Comparison

Braintunes vs Zen

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Braintunes

This app provides ambient soundscapes designed to enhance focus, relaxation, sleep, and meditation. It offers continuous background playback with no vocals or abrupt changes, allowing users to maintain their desired state without distractions.

Highlights
  • Focus, Relax, Sleep, and Meditate modes
  • Continuous background playback
  • Lock screen and native player controls
  • Sleep timer options
  • Favorites and disliked-track filtering
  • Daily reminders and listening streaks
Features
Read full description

Braintunes is a music app for work, study, sleep, and meditation. If you are looking for music for work, music for study, or calming soundscapes for sleep, Braintunes gives you focused ambient sessions designed to help you stay in the right state without distractions. Choose the mode that fits the moment: Focus for deep work and studying, Relax to unwind, Sleep to slow down at night, or Meditate for quieter sessions. Each session is built to stay in the background with smooth ambient soundscapes, no vocals, and no abrupt changes. Pick the intensity that feels right and let it play without interruptions. Features include: • Focus, Relax, Sleep, and Meditate modes • Three intensity levels • Continuous background playback • Lock screen and native player controls • Sleep timer options • Favorites and disliked-track filtering • Daily reminders and listening streaks • Multilingual support • No ads Built for people looking for study music, focus music, and a calmer alternative to binaural-beat apps.

About

Zen

Features
Read full description

Just Sit. Your Way. Nothing Else. A silent meditation timer with traditional bells. The sit is free. Optional short guided sits when just sitting is hard. Then silence. No ads, no streaks, no account. JUST SIT Sit on a cushion or chair. Eyes barely open, soft gaze. Feel your body, breath, and posture. No mantra, no goal. When thoughts come and go, just return to sitting. The benefits are real — a calm mind, more focus, more clarity, better sleep, less stress, more presence. They show up when you stop chasing them. YOUR WAY Just sit. Easier said than done. Just sitting can be brutal. Most people need a little guidance, and that detour is fine. Optional short guided sits — the Just Sit course, one idea at a time — then sit in silence. Or leave every optional feature off. Not a library of courses. Discover your way to just sit. NOTHING ELSE Everything you need to just sit is included, and stays free. A timer, bells, Watch, widgets. No ads, no streaks, no account to sit. The sit stays free. Always. Native on iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch. Focus on what matters: just sit. HOW IT WORKS Open the app · pick a duration · sit. Beautiful bells, soundscapes, intervals, warmup and cooldown. If you want to look around: Welcome on first launch, then short guided sits for ordinary life. Nothing required. Explore at your own pace. WHY THIS EXISTS Hi, I'm Francis, a longtime Apple developer. I discovered regular meditation about 15 years ago. I suffer from PTSD, and meditation has helped me survive — more than once — when things fall apart. Meditation only clicked for me with a Zen just-sit practice. To get there I had to put in the time: other practices, sampling, trial and error, year after year of showing up to sit. I needed those 10,000 minutes on apps before I could stop searching and, in the end, just sit. Zen : Your Way is my way of giving back. A quiet timer. Optional guidance to nudge you toward just sitting. Nothing in the way of the sit itself. ON IPHONE AND IPAD • Apple Watch companion — start sits and complications on your wrist • Home Screen widgets and Live Activities

Screenshots

Braintunes4 screens
Zen4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is device support: Zen at 6 against Braintunes's 3. Braintunes's advantage is iOS requirement (15.1 vs 17.0). On price, 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

Scorecard2 real differences · 7 level
Braintunes versus Zen: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterBraintunesZen
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (1 ratings) — better—
Number of ratings1 — better—
Update frequency—Every 2 days
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFree—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV, Apple Watch, Vision Pro — better
Requires iOS15.1 — better17.0
Further details — not scored
Size43 MB25 MB
Age rating17+4+
DeveloperAleksandr NovikovFrancis Dierick

In-app purchases

None

Braintunes

No in-app purchases

None

Zen

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Braintunes free?
Braintunes is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Zen free?
Zen is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Braintunes or Zen have ads?
Neither Braintunes nor Zen shows ads.

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