatches to allow users to track Mindfulness Minutes each day. The meditation sessions last anywhere from four minutes to as long as 30 minutes, with options for children as well.

• Price: A onetime cost of $4.99
• Best Feature: Provides the ability to share free meditations with others
• Total Users: 100,000+
• Customer Reviews: 4.8/5 on the App Store, 3.9/5 on Google Play
  
  

Headspace

Headspace promotes integrating mindfulness into everyday life. The app offers hundreds of guided meditations that cover topics like mind-body health, sleep, managing stress and anxiety, and improving focus. Headspace is a great option for meditation beginners and has sessions as short as three minutes. The program’s Move Mode helps reduce tension and stress with at-home workouts and 28-day fitness courses led by expert trainers. “Sleep” settings create a more peaceful environment to wind down in, and “Wake Up” sessions start mornings with short videos made to brighten your mood for the day ahead.

• Price: Free to download, though many features are only offered with Headspace Plus, a $12.99/month subscription
• Best Feature: SOS sessions for moments of panic, anxiety, and stress
• Total Users: Over 10 million
• Customer Reviews: 4.9/5 on the App Store, 4.6/5 on Google Play
  
  

Ten Percent Happier

Based on Dan Harris’s book of the same name, Ten Percent Happier provides guided meditations, videos, and lectures on beginning or improving your meditation practice. It offers a library of over 500 guided meditations on topics like parenting, anxiety, sleep, and focus. New content is released every week, and the app offers quick meditations so you can fit mindfulness into a busy schedule. The meditations and talks are led by a team of meditation teachers that includes Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg, Diana Winston, and Dr. David Vago.

• Price: Free to download, though most features are only offered with a minimum $9.99/month subscription
• Best Feature: Bite-size tracks to promote inspiration and mindfulness without committing to a meditation session
• Total Users: 500,000+
• Customer Reviews: 4.8/5 on the App Store, 4.8/5 on Google Play
  
  

The Bottom Line on Meditation

If you’re new to meditation, using an app that guides you is a great way to get started. It may be hard to compare these great apps (we don't want to contribue to the great Breethe vs Calm vs Headspace debate), so we hope this helps you on your wellness journey. 
The most important thing when practicing meditation is staying consistent. Working with a friend, starting slowly, and using an app are all easy ways to begin your mindfulness practice. Adding a few minutes of meditation or mindfulness to your routine can promote physical, emotional, and mental wellness and help you tackle each day with a clear head and open mind. 
For those looking to become a practicioner of meditation (or would just like to get an in-depth look on meditation courses), we offer the Chopra Meditation Certification: you'll learn how to share Primordial Sound Meditation, gain access to a substantial amount of teaching resources, and find the roadmap to your purpose.

*The Institute for Integrative Nutrition is partnered with Breethe, offering IIN community members a free trial period of their meditation app through the above link.