HeartMath vs Willowave
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
HeartMath
This app helps you manage stress, improve focus, and achieve optimal performance by aligning your heart, mind, and emotions. It offers guided sessions, immersive journeys, and coherence practices based on over 30 years of research.
- Real-time HRV Coherence Measurement
- Coherence Training
- Scientifically Validated Techniques
- Guided Learning Sessions
- Progress Tracking
- Heart-Brain Coherence Benefits
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Align your heart, mind, and emotions to help you manage stress, improve focus, and perform at your best. Enjoy HeartMath’s free intro experience to access your heart’s natural intelligence and see your heart-brain coherence as real-time feedback. Then start your 7-day free trial to explore a comprehensive collection of guided sessions, immersive journeys, and coherence practices designed to help you experience greater calm, focus, clearer thinking, and a more balanced you. **Inner Balance Coherence Plus sensor owners: Use your sensor to unlock a lifetime subscription.** Built on 30+ years of research on the heart-brain connection and supported by over 500 research studies, HeartMath is used in wellness and resilience programs at organizations including Stanford Healthcare and Kaiser Permanente, as well as in professional sports, the military, law enforcement, leading universities, non-profit organizations, and major corporations. It is used by coaches, trainers, and health professionals for stress education and resilience training. The HeartMath system is more than stress management: it’s a journey to more heart-centered living. This app puts HeartMath’s practical, research-supported tools right at your fingertips. Make mental and emotional well-being an achievable part of your daily life. The HeartMath technology is for stress education and resilience training. It is not a medical device. We encourage you to consult a health professional before making any medical decisions. KEY FEATURES • Real-time HRV coherence feedback: Use your phone’s camera or upgrade to the Inner Balance Coherence Plus sensor for a more precise signal and a free app subscription. • Coherence training: Whether you choose the game or the guided mode, watch your heart-rhythm pattern and coherence change in real time. • Research-Supported: Techniques developed from 30+ years of scientific research to help boost focus, positive feelings, and your ability to manage stress. • Guided learning: Explore guided meditations, courses, and videos led by HeartMath trainers. • Progress tracking: View your progress over time with a variety of chart options. WHAT REGULAR COHERENCE PRACTICE CAN SUPPORT Heart-brain coherence is a balanced, focused state you create yourself through calm breathing and positive focus. Coherence supports the body’s natural ability to shift from tension to calm, helping you manage everyday stress and build inner balance. • SUPPORTS STRESS MANAGEMENT & EMOTIONAL BALANCE • SUPPORTS FOCUS AND MENTAL CLARITY — coherent states are associated with more focus, clarity, and creativity. • SUPPORTS RESILIENCE — regular practice can help you adapt to and recover from challenging situations more quickly. • ENHANCES EMOTIONAL WELL-BEING AND SELF-AWARENESS — practice can support a greater sense of inner calm and a more mindful relationship with your emotions. Subscription terms: • Subscriptions renew automatically at the end of each year. • You can cancel your subscription at any time in your account settings. • You will not be refunded for any unused portion of a subscription. • Price is subject to change. • Subscriptions are not available in all countries. • Full subscription terms: https://my.heartmath.com/terms If you’d like to purchase an Inner Balance Coherence Plus sensor to unlock complimentary lifetime access to the HeartMath app, please visit the HeartMath website.
Willowave
This app uses adaptive soundscapes, healing frequencies, and affirmations to help you reprogram your subconscious mind. It guides you through sonic journeys and offers personalized soundscapes to reshape your reality and manifest desired states.
- Adaptive soundscapes
- Healing frequencies
- Brainwave entrainment
- Personalized affirmations
- Nature ambience
- Guided sonic journeys
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Rewire your mind. Reshape your reality. Willowave turns intention into experience through vibration, subconscious reprogramming, and ancestral wisdom. Using adaptive soundscapes that weave together healing frequencies, brainwave entrainment, nature-inspired ambience, and affirmations, Willowave helps you rewire your subconscious, reshaping the reality you manifest for yourself. *Features: -Healing Frequencies: Science-backed tones designed to target specific processes or emotions. Once you choose your frequency, every sound in the app automatically tunes to it for maximum potency. -Brainwave Technology: Shift into Alpha, Theta, or Delta states for focus, meditation, sleep, or deep release. -Affirmations: Rewire your subconscious story by feeding it the truths you want to live. -Nature Ambience: Layer rain, fire, forest, or even a cat’s purr to create a sensory field of safety and peace, allowing your nervous system to relax. -Sonic Journeys: Guided rituals that combine breathwork, toning, and somatic imagery for deep transformation. -Practical Tools: Save your soundscapes, set timers, schedule sessions, and more. This is the alchemy at the heart of Willowave: a proprietary fusion of neuroscience, sound, and subtle magic that speaks to the subconscious in its own language—frequency, rhythm, and truth. *How It Works -Set Your Intention: Tell Willow (your AI guide) how you want to feel, what you’re ready to release, or what you’re calling in. -Receive Your Soundscape: Willow creates a personalized soundscape using healing frequencies, brainwave entrainment, adaptive music, and affirmations crafted to reprogram your subconscious. If you know what you want, you can also manually select your own. -Rewire Your Reality: Your brain treats thought like lived experience, activating the same neural pathways whether you’re remembering, imagining, or affirming. Willow’s affirmations harness this mechanism to rewrite your inner narrative. As your subconscious adopts new beliefs, your brain begins to seek—and create—patterns that confirm them. Reality reorganizes around your story. Every soundscape is an energetic technology, tuning your nervous system and subconscious to the state you desire. Whether you’re seeking clarity, confidence, love, creativity, or peace, Willowave brings it into resonance. *Why It Works Our brain is a pattern-matching engine. It doesn’t perceive reality as it is—it perceives reality as it expects it to be. Every thought, feeling, and sound reshapes the neural architecture that guides your perceptions, behaviors, and choices. Over time, this architecture becomes the scaffolding of your life. Willowave works by shifting that architecture at its root. Through repeated exposure to affirmations delivered in states of openness, Willowave rewires subconscious beliefs—reshaping the lens through which you engage with the world. As your inner story changes, your external reality follows.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: HeartMath at 4.9 against Willowave's 4.3. HeartMath also leads on ratings volume (4.6K vs 7). Willowave's advantage is review sentiment (83% vs 73%) and device support (3 vs 1). On price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases 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. HeartMath sells 4 in-app purchases, starting at $39.00 per year and Willowave sells 6 in-app purchases, starting at $6.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
HeartMath holds the better App Store score, 4.9 against 4.3. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: HeartMath has 4.6K ratings behind it against 7, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 73% of HeartMath's written reviews are positive against 83% of Willowave's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
HeartMath ships an update every 3 weeks, Willowave monthly. The most recent releases landed on September 22, 2026 and June 14, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | HeartMath | Willowave |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.9 (4.6K ratings) — better | 4.3 (7 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 73.1% of reviews | 83.3% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 4.6K — better | 7 |
| Update frequency | Every 3 weeks — better | Monthly |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Freemium | Freemium |
| Devices | iPhone | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 26.0 | 15.1 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 185 MB | 77 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | HeartMath Inc. | Dawnlight Studios LLC |
Customer experience
HeartMath
Willowave
Bugs and requests
HeartMath
Reported bugs
4 issues- Sensor connection issues on newer devices
- App crashes and freezes on iPhone 16 Pro
- Inaccurate heart rate and coherence readings
- Screen sleep behavior disrupting sessions
Requested features
5 requests- Add dark mode option
- Allow playing music/sounds during sessions
- Provide audio feedback on coherence levels
- Add session history customization and details
- Improve sensor compatibility with older devices
Willowave
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
HeartMath
- HeartMath Premium7 Days trial$39.001 Year
- HeartMath Premium7 Days trial$59.001 Year
- HeartMath Premium7 Days trial2 variants$79.001 Year
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- HeartMath Premium7 Days trial$99.991 Year
Willowave
- Willowave Premium Monthly7 Days trial$6.991 Month
- Willowave Premium Annual7 Days trial$69.991 Year
- Alan Watts Lectures$1.99
- Grabovoi Numbers$1.99
- Silas Dubelaar$2.99
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- Bhikkhu Bodhi$2.99









