Most people who download a meditation app are looking for one of two things: a way to feel less anxious during a stressful week, or a contemplative practice that goes somewhere over years. Headspace and Calm dominate downloads because they're excellent at the first. They're not the best tools for the second, and pretending otherwise produces a generation of meditators who've completed a hundred guided sessions without ever sitting silently for ten minutes.
The right app depends entirely on which of those two things you're actually after.
The four worth knowing, by what they're best at
Headspace. £49.99/year, often free via NHS partnerships. Andy Puddicombe's voice and instruction are widely accessible. The right entry point for genuine beginners — gentle introduction without spiritual or philosophical assumptions. UK's most-recommended meditation app for first-timers, and deservedly so.
Waking Up. £80-£100/year. Sam Harris's app. More secular, more philosophically rigorous, more challenging. Different category than Headspace or Calm — this is closer to actual meditation instruction than to relaxation content. Best for UK adults serious about contemplative practice rather than just stress relief.
Insight Timer. Free, with £60/year premium for courses and ads-free experience. The largest free meditation library — thousands of meditations from many teachers, every tradition. The right answer if you want variety and don't want to commit to a single instructor's voice.
Calm. £39.99/year. Polished app, more sleep-focused than Headspace. Celebrity-narrated content (Matthew McConaughey reading bedtime stories, etc.). Less genuine meditation instruction depth than Headspace or Waking Up. Better as a sleep app than a meditation app, in honest assessment.
How to actually decide
If you've never meditated and want a gentle introduction: Headspace at £40/year. Easy entry, good first 3-6 months. The NHS partnership often makes it free.
If you've meditated before, found it interesting, and want to go deeper: Waking Up. Worth the higher price for the depth. Sam Harris doesn't soften the difficult parts of practice the way mainstream apps do — which is the point.
If you want free, with depth: Insight Timer free tier. The variety is genuinely the differentiator.
If your primary need is help getting to sleep: skip the meditation apps and try Pzizz (covered in our sleep apps article) — it's specifically designed for sleep onset and tends to outperform meditation apps used for the same purpose.
What I'd swerve: subscribing to multiple meditation apps simultaneously (you'll use one), and meditation apps where the celebrity narrator is the primary differentiator. The practice matters; the celebrity doesn't.
A note on what apps can't do
Meditation apps work best when they introduce you to a practice you eventually carry without them. The honest goal is to need the app less over time, not more. If you're three years into Headspace and still need a guided session every day to sit for ten minutes, the app has become the practice rather than a teacher of it.
That's not the app's fault. It's a feature of how habits form. But it's worth noticing — and if it applies to you, that's the moment to consider Waking Up's more austere approach, or to drop the app entirely and try a few sessions in silence.
Affiliate disclosure: Morningfold has affiliate partnerships with Headspace, Calm, Insight Timer, and Waking Up. See editorial standards.