Plum Village vs Orin
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Plum Village
This app offers guided mindfulness meditations and talks from a renowned Zen Buddhist Master to help reduce stress, anxiety, and cultivate inner peace. Explore a variety of practices for daily life, including meditations for children and offline listening options.
- 100+ guided meditations
- Customizable meditation timer
- Mindfulness Bell
- 300+ video sessions/Q&As
- Guided meditations for children
- Offline practice downloads
- Mindful Minutes tracking
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Looking to touch peace, calm and ease in today’s frantic and often stressful world? The Plum Village practices are an invaluable support. Use mindfulness meditation techniques taught by a renowned Zen Buddhist Master to connect deeply with the present moment, soothe anxiety, experience more joy and happiness, and taste enlightenment. Explore a wealth of easy-to-use guided meditations, relaxations, and talks. The Plum Village app enables us to bring mindfulness into our life, so we can live each moment more deeply and create a happier future. As Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh said, mindfulness allows us to be truly alive. ========================================== Plum Village: Zen Guided Meditation App – Main Features ========================================== • Free forever with no ads or in-app purchases • 100+ guided meditations • A customizable meditation timer • A “Mindfulness Bell” to incorporate into your daily routine • 300+ video sessions/Q&As with Thich Nhat Hanh and Plum Village teachers • 15 guided meditations for children • “Favourite” your most loved meditations to find them easily • Download talks and meditations to the app for easy offline practice • Track time spent listening to meditations as “Mindful Minutes” in the Apple Health app (if enabled) The Plum Village app is regularly being updated with new guided meditations and talks. It is completely free to download and all of the content is available for free. =========================================== Plum Village: Zen Guided Meditation App – Main Categories =========================================== The Plum Village app is split into four easy-to-use categories – meditations, talks, resources, and bells of mindfulness: MEDITATIONS Meditation is a deep practice that helps us generate peace and calm, master our mind, develop a healthy headspace, and get deep insights into ourselves and the world around us. Meditations include deep relaxations, guided contemplations, silent meditations, and eating meditations. Whether you have a little time or a lot, and whether you want to be on your cushion or applying mindfulness in your daily life, there are meditations to nourish, inspire, and incorporate into your daily routine. TALKS Listen and learn from the wisdom of Thich Nhat Hanh and other Plum Village meditation teachers Ask Thay includes hundreds of real-life questions asked to the Zen Master, like “How can we let go of anger? and “How can I stop worrying?” His answers are compassionate and infused with insight. Dharma Talks are teachings given by Thich Nhat Hanh and others on how to bring Buddhist wisdom and mindfulness into our life. Rather than discussing theoretical concepts, they focus on direct and clear teachings to relieve suffering and create happiness in our day to day lives. RESOURCES In Resources you can find a library of daily practices, chants, poems, and songs. These bring to life the practices taught in Plum Village monasteries around the world and offer ways to bring mindfulness into our world, wherever we are. BELL OF MINDFULNESS In Plum Village monasteries bells of mindfulness chime at regular intervals. Everybody stops and takes three mindful breaths to pause from their thinking or talking, breathe, and return to their bodies. The Bell of Mindfulness allows us to have the same reminder on our phone. We can customize the bell to chime at different time periods. Settings include: • Start time / End time • Chime intervals • Bell volume • Daily repeating schedule Regular use of the Bell of Mindfulness will cultivate more calm and relaxation in your life. ------------------------------------ Why not give the Plum Village app a try and see how you can benefit from it? The app is a digital companion on your mindfulness journey. Created as a gift to the world, this free app contains invaluable resources to guide you towards inner peace and freedom. Download today for free!
Orin
This app offers a guided breathing experience with unique soundscapes designed to promote calm, focus, and better sleep. It utilizes binaural beats and Tibetan singing bowls that sync with your breath, creating a personalized audio environment for relaxation.
- Guided breathing exercises
- Dynamic binaural beat soundscapes
- Four distinct intentions (Calm, Release, Focus, Rest)
- Adjustable session lengths (3-20 minutes)
- Sleep mode with fading soundscape
- No account required for basic use
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Orin is a quiet space to breathe, settle, and reset. WHY BREATH WORKS A slow exhale activates your parasympathetic nervous system, the part of your body that lowers your heart rate and signals it's safe to relax. That's the mechanism behind coherent breathing and box breathing, both built into Orin's four intentions. THE SOUND Orin builds a live soundscape for every session: a warm noise bed, real binaural beats made from two different tones in each ear, and Tibetan singing bowls that ring in time with your breath. Nothing loops. Nothing plays the same way twice. Binaural beats have been studied for decades as a tool for relaxation and focus. Even declassified CIA research from the 1980s looked at binaural audio's effect on the mind. Orin treats it as a tool, not a promise: put on headphones and notice the shift yourself. WHAT MAKES ORIN DIFFERENT Most meditation apps hand you a library of hundreds of sessions and a subscription screen before you've taken a breath. Orin skips all of that. Choose an intention, breathe with the guide while the sound builds around you, and finish in as little as 3 minutes. FEATURES Four intentions: Calm and Ground, Release Stress, Sharpen Focus, and Deep Rest, each with its own breath pace, tone, and binaural frequency. Session lengths from 3 to 20 minutes. Drift, a sleep mode that glides down with you: the visuals dim, the chimes go quiet, and the whole soundscape fades itself to silence by the end, instead of looping all night. No account required. Your first full session is free. Orin Unlimited unlocks everything: 3.99 a month or 39.99 a year, both with a 7-day free trial. Orin supports relaxation and focus. It is not medical care and does not replace a doctor or therapist. Made with care by coolhandlook.com. Copyright: 2026 Cool Hand Look Privacy Policy: https://www.coolhandlook.com/orin-privacy Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.coolhandlook.com/orin-terms
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Plum Village at none against Orin's 2. Plum Village also leads on ratings volume (3.8K vs 1). Orin's advantage is update cadence (every 4 days vs monthly). On price, rating, review sentiment and ads there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Orin sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $3.99 per month. Plum Village asks for nothing beyond the download.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for Plum Village against 5.0 for Orin. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Plum Village has 3.8K ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 98% of Plum Village's written reviews are positive against 100% of Orin's.
Plum Village ships an update monthly, Orin every 4 days. The most recent releases landed on September 22, 2026 and September 7, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Plum Village | Orin |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 5.0 (3.8K ratings) | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 98.1% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 3.8K — better | 1 |
| Update frequency | Monthly | Every 4 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Free — better | Freemium |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 15.1 | 15.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 78 MB | 9 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Centre for Applied Ethics Ltd | LUKE WILLIAMS ARCHER |
Customer experience
Plum Village
Orin
Bugs and requests
Plum Village
Reported bugs
1 issue- iOS 15 broke the mindfulness bell feature
Requested features
2 requests- Add a setting to customize the number of mindfulness bells
- Incorporate more guided meditations led by female monastics
Orin
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Plum Village
No in-app purchases
Orin
- Orin Unlimited Monthly7 Days trial$3.991 Month
- Orin Unlimited Annual7 Days trial$39.991 Year









