Headspace vs Surely
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Headspace
This app offers a unique 3D approach to organizing thoughts and creating hierarchical outlines. Visualize your information in a floating space, navigate with intuitive gestures, and connect related ideas with visual links. It's designed for a dynamic and engaging way to manage lists and mind maps.
- Build hierarchical outlines in 3D space
- Navigate and zoom with familiar finger gestures
- Connect related items with link lines
- Change item color and opacity
- Universal app for iPhone and iPad
- Sync files with Dropbox
- PDF export with active note links
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*** PLEASE NOTE: This NOT the meditation app! *** (There is another app called "Headspace: Guided Meditation and Mindfulness" and this is NOT that app!) This is the *original* Headspace! HEADSPACE is iOS's coolest 3D outliner and mind-mapping app! Do your list-making and mind-mapping in 3D space with the *original* Headspace. "Five stars on iPhone, completely off the scale on iPad" "This is the app I've most wanted to run on the iPad since the day it was announced, and the app that anyone looking over your shoulder will immediately want to buy an iPad just to run. " "Love the program. Favorite app. Useful and looks great. " "The implementation is beautiful! In my opinion, Headspace is becoming one of the best apps in the store." "I bought Headspace last night on a whim - been fooling around with mindmapping apps lately. This is a little piece of brilliance, you know that, right? " "This app could not just be a mindmapping program, It has the capability to become a new kind of U.I. That in my opinion that improved over apples U.I." Headspace allows you to create items and groups of items on a floating plane in three-dimensional space. The hierarchy of items and their various sub-items make for a beautiful display of information as they recede into the distance. Simple and familiar finger gestures allow you to move around the space. Use the menu button to travel between various groups. Easily create links and travel between them. The beautiful animated interface is like something from a sci-fi movie, but it isn't just eye-candy. You can go from an "eagle-eye" view of your entire map to focusing on a single item with a simple pinch of your fingers. There's just something about being able to manipulate the scale and space that goes perfectly with the idea of outlining. Here's a rundown on all its cool features: ● build hierarchical outlines in 3D space ● use familiar finger gestures to navigate and zoom ● connect related items with link lines - even between files! ● change item color and opacity ● change text color ● 'Flick' up or down to travel to top or bottom of lists ● special characters and foreign-language support ● universal app -- runs on both iphone and ipad ● easy travel between groups and files ● cut-and-paste items ● search in spaces, notes, and files ● item notes for supplemental information (text/photo/url) ● optional accelerometer rotate ● customizable color palette ● "to-do" style item checkboxes ● 2D orthogonal mode ● sync files between your iphone and iPad with Dropbox ● file support for Freemind, the free multi-platform desktop mind-mapping program ● stunning PDF export w/ active note links Get some perspective on your thoughts. Try Headspace today! Let us know what else you'd like to see added, email headspace@flatblackfilms.com!
Surely
This app offers a streamlined approach to task management, focusing on completion rather than complex organization. It provides essential actions like completing, deleting, or deferring tasks, intentionally omitting features that might encourage procrastination.
- Complete tasks
- Delete tasks
- Defer tasks
- Minimalist interface
- Focus on task completion
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Most todo apps give you lots of features to organize your todos. But you don't want to be spending time organizing your todos: you want to be completing them. Surely is a focused todo app giving you just the features you need to get your todos done. There are only three things you can do with a todo: * Complete it * Delete it * Defer it Here are all the features Surely doesn't have because they encourage you to keep more todos instead of completing them: * Separate defer dates and due dates * Complex ways of searching for todos * Separate lists of todos so you aren't looking at all of them at once * Bulk defer features. It should not be painless to defer many todos to the future; it should be painful to work with multiple todos so that you complete or delete them Surely is available for free on both iOS and the web.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Surely at Free against Headspace's $3.99. Surely also leads on rating (5.0 vs 4.4) and review sentiment (100% vs 71%). Headspace's advantage is ratings volume (10 vs 1) and iOS requirement (9.0 vs 15.1). On update cadence, ads, in-app purchases and device support 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
Surely is free to download; Headspace costs $3.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Surely holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.4. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Headspace has 10 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 71% of Headspace's written reviews are positive against 100% of Surely's.
Headspace ships an update every 2 months, Surely every 6 weeks. The most recent releases landed on September 28, 2026 and September 24, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Headspace | Surely |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $3.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 4.4 (10 ratings) | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 71.4% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 10 — better | 1 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months | Every 6 weeks — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Paid | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 9.0 — better | 15.1 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 19 MB | 34 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Flat Black Films | Josh Justice |
Customer experience
Headspace
Surely
Bugs and requests
Headspace
Reported bugs
15 issues- App crashes on creating new groups
- Crashes when entering text on iPad
- Text color picker fails to change colors
- Instant crash when closing text color picker
- Crashes on Dropbox connection
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- Data loss with file format updates
- Existing links lost after updates
- Screen flickers between files
- Text display issues after multiple app launches
- Color brightness settings lost
- Keyboard popup without dialog box
- Accelerometer causes erratic screen movement
- Incompatibility with iOS/iPadOS updates
- Performance lag with large maps
- Syncing issues between devices
Requested features
24 requests- Desktop/Mac version for syncing
- iCloud syncing between iOS devices
- Google Drive and OneDrive support
- Evernote integration
- Ability to drag items between groups
Show 19 moreShow fewer
- Undo functionality
- Export to email directly
- Different arrow/connector styles
- OPML export format
- Reminders and deadline notifications
- Different text box shapes
- Photo/image import and support
- Web-based version
- Ability to move items outside groups
- Simpler gesture controls for text entry
- List view option
- Icons and visual indicators for content types
- Advanced search functionality
- Child count indicators on parent nodes
- Customizable 3D graphics
- Movie recording with preset paths
- Structured data visualization capabilities
- Automatic color selection for new groups
- Bullet points for children items
Surely
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Headspace
No in-app purchases
Surely
No in-app purchases









