The Insight Timer app (Apple/Android) has become one of the most popular meditation apps available, probably owed mostly to its massive library of free guided meditations, music tracks, affirmations, and talks. But is it the right choice for your meditation practice?
In this article, we’ll dive into the pros and cons of the Insight Timer app, focusing on its free tools, diverse meditation types, varied instructors, and some of the limitations you might encounter.
A Veritable Buffet of Meditation Tools
One of the biggest draws of the Insight Timer app is the sheer volume of free content it offers. Whether you’re new to meditation or a seasoned practitioner, you’ll find plenty of tools to support your practice without spending a dime.
The app includes 230,000 tracks, and that number is growing every day. From short, five-minute meditation sessions to longer, in-depth practices, there’s something for everyone.
Time is on Your Side
The free version also offers a customizable meditation timer, complete with a variety of bells and ambient sounds. This feature is perfect if you prefer a more traditional, unguided meditation practice.
You can set the timer for any time in 10-second intervals all the way up to 23 hours, 59 minutes, and 50 seconds. If you need a longer timer than that, then kudos to you! Maybe you’d be better served by setting a calendar reminder to end your meditation.
You can also choose your starting and ending bells, and even add interval bells if you want a gentle reminder.
Other Offerings
On top of thousands of guided meditations and a timer, Insight Timer provides access to a wide range of meditation music and ambient sounds, from soothing background sounds to tracks designed to help you focus or relax.
It has guided affirmations, talks, courses, breathwork, yoga, and qigong, to name a few. Name just about any guided mindfulness activity, and I’ll bet Insight Timer has it. I’ve tried many meditation apps, but none come close to the volume of content on Insight Timer.
Your Meditation Menu: Picking the Perfect Practice
The Insight Timer app doesn’t just cater to one style of meditation. It offers a wide variety of meditation types, so you can explore and find what works best for you. Whether you’re interested in basic mindfulness, yoga, Buddhism, loving-kindness, body scans, visualization practices, mantra meditations, or anything in between, you’ll find plenty of options.
Targeted Topics
For those looking to target specific areas of their life or interests, the app includes meditations focused on 206 different topics like stress reduction, sleep improvement, and emotional and physical healing.
You can also find sessions dedicated to gratitude, self-love, cultivating compassion, and manifestation, among others. I even found meditations specifically for people dealing with ADHD or anxiety, and breathing techniques to help manage panic attacks.
An A in Accessibility
The app also offers meditations in multiple languages, making it accessible to a global audience. Whether you prefer to meditate in English, Spanish, French, or another language, you’re likely to find something that suits your needs.
Guides Galore: Finding Your Personal Guru
One of the strengths of the Insight Timer app is the diversity of its teachers. With thousands of meditation instructors contributing to the app, you’ll have the opportunity to learn from guides with different backgrounds, approaches, and styles.
Whether you prefer a gentle, soothing voice or a more direct, scientific or motivational approach, you’re likely to find a teacher whose style resonates with you. The app features some very well-known meditation teachers, like Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach, Sadhguru, Ram Das, and even the recording artist, Moby.
Teacher Troubles
This variety can be both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, you have endless options to explore. On the other hand, it might take some time to find a teacher whose style you connect with. Even the more notorious teachers can be difficult to find unless you know exactly what you’re looking for.
However, the app allows users to rate and review sessions, which can help guide your choices, but it can still be a trial-and-error process. The good news is, once you find one you like, you can bookmark them or follow the teacher so you don’t forget.
Behind the Paywall: Paid Courses and Premium Perks
While the Insight Timer app offers a wealth of free content, its courses, as well as some meditations and talks, are only available to users who subscribe to the paid version, Insight Timer Plus.
Crash Course in Courses
The Insight Timer courses are designed to provide more structured, in-depth learning experiences, often focusing on specific themes or goals.
Courses range from beginner-friendly introductions to meditation, to more advanced practices and deep dives into topics like mindfulness, sleep, and self-compassion. Each course typically includes a series of guided meditations or exercises, along with lectures and other instructional content.
Premium Playtime
The paid subscription also unlocks other premium features, like offline access to meditations, advanced playback controls, and additional music and meditation tracks.
Although there is so much free content on the app, for some users the investment might be worth it. There have been a number of times when I was glad I had the Plus subscription because a guided meditation or course caught my interest.
However, the free version of Insight Timer still offers plenty of value, and you probably will find that the free content is more than enough to support your practice. If you’re on the fence about upgrading, it’s worth exploring any free offerings before committing to a subscription.
At the time of writing, the Plus subscription cost $59.99 for an annual subscription or $9.99 for a monthly subscription and comes with a 7-day free trial.
A Maze of Mindfulness: Navigating the App’s Content
One of the biggest difficulties for me with the Insight Timer app is its organization. With so much content available, I’ve often found myself browsing, scrolling, and searching for several minutes to find what I was looking for.
Let’s Take a Shortcut
Although the app does offer shortcuts above the fold that you can personalize, I didn’t find them particularly helpful. One might expect them to be organized by the type of track or the topic, but the few options that are available aren’t very intuitive.
As you scroll down, the app offers one course followed by a “Made for you” section with only one filter for the duration. I found that many of the “Made for you” suggestions were not always on point.
Time-Saver Searches
The search page is more helpful than the customizable home page, but it’s also not perfect. It does organize the tracks by type, including Beginner, Meditation, Breathwork, Sleep, etc., and it contains a list of all 206 topics or interests. If you know what you’re looking for, this is very helpful. If you don’t, it can feel overwhelming.
Once you choose a type of track (for example, meditations), it gives you a list of over 100,000 meditations. Once you’re in this massive list, there are very few filters to help narrow down your options. You can sort by most popular, highest rated, etc. and choose the duration, but the content filters only allow you to choose between male or female voices and background music or no background music.
Interests Save the Day
Instead, I would recommend using the Interests list on the search page. Once you choose a topic (for example, Stress & Anxiety), you can filter a lot further by selecting just the top tracks, courses, groups, events, etc. or drill down into the topic by focusing on stress, anxiety, SOS, anger, fear, or workplace. By selecting “Tracks,” you can sort, choose a duration, and select whether you want a meditation, music, or talk.
You can also bookmark your favorite meditations and create playlists, which makes it easier to revisit sessions you liked. You can follow your favorite teachers to find more of their content too.
Conclusion
The Insight Timer app offers a seriously impressive array of meditation tools, especially considering how much of it is free (most of it!). Its variety of meditation types and instructors makes it a versatile choice for practitioners at any level.
The app’s organizational system can be a drawback, and you might find yourself spending more time than you’d like sifting through content. But if you’re willing to put in the time to explore, which can be fun in itself, the Insight Timer app is an amazing resource for your meditation practice.
If you’re looking for a primer on some of the many different types of meditation to try, check out our article on the 10 Types of Meditation to Enhance Your Mind, Body, and Spirit.