3 Best Calm Alternatives in 2024

Calm is a popular app for meditation and sleep stories with 100’s of recordings available to the user. 

But if you’re looking for more variety than just meditation and sleep stories, to enhance your mental wellness, Calm falls short.

Here are 3 of the best alternatives to Calm to improve your mental well being. 

Alternative #1: Aura

With over 30,000 recordings, Aura stands out from other meditation apps with its extensive content library and community making it an all-in-one app for mental wellness and sleep. This includes life sleep tracks, life coaching, cognitive behavioural therapy, breath work, hypnosis, prayer, and much more.

Aura leverages AI to provide anyone with personalised access to its all-in-one mental wellness library that continuously learns what works for you. Moreover, you can connect with the community on Aura Live hosted by our coaches and receive 1-1 coaching directly on Aura. Each user has a customised experience on Aura based on their needs. 

Alternative #2: Headspace

Headspace provides tools to enhance mindfulness every day with meditation, sleep casts, and focus exercises led by their team of expert facilitators.

For beginners, Headspace offers a 10-Day Basics course to teach you the basics of meditation and to begin creating a daily habit of meditation. 

The content on Headspace is best suited to beginners and like Calm, Headspace lacks variety and has a limited library of content. 

Headspace is the cheaper alternative to Calm when comparing the monthly membership: Headspace is $12.99/m US vs. Calm is $14.99/m US.

Alternative #3: Insight Timer

Insight Timer is another popular alternative to Calm with thousands of meditations, music and sleep stories. 

Insight Timer is best for advanced mediators with its self-guided meditations and customizable meditation timer.

The app is not as user-friendly as the other apps and more difficult to navigate making it less practical for beginners. 

This is the cheapest alternative to Calm with Plus Memberships for $9.99/m US or $59.99/yr US.

Aura Meditation App overview

Aura’s Features

• High-quality sleep content: Aura offers a wide variety of innovative sleep content, including meditations to relax before going to sleep, sleep stories, hypnosis, energy healing, sleep meditations and sleep music tracks.
• Mindfulness coaching: You’ll find a selection of ever-growing content beyond sleep, helping to improve all other facets of well being and lifestyle that could be affecting your sleep. Additional content categories include Life Coaching, Breath work, Affirmations, Health Coaching and more.
• Live sessions: Life coaches and meditation teachers offer free, live sessions, so listeners can connect and interact with experts.

The World’s Most Extensive Mental Wellness Library:

With over 30,000 pieces of content, you will always find what you need with Aura. 

Unlike similar apps, Aura goes beyond meditations and sleep stories to bring you recordings in life coaching, cognitive behavioural therapy, breath work, hypnosis, prayer, and much more, making it “Spotify for mental wellness”. 

AI Provides Personalised Access:

You are a unique individual and your mental wellness practice should reflect that. 

Aura leverages AI to provide personalised recommendations based on your needs and continuously learns what works best for you.

Expert Coaches and Therapists:

Aura’s content is created by 100’s of the world’s top coaches and therapists, each carefully vetted by Aura, to provide you with only the best content for your mental wellness. 

Live Sessions and 1-1 Coaching:

Connect with the Aura community through Live meditations and life coaching sessions where you can interact with the coach and other attendees through the live chat. 

Looking for a 1-1 personal experience? Aura offers personal coaching sessions to support you in achieving your goals and improving your mental well-being. 

Pricing for Aura:

• Free Version: Includes access to micro-meditations and Aura Lives.
• Premium Membership: $11.99 monthly or $69.99 US Annually with a 7-day free trial.
• Family Plan: $119.99 US
• Lifetime Membership: $399.99 US

Headspace Meditation App Overview

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Features of Headspace:

1. Timed meditations: Headspace offers meditations from 5-20 minutes so that you can always find something to fit into your schedule.
2. Sleepcasts: Soothing stories to help you unwind and fall asleep with ease.
3. Daily recommendations: Find daily recommendations on the home page based on different times of day; Start your day, Afternoon lift, and At night.
4. Themed meditations: On the explore page you’ll find themed categories for you to choose your meditations from.
5. Progress tracking: Track your progress by completing a survey of questions every 12 days.

Pricing for Headspace:

• Limited Version: Free access to limited meditations
• Monthly subscription: $12.99/month US
• Annual subscription: $69.99/year US
• Family subscription: $99.99/year US for up to 6 members

Insight Timer Meditation App Overview

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Features of Insight Timer:

• Customized timer: Set the meditation timer for the duration you want and choose your chime with the Plus Subscription. 
• Live meditation sessions: This is a great way to interact with the instructors. 
• Track your progress: with milestones and stats, you can track your progress. 
• Music: Insight Timer includes music tracks to enhance your meditation practice. 

Pricing for Insight Timer:

• Limited free version
• Yearly Plus Subscription: $59.99/yr US 
• Monthly Plus Subscription: $9.99/m US

What is the Best Calm Alternative?

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Conclusion: Aura is the Best Alternative

If you’re looking for a mental wellness app that offers more than just meditations and sleep stories with over 30,000 pieces of content including; meditation, sleep stories, life coaching, cognitive behavioural therapy, breath work, hypnosis, prayer, and much more. As an all-in-one mental wellness app, Aura goes beyond meditation to bring you the world’s most extensive mental wellness content library and community. Whether you’re new to meditation or an advanced practitioner, Aura provides value for all levels of experience. Aura is the one app you need to transform your well-being and life. Get started today https://www.aurahealth.io/