Aura vs. Calm: Which Meditation App is Best for You?

When choosing a meditation app, it’s important to find the best fit for you. Both Calm and Aura are leading in the meditation app space, so let’s see how each one measures up in helping you to find peace of mind. 

Aura vs. Calm at a Glance:

While both Calm and Aura offer a wide range of meditation topics suitable for both beginners to advanced meditators, there are some differences to consider when choosing which meditation app is best for you. 

Aura and Calm both offer a free 7-day trial that gives the user access to all their premium features. Both apps are known for their sleep meditation content. Here is where they begin to differ;  Calm has focused their meditation content on sleep while Aura offers a more robust range of topics to promote overall well-being. 

Calm has a great variety of meditations and stories for sleep but is otherwise limited in content. Aura offers an extensive library of more than 30,000 pieces of content including meditations, life coaching, Hypnosis, CBT, soundscapes, podcasts, mood tracking, and live meditations for a well-balanced approach to mental wellness. 

Here is a side-by-side overview of some of the features offered by Aura and Calm:

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Aura Overview:

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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 behavioral therapy, breathwork, hypnosis, prayer, and much more. 

Aura leverages AI to provide anyone with personalized 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 customized experience on Aura based on their needs. 

Here are some of the best meditation features on Aura:

1. Extensive Library: By partnering with hundreds of top coaches & therapists worldwide as creators, Aura offers the world’s largest premium collection of meditations, stories, sleep tracks, life coaching, cognitive behavioral therapy, breathwork, hypnosis, prayer, and much more.
2. An all-in-one mental wellness platform: Aura goes beyond meditation offering a full range of content categories to enhance your well-being. 
3. Micro-Meditations: These short meditations are perfect for busy schedules, new meditators and for those moments when you just need a short mindfulness break in your day. 
4. Live Meditations: Experience the joy of coming together in a group meditation from your home. These offer the benefits of being able to interact with your favorite meditation coaches to enhance your meditation practice, and they are free to attend at all levels of membership. 
5. Track your progress: Aura connects with Apple Health to track your progress over time. You can watch as your sleep, mindfulness and mood improve over time with your Aura meditation practice. 

Pros and Cons for Aura:

Pro #1: A personalized approach to meditation. You are a unique individual and your meditation practice should reflect that. With over 15,000 recordings on Aura, you are sure to find the right fit for you and Aura simplifies this process by making personalized recommendations for you based on your mood and individual needs. 

Pro #2: Great for all levels. Aura offers meditations for all levels of experience and makes it easy for beginners to develop their meditation practice. 

Con #1: Limited access with the free membership. With the basic membership, your access to the recorded tracks is limited but you have full access to attend the live meditations.

Con #2: Overwhelming options. With so much content available on Aura, it can be overwhelming at first for new users. Aura’s personalized approach does help to offset this. 

Pricing for Aura:

• Free Version: Includes access to micro-meditations and Aura Lives.
• Premium Membership: $69.99 US Annually with a 7-day free trial, or $11.99 monthly
• Family Plan: $119.99 US
• Lifetime Membership: $399.99 US

Calm Overview:

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

Calm’s interface is simple and beautiful in design with a customizable dashboard, the user can choose from a collection of stunning backgrounds to enhance their meditation experience. 

Here are some of the best meditation features on Calm:

1. Daily Calm: These are 10-minute meditations to help you build a daily meditation practice. 
2. Sleep stories: Stories to help you drift off to sleep, including stories for children so that the whole family gets a better sleep. 
3. Music: The music section of Calm offers instrumental, lo-fi music, and even sleep remixes of popular music for you to drift off to. 

Pros and Cons for Calm:

Pro #1: Optional reminders: Reminder to help keep you on track with your meditation goals and make it a habit. 

Pro #2: Sleep Stories. Calm is known for its sleep story collection and they have stories for both kids and adults. 

‍Con #1: Limited content. The content on Calm is limited to sleep stories and meditations. While Calm does a good job in these areas, they are lacking in providing a complete approach to mental wellness. 

Con #2: Limited access. The free version of Calm has restricted access to the content that is available and some users have found it too restrictive. 

Con #3: Not personalized. The content is not personalized to the user, which can make it difficult to find what you’re looking for, especially for new meditators who might not know what they need yet. 

Pricing for Calm:

• Free limited access version
• Annual full access subscription: $69.99 US with a free 7-day trial or $14.99 US/monthly
• Family plan: $99 US /year

Calm vs Aura: Variety of Content

Aura goes beyond meditation offering you the world’s largest premium collection of meditations, stories, sleep tracks, life coaching, cognitive behavioral therapy, breathwork, hypnosis, prayer, and much more. 

Calm has a limited library offering only meditation and sleep stories. 

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Calm vs Aura: Content Library

Calm has 100’s of quality meditation and sleep stories.

Aura offers over 30,000 pieces of content for you to choose from making it the “Spotify for Mental Wellness”.

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Calm or Aura? Which One Should You Choose?

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Choose Aura for Your Meditation App. 

While both Aura and Calm offer excellent meditations and high-quality content, Aura takes the lead with their personalized approach to meet your individual needs and their all-in-one approach to mental wellness solutions. 

Aura offers more value for the user. Aura’s Live meditations add an elevated user experience by bringing together meditation and community. Combine that with the extensive library of over 30,000 pieces of content provided on Aura; Life Coaching, Stories, Hypnotherapy, Breathwork, and more. 

Aura is the all-in-one solution for your meditation practice and mental wellbeing.