Insight Timer: The Best Free Meditation App

So I’ve read a few books about meditation and thought that diving into it fully could be one of my goals for 2025. However, like running and even financial independence, my Partner roped me in 🙂 . Instead of waiting for the fairly arbitrary start of the next year, I dove in and have been meditating almost every day for a few months now.

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Previously in addition to reading those books, I’ve only dabbled in a weekly guided meditation that my 5th job (which I talk about in the post below) offered during the workday.

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Surprisingly I found that that the 30 minute guided meditation really helped me focus in the middle of a hectic workday and get more done despite the time spent. In my previous jobs I would never dream of not working for 30 minutes to “get my head straight,” but luckily that job had a more reasonable workload than any before it, so I did and I’m so glad I took the chance.

In addition to reading books (or re-reading in the case of Why Buddhism is True) about meditation this year, I was also interested in searching to see if there was a meditation app that I liked out there. I’ve used paid ones in the past and wasn’t very happy with them, which I’ll talk about below. This time I was curious if there were free options out there so that’s where I focused for this experiment.

This is my search for the best meditation app! My overall goal is to use meditation to help avoid unhelpful anxious spirals of thoughts. I had accepted that this was just a part of me, but after just my first meditation session this year, I learned that it’s not 🙂 .

This is something I can control through mental exercises and I’m so wildly excited about that revelation. After such quick results, I wanted to keep this meditation streak going since like everything, it gets better with practice.

So let’s dive into all of the meditation apps that I’ve used and my thoughts. As you can see from the title, I’ve already reached a solid conclusion, but let’s explore how I got there.

Paid Apps

First let’s talk about paid apps that I’ve tried. A few years ago I kept hearing about the apps Calm and Headspace and I was able to try them both. A friend lent me their Headspace password at their insistence so I could try it out before committing, and my last company (which I talk about in the post below) gifted all its employees a year of a Calm subscription. Overall when looking at what those apps cost, I didn’t personally find that what they offered was worth those prices.

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Calm

So Calm is the meditation app that my last company gifted me during the pandemic. Calm offers a 7 day free trial and then is $14.99/month or $69.99/year if you want to shell out for an annual subscription.

Now $15/month is more than I pay for any subscription, even Spotify Premium, which I use for approximately 8 hours a day, which obviously doesn’t compare to the 5-15 minutes a day that I meditate.

So from a cost perspective alone, I couldn’t justify continuing this subscription after my company’s gift ran out. The content the app provided in 2020 was fine, but didn’t justify the cost to me personally.

Headspace

I tried Headspace with my friend’s password and I couldn’t get into it in 2019. Their approach didn’t resonate with me. And when I revisited their options this year, there was no free trial without signing up and paying.

If you sign up, it’s $12.99/month and starts with an extra 7 days/ 7-day free trial, and if you sign up annually, it costs $69.99/year and comes with an extra 14 days or 14 day free trial, which is once again a large cost for what it provides in my opinion.

So what about free options?

YouTube

When I started meditating again this year, my Partner and I started with YouTube. We really enjoyed the meditation below.

However, I found that overall, YouTube wasn’t a great meditation solution for me because if there are ads inserted in the middle of a video, that can obviously mess up the vibe.

Other Free Apps

So I looked for another solution. I found a list of free app suggestions on Reddit and downloaded them all to see if they met my needs. Let’s see what I found 🙂 .

Medito

So Medito is an app by the Medito Foundation, which is run by volunteers. As a result, they claim that the app and all its contents will be free…forever. I love the premise though I was a little skeptical about that free forever comment since I’ve seen organizations backtrack on that.

But I downloaded the app and was initially impressed with the features of the app, such as the ability to download meditations to do offline, courses, and even meditations in Spanish.

However, I found one thing that was a complete dealbreaker for me and led me to not enjoy using the app: I suspect all the meditations are read by AI or similar. They sound robotic and every meditation lets you choose what kind of voice will read it to you with a choice between 3 different voices – 2 female and 1 male.

Now I understand that paying voice actors to offer all those kinds of options would be very expensive and this is a free app, but because all the voices sound like robots, I didn’t enjoy guided meditations on this app and found the voices distracting. I also think there’s a weird irony in trying to improve human mindfulness by listening to a robot tell you to be present in your body. So Medito was a no for me.

The Healthy Minds Program

The next app I downloaded was The Healthy Minds Program and this is where my impatient personality is going to show. This app was the only one that wouldn’t let me see anything until I created an account.

So I started the process and began reading their super long and slightly suspicious privacy disclosure before deciding I was giving up on this app before even getting into it because of the set up process. This app also has way less downloads on the app store than the other apps I was trying, so I decided to focus on the other apps instead.

Originally I was going to circle back and give this app a fair shot if I decided I wasn’t selling my soul by agreeing to their terms, but before I could, the app annoyed me so much that I deleted it.

Despite saying I have to sign up to see anything and me not doing so, the app started sending me notifications that I obviously didn’t ask for and couldn’t turn off since I hadn’t signed up. So this one got a dismissal from me.

Insight Timer

As you know from the title of this post: Insight Timer is my winner! I think it’s the best free meditation app based on my research above. I’ve been using it almost every day for months now and I absolutely love it.

Easy Set Up

Since I harped so much on the set up process of that other app, let’s see why I loved Insight Timer’s setup 🙂 . First, you can start as a complete guest in their app – no signing in or account creation required.

And not only can you just get started, but as a guest with no info inputted, you can use all the functionality of the app, such as customizing everything and bookmarking meditations. After I used the app daily I realized I had never made an account, and since I’d decided to stay with them for the long haul, I did and it was seamless to keep all of my history while I was logged in as a guest and now having an account as “Purple.” I love it 🙂 .

When I first started the app, it began with a short questionnaire. It says that it’s using it to personalize the app based on how you want to use it, which I appreciate and believe based on all the customization this app offers, which I’ll get into below. I preferred this entry process to what Medito offered because this was more clear and actually seemed to customize my app based on my responses.

Now Insight Timer is completely free, but similar to Cronometer, they also have a subscription that they call Plus. At the end of the entry questionnaire they asked if I wanted to start a 7 day free trial of Plus (which is $60/year after that), which I declined by pressing the grey “Skip” button that’s in the top right corner.

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I wanted to explore what is offered in the free version before going full hog and I’m so glad I did! Insight Timer is similar to Cronometer in that the free version of their app provides everything you could need, works wonderfully, and doesn’t hide any necessary features behind a paywall (like lesser apps such as MyFitnessPal do…). In smart fashion, the Plus subscription just adds things on top of the free version, such as the ability to download meditations for offline use.

Features

But what does Insight Timer offer exactly? In short, everything 🙂 . They have a huge catalog of guided meditations from a wild number of different teachers, music so you can do your own meditation and the titular Timer.

The Timer

One of the customizable buttons at the top of the home screen is the Timer, which allows you to completely customize your own un-guided meditation from the bell sound at the beginning of the meditation (my favorite is “Shürong”), to any sounds you wish to hear during the meditation (I’m all about “Nature’s Melody”).

You can also add bells at intervals within the meditation if you’d like, but I prefer to just listen to my breath. You can then save the custom timer you’ve created – or if you just want to dive in, there are a bunch of preset timers you can use, such as “5 Minute Meditation By The Sea.”

Guided Meditation

When you first use the app, it offers a a 7 Day Journey Of Meditation at the top of the home screen to get you started. I believe this uses your answers to the questionnaire at the beginning to customize your journey. I preferred this approach to Medito’s course because instead of a boring lecture, it shows you a different theme per day that you’re working on and then lets you choose from a lot of different guided meditations that tackle the subject.

So for example, when I looked through the section for Day 1: Breath – it has a button at the top to quickly tap through previews of the meditations, which I found super helpful! Instead of opening each individually to find a voice and sound that I like, I can just swipe through these quickly and then from there click to listen to the full thing. Very efficient.

I completed those 7 days of meditation and then set out on my own. Insight Timer claims that they have “the largest free library of guided meditations on earth” and I believe it. They have a huge variety, which I appreciate, but they also make it easy to find exactly what you’re looking for.

For example, they have a search function where I can type in something as random as “negative thought spiral” and find applicable meditation tracks, talks or courses and then filter based on type (e.g. guided meditation tracks only), time (0-5 minutes, 5-10 minutes etc), voices (male, female etc) and with or without background music. Cool!

The app also has lots of tags on each track so if you want more like it, you can click things like “Breathwork”, “Secular Mindfulness” or “Guided Imagery” and easily find more like that. These tracks and teachers also have reviews at the bottom of the page to help if you love reviews as much as I do. There is also a button to donate money to the meditation teacher if you’d like.

Once I find a teacher I like, I can go to their page to see their other meditations, courses and talks. Some even have free live events.

Sleep

Another section of meditation offered revolves around sleep. Insight Timer has sleep meditation, stories, music and even just sounds for you to listen to which help you drift into dreamland. You can also enable “Sleep Mode” on any audio file so your device will auto-lock when the file finishes and you’re asleep.

Even More Features

Insight Timer has so many features that despite using it almost daily for months, I haven’t even used all of them yet! One that I appreciate is that when you boot up the app, it gives you a different relevant quote everyday. They have an entire section of helpful quotes if that’s something that motivates you.

There is also a section for journaling, checking in on your mood after each meditation and even my beloved Yoga! The yoga part is particularly impressive to me because there are often free live classes happening that you can join. Super cool!

Lastly, Insight Timer has an extensive FAQ section on their website in case you have any questions. Overall I must say that based on my experience with the apps above, I believe this chart by Insight Timer about how their app wins across the board.

Conclusion

And that’s why I think Insight Timer is the best free meditation app. I believe their claim about having the “largest free library of guided meditations” and I greatly appreciate the variety of teachers on the app. I also love how literally every part of the app is customizable to exactly meet your needs and provide what you’re looking for in the moment from music to guided meditations to live yoga.

In fact, Insight Timer seems so dedicated to sharing these resources for free that you don’t even need to download their app to use them. They’re available directly on their website 🙂 . I’m excited to continue using Insight Timer every day and continue my mindfulness journey.

What’s your favorite app for relaxation?