I Finally Found The Top 5 Free Apps Like Headspace After Trying Dozens of Meditation Apps

I’ve spent years testing dozens of meditation and self-care apps, and frankly, I’m exhausted.

Headspace is definitely not a bad app. But should meditation, a mental exercise that takes place in your head, cost $12 monthly?

I believe most people choose Headspace not because they prefer it, but because it’s the most popular meditation app. There are, however, many effective tools that also won’t cost you a penny.

5 Apps Like Headspace but Free

Here are my top five favorite Headspace alternatives after years of trials and errors, which I did so that you don’t have to:

1. Breeze Wellbeing
2. Insight Timer
3. Medito
4. Calmaria
5. Miracle of Mind

Below, I’ll explain why these Headspace competitors were much better for meditation/relaxation for me. I also actively encourage you to try at least one of these apps besides Headspace.

1. Breeze Wellbeing

If sitting silently in a dark room trying to force your brain to go blank sounds more like punishment, Breeze Wellbeing is the breath of fresh air you need.

To be completely honest, this Breeze app isn’t just a meditation app, but this is what I appreciate about it. I decided to try Breeze for its breathing exercises and flow-state games. But the more I used this app, the more I discovered other features like:

• Quizzes (I counted more than 40 tests on very different topics, from mental health to relationships)
• Journaling
• Mood tracking and statistics
• Blog and discussions in the comments
• Self-care routine and self-care ideas

What makes Breeze stand out over Headspace’s repetitive audio tracks is its sheer versatility. Even when we talk about meditation, one day you feel excited and inspired to play relaxing mini-games like Flower Chain; the other day, you just want to take a one-minute break and breathe for yourself.

The only real catch is that if you are a meditation purist looking strictly for 45-minute unguided silent timers with ambient gongs, Breeze’s interactive, micro-habit focus might feel a bit too active for your taste.

2. Insight Timer

Insight Timer, in my view, is an insane meditation app to exist in the modern market. It has 500 thousand (!) free meditation tracks, which makes it the biggest collection in the world.

In Insight Timer, you can browse specialized sessions covering almost every single goal imaginable, from deep sleep protocols and workplace focus to gratitude and manifestation practices.

To be fair, the platform can stay free only because it has relatively low standards for its teachers (according to one of the app’s teachers on Reddit). So, it means that there will be a fair share of content you won’t like because of how diverse it is.

That’s why I prepared a list of my favorite creators so you don’t have to sort it out, but get down to business immediately after downloading:

• Ally Boothroyd—deep nervous system resets.
• David Harshada Wagner—traditional (Buddhist) meditations.
• The Mental Level—sleep and relaxation meditations.
• Biomedical Institute of Yoga and Meditation—merges medical science with meditation.
• Liza Colpa—morning meditations.
• Lalah Deila—inner gardening care.
• David Ji—more dense and instructed meditations.

There are also courses and educational videos.

My only complaint is that because the platform is so huge, scrolling through endless options does create decision paralysis, especially when you just want to wind down. But for sheer variety and cost, it completely outclasses commercial competitors.

3. Medito

Medito is the noblest among apps similar to Headspace.

Firstly, it was created by a non-commercial organization that aims to make meditation more accessible in terms of financial resources and mental readiness.

Second, Medito is 100% free, with zero subscription fees, ads, or paid options within the app. Other apps are free as well, but they do offer a paid version, while Medito doesn’t need your money at all.

Third, its library is quite extensive (over 1,000 sessions), but not big enough to trigger analysis paralysis. It also has comfortable categorization that points straight to your goal: sleep support, stress management, daily anxiety, beginner-friendly meditations, etc.

4. Calmaria

Calmaria is a beautiful, stylish relaxation app that, surprise-surprise, is completely mute. It sounds weird for a meditation app to be mute, but it’s actually heavily focused on visual breathwork rhythms.

I got Calmaria when I found out that it could be integrated into the Apple Watch. I continued using Calmaria because it turned out to be so relaxing.

The app actually uses rather popular breathing exercises, like box breathing or 4-7-8 breathing, but it presents them in such a clean, fluidly animated style that I almost felt air moving in my lungs. Let’s not forget the haptic touch and vibrations that created an immersive atmosphere.

Of course, it’s far from traditional meditations. If you are specifically looking for an audio-guided sit, Calmaria won’t be the right fit. But for an experimental and sleek approach, it gets straight to the point.

5. Miracle of Mind

Miracle of Mind is a very straightforward app: you log in, you complete a 7-minute guided meditation with Sadhguru, an Indian yoga guru, environmentalist, and mystic author, you adjust the pace, and you’re done.

This is my go-to app when I don’t want to feel like any meditation. So, instead of endless scrolling, I just go with Miracle of Mind to get through my day.

Besides the main practice, this app also offers:

• Ability to download sessions and meditate offline.
• Get daily wisdom from Sadhguru
• “Ask Sadhguru” feature, which is direct access to his teachings through an AI assistant.
• Badges and coins for keeping up the meditation streak.
• Comprehensive statistics on previous mindfulness sessions.

To be honest, I rarely used these features, and this is actually my biggest problem with the app: it’s a one-hit app. I don’t think it’s bad, since the platform centers almost entirely on Sadhguru’s specific teaching style. Variety isn’t its strongest feature, but stable meditations are.

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Main Info About Headspace Alternatives in Comparison Table

Now that you have my opinion about these Headspace competitors, it’s about time for you to have all the objective information that will help you choose which one of these five platforms is for you:

Why Look for Headspace Competitors?

Listen, it’s not just me and my frustration about Headspace occupying the meditation app market. The actual (ex) Headspace users also share my worries. I collected their feedback on Reddit r/Headspace, which made people switch to other competitors:

• Aggressive subscription paywalls

Not one, not two. Multiple users complained that the most basic techniques are repeated across courses but cost a fortune. What’s more, the UI is built in a way that makes it hard to avoid upsells or cancel a subscription/get a refund.

• Repetitive and predictable audio

People are simply tired of hearing the same narrator voices. Reddit users even predicted Headspace’s typical meditation structure down to separate words.

On the other hand, it’s worth admitting that such repetitiveness is valuable for beginners who use familiar structure as training wheels.

• Corporate, “fake” empathetic interface

That’s what I feel too. The discussions on Reddit suggest that the biggest shift in the brand’s authenticity occurred after 2020, when the original creator team was laid off, and the last original creators lost control of their content.

It’s impossible not to notice aggressive upsells and notifications. Like, I know you want to retain my screen time, but do so by being useful, not trappy.

• Unfair pricing

Meditations, breathing, and self-reflection are free tools. I feel that it’s wrong to deceive customers into paying for using these tools. Imagine the financial barriers that students, young professionals, or simply budget-conscious individuals face. The developers’ work should absolutely be paid for, but only after the user is fully informed about what they’re buying and how.

Will These Apps, Like Headspace, Work for Me?

There is no guarantee that any of these apps, like Headspace, will work for you. But I have a strong feeling that it’s possible. Why? The variety of my top plays is in your favor:

• Breeze Wellbeing is versatile, and even if breathing exercises won’t suit your needs, there are plenty of other opportunities to take better care of yourself.
• Insight Timer and Medito are embodiments of traditional guided meditation with thousands of recordings. You are statistically highly likely to find something to your taste.
• Calmaria and Miracle of Mind are beginner-friendly: one-aim. But they’re various in how they approach your feelings, more on the visual side or the auditory.

While no app can do the inner work for you, I genuinely believe in these tools—and more importantly, I believe in you!