3 Best Headspace Alternatives for Meditation

Aura Health Team
Written by
Aura Health Team
Aura Health is a community of hundreds of top coaches, therapists, and storytellers worldwide. We are here to provide the world’s most extensive, personalized collection of mental wellness content & services.
Aura Health Team
Written by
Aura Health Team
Aura Health is a community of hundreds of top coaches, therapists, and storytellers worldwide. We are here to provide the world’s most extensive, personalized collection of mental wellness content & services.
3 Best Headspace Alternatives for Meditation3 Best Headspace Alternatives for Meditation

3 Best Headspace Alternatives for Meditation

Headspace is everyday mindfulness and meditation so you can make mindfulness a

daily habit. But if you want to advance your meditation practice beyond the basics and if you want more variety, you might be looking for an alternative to Headspace. 

Here are 3 of the best alternatives to Headspace for meditation. 

Alternative #1: Aura

The “Spotify for mental wellness”. 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: Calm

Calm is a meditation app with a focus on sleep. With a simple design, Calm makes it easy to build your daily practice with their Daily Calm meditations.

Calm is beautiful in design with a customisation dashboard, the user can choose from a collection of stunning backgrounds to enhance their meditation experience.

Alternative #3: Insight Timer

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

Insight Timer is best for advanced mediators with its self-guided meditations and

customisation meditation timer, but not as beginner-friendly as Headspace. 

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

This is the cheapest alternative to Headspace 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.

Aura’s Benefits

  • Improve sleep: Aura’s professional coaches offer calm, soothing sleep meditations that enhance sleep quality and duration.
  • Stay motivated: The right amount of notifications help you to stick to your meditation goals. Shorter, simple meditations can improve your mood and keep you motivated.
  • Customisation: Aura is known best for an algorithm that accurately curates meditations that fit your changing moods from day to day.
  • Life coaching: Access to optional coaching sessions and free live sessions where you can get to know coaches who are committed to helping you improve lifestyle habits impacting your sleep.

Aura - What Could Be Better

  • Content for families: Aura’s mindfulness content is designed mostly for adults.
  • Limited free features: While pricing is competitive, there is no free access to longer sleep meditations. However, 3-minute meditations and Aura Live sessions are free to all users. There’s also some free trial options for the paid content

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

Aura offers the best value for your dollar and is the cheapest alternative to Headspace with

the monthly subscription.

Calm Meditation App Overview

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Calm’s Features

  • Meditation and sleep focused: Calm offers guided sessions and flexible meditation timers, with more open-style meditation offerings for experienced meditators.
  • Variety: Its curated selection, ranging from nature sounds to narratives voiced by well-known celebrity personalities, presents a diverse toolkit for bedtime tranquility.
  • Relaxing music: A dedicated music section that can set the mood for sleep.

Calm’s Benefits

  • Suitable for all levels. Calm's wide variety of meditations caters to both meditation novices and seasoned practitioners
  • Enjoy more sleep. Calm’s meditations, tranquil music and sleep timers can help you get a great night’s sleep.
  • Family-specific content: Calm includes mindfulness content for kids and a family plan at a lower price point.

Calm - What Could Be Better

  • Difficult to navigate: Calm’s user interface makes it challenging to search, sort and find content.
  • Limited content: Calm’s tracks are more meditation focused, offering less support on making lifestyle changes to improve sleep habits and mindfulness.
  • Higher monthly cost: Calm’s monthly pricing is higher than Aura’s.

Calm’s pricing:

Calm’s limited version: Free

For access to all features:

‍Annual Plan: US$ 69.99 with 7-day free trial

Monthly Plan: US$ 14.99

Family Plan: $99/year

Insight Timer Meditation App Overview

download.png

Features of Insight Timer:

• Customised 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 Headspace Alternative?

Feature Aura Calm Insight Timer
User Friendly 5/5 5/5 3.5/5
Variety of Content 5/5 3/5 4/5
Quality of Content 5/5 5/5 3/5
Beginner Friendly 5/5 5/5 3/5
Advanced Content 5/5 4/5 5/5
Pricing Premium Subscription $11.99/m or $69.99/yr Premium Subscription $14.99/m or $69.99/yr Plus Subscription:$9.99/m or $59.99/yr

Conclusion : Aura is the Best Alternative to Headspace. 

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/

April 10, 2024
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