8 Best Meditation Apps of 2024 to Practise Calm and Focus

Finding a good meditation guide really helps you to train your mind. Explore our list of the best meditation apps to decide which works best for you.

Many people believe that meditating is a position. You sit with your legs crossed and fingers pinched, preferably on a mountain top, and voilá. You’re meditating.

Obviously the reality is very different.

Others may not fully understand the difference between mindfulness and meditation, and it can be easy to confuse the two.

Meditating takes a huge amount of practise, and it can be months or even years before you see the full benefits.

The pay-off for spending that time however, is enormous.

This is because meditation is one of the best ways to train your ability to experience mindfulness in daily life. Mindfulness allows you to quiet your mental chatter, gain perspective, and ultimately look after your mental health.

But the question remains – how can you best practise meditation?

When I was growing up in Thailand, I had weekly lessons on how to meditate (occasionally with Buddhist monks). Smartphones weren’t even a thing.

However, now we have a whole host of apps, created by experts, that you can personalise to your level and needs.

The problem is… there’s quite a lot of them.

That’s where this list comes in – we’ve narrowed down the eight best meditation apps so you can develop this skill in a way which works best for you.

Price: Free (Premium: £28.99 per year)

Ease of Use: 4/5

Pros: 

✔︎ Meditate course for beginners
✔︎ Guided meditations for different issues
✔︎ Option to have guided and unguided meditations
✔︎ Calming voices
✔︎ Easy to use
✔︎ Daily new content

Cons:

✘ Background sound as you open the app
✘ Most of the content is not free

We all want a chill moment sometimes when everything in life gets a little too hectic.

Calm absolutely lives up to its name here.

As soon as you open the app, you are faced with calming animations and nature sounds to put you at ease (which you can personalise or switch off, it’s all up to you).

While testing out the variety of meditation apps, the guided program with ‘Days of Calm’ was one of our favourites to relax to and make us ponder about life.

Best of all, Calm has hundreds of meditation courses that cover a variety of needs, voiced by big names like LeBron James and Stephen Fry. 

And who doesn’t like going to sleep to Stephen Fry’s voice?

Download: Android (4.3*, 400k ratings), iOS (4.8*, 1.3M ratings)

Price: Free (Premium: £99.99 per year)

Ease of Use: 4/5

Pros: 

✔︎ Guided mindfulness meditation
✔︎ Free introductory courses
✔︎ Different theory sessions
✔︎ Set meditation reminder
✔︎ Set timer and interval timer

Cons:

✘ First few sessions are free but not the rest
✘ Might not be suitable for beginners

Waking Up was created by neuroscientist, philosopher, and author Sam Harris.

The content definitely reflects this, and does feel much more in-depth and psychological. 

This can lead to some glass-shattering moments of understanding and self-awareness.

On the other side though, some of the guided sessions may feel too advanced for complete beginners of mindfulness and meditation concepts.

Waking Up is for those that crave fuss-free approach or those that are already familiar with meditation but want to learn more about mindfulness too.

Download: Android (4.8*, 24k ratings), iOS (4.9*, 27k ratings)

Price: Free (Premium: £55.99 per year)

Ease of Use: 4/5

Pros: 

✔︎ Beginners friendly meditation courses
✔︎ Create bookmarks and playlists
✔︎ Customise your starting/ending bell, ambient sound and duration
✔︎ 45K free meditations
✔︎ Filter courses by duration
✔︎ Ability to rate the course and see its ratings

Cons:

✘ Some of the more in-depth courses are only available with a membership
✘ Amount of content can be overwhelming

Similar to Simple Habit, Insight Timer is another meditation app that offers thousands of sessions for free!

What sets this app apart is the ability to filter the meditation session by the duration or even set your timer (right down to the second you have available).

Therefore, this meditation app is ideal for people who are looking for ways to fit meditation into their busy lives. 

For meditation newbies, Insight Timer has a section on beginners-friendly courses to sink your teeth into before venturing out into the more advanced area. 

There are a series of themes that the app offers, so it’s likely that you will find something that fits your lifestyle.

Finding a course you enjoy is obviously key to forging this new valuable habit. 

Download: Android (4.9*, 125k ratings), iOS (4.9*, 305k ratings)

Price: Free (Premium: £59.99 per year)

Ease of Use: 4/5

Pros: 

✔︎ Learn different meditation techniques
✔︎ Engaging content (animations) for different situations
✔︎ Meditation for kids
✔︎ Can choose male/female voice
✔︎ Choose from guided and unguided meditations

Cons:

✘ Difficult to navigate
✘ Meditation courses can be more thought-provoking

Headspace is pretty much the pioneer and trailblazer of mental health apps. The design is also arguably the most iconic.

This has all helped to make Headspace one of the most well-known meditation apps out there.

In 2012, the founder of Headspace Andy Puddicombe did a great Ted Talk on the importance and benefits of mindfulness meditation.

Since then, Headspace has spent years bringing awareness of mental health to the public.

I can’t count the number of times that I’ve used the “Nighttime SOS” section to help me get back to sleep when my mind is racing or I’m stressed out by work.

Headspace is an excellent gateway app to getting started with meditation and mindfulness.

Download: Android (4.6*, 229k ratings), iOS (4.9*, 798k ratings)

Price: Get your first year free (limited-time offer)

Ease of Use: 5/5

Pros: 

✔︎ Insane level of personalisation lets you hone in on your goal
✔︎ Excellent Design and UI
✔︎ Questions before your practise, which is then used to tailor your meditation
✔︎ See your progress in certain mindfulness skills
✔︎ Daily mindfulness explanation

Cons:

✘ Some of the plans only have 15 or 20 minute meditations

Balance is as close as you’ll get to having your personal meditation teacher.

At every opportunity, the app asks you questions to gauge how you are finding the practise. Balance constantly wants to make sure everything is relevant, and in doing so makes it much easier to make meditation a habit.

Wish there was a little more guidance and less silence? You can let them know and next meditation will be more hands on. Don’t know much about Loving Kindness or Spotlighting? Balance will ask you before the meditation and present an introduction to the technique.

All of these tweaks make Balance a truly fantastic meditation resource. You are less likely to get distracted, frustrated or confused during your practise, and really make the most of that time you’ve set aside.

Download: Android (4.7*, 600 ratings), iOS (4.9*, 35k ratings)

Price: Free (Premium: £50.99 per year)

Ease of Use: 4/5

Pros: 

✔︎ Create a personalised journey, depending on your goals
✔︎ Mindfulness meter
✔︎ Customise session background sounds
✔︎ Customise session duration

Cons:

✘ Most meditation sessions are not free

Meditopia offers many meditation sessions alongside other mindfulness content, for example, get better sleep, building self-confidence and pregnancy preparations. 

Meditopia is easy to use and offers ways for you to personalise your experience (with music and timer) and track your progress. 

It’s a good all-rounder app with a beautiful looking design.

Despite that, it doesn’t rank near the top because it lacks outstanding features that set it apart. It’s not as memorable as others on the list.

However, the app has a variety of challenges which can be encouraging in making meditation as part of your routine.

If the user experience and overall app design is important to you, then this app is easily worth a try.

Download: Android (4.6*, 156k ratings), iOS (4.6*, 17k ratings)

Price: Free (Premium: £87.99 per year)

Ease of Use: 4/5

Pros: 

✔︎ A lot of free content
✔︎ Science-backed plans
✔︎ Tailored plan for your specific goal
✔︎ 5 minutes sessions for busy people
✔︎ Meditation on-the-go to help with specific situations

Cons:

✘ Some courses might feel too short
✘ Occasional glitch/recording quality issues
✘ The vast amount of content could be overwhelming

One of the hardest parts of sticking with a habit is fitting it into your schedule in a way that is sustainable.

Simple Habit is particularly useful here because it offers a variety of short meditation sessions suitable for busy people.

Their ‘on-the-go’ button is a great feature for a quick meditation. 

Discover your personalised plan by inputting your meditation goals.

Just like reading Amazon products reviews before clicking ‘buy now’, on Simple Habit you can also find comments from users for each course.

Simple Habit is excellent for those who want to start meditating but don’t feel like they have time and did I mentioned the variety of FREE content!?

Who doesn’t love a freebie, right?

Download: Android (4.7*, 42k ratings), iOS (4.8*, 73k ratings)

Price: Free (Premium: £87.99 per year)

Ease of Use: 4/5

Pros: 

✔︎ Set goals
✔︎ Learn to meditate program
✔︎ Some free content available
✔︎ Meditation stories
✔︎ Can create playlist

Cons:

✘ Can’t set your own meditation timer
✘ Expensive compared to other apps
✘ Too many pop-ups to start a free trial

Breethe lets you choose goals to prioritise, like learning to meditate, destress or deal with anxiety. 

The app also has a great ‘day & night’ tab that can make it easy to choose the content most relevant to the time of day.

The best part is that the library section is easy to navigate and clearly labelled.

On the other hand, constant free-trial pop-ups can be very annoying and a little disruptive.

However, if you enjoy everything else about the app, the pop-ups shouldn’t be a problem with a premium membership.

Download: Android (4.5*, 4k ratings), iOS (4.7*, 47k ratings)

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Wanischa Sirivarangkun

Wanischa is a big believer in the importance of wellbeing and uses her experience with mental health challenges to inspire others to live their happiest lives. She's also a self-confessed foodie. Currently she works as a Senior Marketing Manager at The Unseen.

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