MindTime vs Plum Village: Free Apps Compared
Compare MindTime and the Plum Village app, two free meditation apps: one a timer with ambient soundscapes, one built on Thich Nhat Hanh's teachings.
Overview
MindTime and the Plum Village app are both free, and both help you sit down and meditate, but they start from different places. The Plum Village app shares the teachings of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh and the Plum Village monastic community: guided meditations, deep relaxations, talks, practice songs and chants, along with a meditation timer and a mindfulness bell. MindTime is a timer-first app for self-directed practice, with 30 curated ambient soundscapes, a sound mixer, bells and session tracking.
Put simply, Plum Village brings a tradition and its teachers to your phone. MindTime gives you a quiet, configurable space to practice in, without instruction.
| MindTime | Plum Village | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free, no subscription | Free, supported by donations |
| Focus | Self-directed timer practice | Teachings and practices of the Plum Village tradition |
| Timer | Any duration, endless mode, warm-up and cool-down | Any duration, choice of bell, interval bells |
| Audio | 30 ambient soundscapes and a mixer | Guided meditations, deep relaxations, talks, songs, chants |
| Tracking | Streaks, total sessions, time practiced | Activity logs with an optional account |
| Offline | Timer, bells and downloaded soundscapes | Text items, plus audio and video you download |
| Platforms | Android, iOS | Android, iOS, web |
Meditation Timer
Plum Village's timer sits in the Timer / Bell menu. You choose the length of the sitting, and can pick a bell sound, add interval bells and set the volume. The structure follows practice-center habits: a 10-second buffer with one half chime and three full chimes opens the session, each interval is marked by a half chime and a full chime, and a 30-second cool-off with a half chime and two full chimes closes it.
MindTime treats the timer as the whole app. You set any session length or choose endless mode, add warm-up and cool-down phases, and let the audio fade out at the end.
Soundscapes and Audio
Plum Village's audio is teaching and practice. You get guided meditations, deep relaxations, talks, practice songs and chants, many of them recorded at retreats rather than in a studio, which gives them the feel of sitting with the community.
MindTime's audio is for practicing without a voice. Its 30 curated soundscapes cover nature sounds, white noise, healing frequencies, lo-fi beats and more. The sound mixer lets you layer several, adjust each volume and save the mix for your next session.
Ready for a simpler meditation app?
MindTime combines customizable timers, soundscapes, bells, and progress tracking in one place. All features are free to use.
Bells
Both apps take bells seriously. Plum Village lets you choose the bell for its timer and adds a separate mindfulness bell: a regular reminder through the day to pause and return to your breathing, a practice Thich Nhat Hanh encouraged his students to keep.
MindTime has 6 meditation bells, including singing bowls, crystal bowls and gongs, which you can set for the start, the end and custom intervals. Our guide to meditation bells explains the role each one plays in a session.
Guided Practice and Teachings
This is where Plum Village stands apart. The app holds hundreds of resources from Thich Nhat Hanh and the Plum Village monastics: guided meditations, deep relaxations, talks, hundreds of answers from the Zen Master, practice songs and chants. The app calls itself a monastery for your pocket, and it has been downloaded by more than 500,000 people. If you want to learn a practice together with the tradition behind it, it is a generous place to start.
MindTime has no guided content. It assumes you already have a practice, or are learning one from a teacher or a book, and want the timer to stay out of the way. Many meditators use both kinds of tool: a teacher for instruction, a timer for the daily sit. Our comparison of guided vs unguided meditation covers when each one helps.
Session Tracking
Plum Village saves your favorites, playlists and activity logs when you sign in with an optional account, so you don't lose them.
MindTime tracks your meditation streaks, total sessions and time spent practicing, and its statistics view shows your consistency over time. If a visible streak keeps you coming back to the cushion, MindTime does more here.
Pricing
Both apps are free. The Plum Village app and all its content are offered free by the Centre for Applied Ethics, a non-profit in London, and the app runs on donations. If you value it, you can give once or monthly through its website.
All MindTime features are free too: the timer, every soundscape, the mixer, bells, tracking and the journal. No subscription or lifetime purchase is required. For more options without a paywall, see the best free meditation timer apps.
Offline Use
In Plum Village, every text item is already available offline. To listen to audio or video without a connection, you download each item through its "…" menu.
The MindTime app runs its timer and bells offline and plays the soundscapes you have downloaded, so it works at a retreat, on a flight or in airplane mode with the screen locked. The MindTime browser timer is handy for a quick session at a desk, but only the app works fully offline and on a locked screen.
Conclusion
Choose Plum Village if you want to learn mindfulness from Thich Nhat Hanh and his monastic community, with guided meditations, talks and songs, and a timer shaped by how the community sits together.
Choose MindTime if you already know how you want to sit and want a timer with interval bells, 30 ambient soundscapes, a mixer and streak tracking.
Both are free, so you don't have to choose for good: learn from one, sit with the other. Still comparing? Read MindTime vs Insight Timer or browse our Insight Timer alternatives.