Comparison

Lotus Bud Meditation Timer vs Less

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

Head to head
About

Lotus Bud Meditation Timer

This app helps you establish a regular meditation practice with a beautiful, intuitive interface. It offers customizable timers, gentle sound cues, and interactive reminders to support your well-being. Enhance your experience with optional features for tracking history and setting intentions.

Highlights
  • Customizable meditation duration
  • Gentle singing bowl sound alerts
  • Interactive reminders
  • Today widget for quick access
  • Apple Watch integration
  • Meditation history and notes (in-app purchase)
  • Intention setting for gradual duration increase (in-app purchase)
Features
Read full description

Built to support your practice Lotus Bud is a meditation timer built for practitioners who want a focused tool that respects the work they do. No content library, social network, music player or other distractions standing between you and the cushion. Just you and the cushion. FREE FEATURES • Simple timed or untimed meditation • Widgets and Live Activities: Start a session directly from your Home Screen or Lock Screen. Track elapsed time throughout your sit with Live Activities on the Lock Screen and Dynamic Island. °Siri Shortcuts: Start, pause, or end sessions with your voice. Create automations using your meditation data to make regular practice easier to maintain. • Apple Watch app • Assistive Access: For those using Assistive Access Lotus Bud offers a dramatically simplified user experience. PAID FEATURES (one time purchase) • Custom Meditation Plans: Create structured sessions with multiple steps, custom durations, and lead-in countdowns. Build a sequence that matches your practice, whether you need a simple timer or a detailed progression. On devices that support Apple Intelligence, you can just describe the plan you want to create a new one. • Insights: Understand how your practice develops over time with streaks, rolling averages, tag breakdowns, and calendar heat maps. Review your consistency and identify patterns in your sessions. • Intentions: Set daily, weekly, or monthly goals for meditation time or session frequency. Progress updates help you stay connected to the intentions you set. • Private logs: Write private notes about your sits, observations, and experiences. Keep your reflections alongside your practice without sharing them publicly. With Apple Intelligence you get tag suggestions that help you categorize your notes. ----- I started building Lotus Bud more than fifteen years ago to support my own daily practice. My hope was to create a tool that could support others as they develop a deeper meditation practice. Meditation has profoundly changed my life for the better, but that change required ongoing effort and focus. I had to do the work myself, and Lotus Bud has helped me stay on track. Many meditation apps focus on relaxation and stress reduction. Meditation can certainly support both, but it can also become a deeper, long-term practice that fundamentally changes how you relate to the world, your loved ones and yourself. Lotus Bud is designed for people who want to build and understand that practice without unnecessary distractions or dependence on extra content. I am the sole designer and developer of Lotus Bud. I built it, along with the related Lotus Bud Mindfulness Bell app, because I use these tools in my own practice and hope they can benefit others. I aim to make Lotus Bud useful, simple, accessible and beautiful while giving you the space to practice on your own terms. ----- Try Lotus Bud Mindfulness Bell to support mindfulness throughout the day. It plays randomized bells that invite you to pause and return your attention to the present moment.

About

Less

This app provides a simple and elegant timer for self-guided meditation sessions, featuring high-quality sound bells. An optional in-app purchase unlocks features like streak tracking, meditation history, and customizable themes.

Highlights
  • Minimal meditation timer
  • High-quality meditation bells
  • Streak tracking
  • Meditation history
  • Customizable themes
  • HealthKit integration
Read full description

Less is a minimal meditation timer with high-quality meditation bells—perfect for a hassle-free, self-guided meditation experience. A small in-app purchase for Less+ offers the ability to track your streaks and meditation history*, and includes many beautiful themes to choose from. Begin your mindfulness journey with Less. *When permitted, Less writes meditation data to HealthKit and allows the user to import their meditations for usage in the stats page. Terms of Use: https://beginwithless.ca/terms-of-use/

Screenshots

Lotus Bud Meditation Timer4 screens
Less4 screens

Verdict

The call

Lotus Bud Meditation Timer and Less both sit at 4.6 stars, but that hides the real split: 100% of Less's written reviews are positive against 41% of Lotus Bud Meditation Timer's. Less also leads on iOS requirement (16.0 vs 27.0). On price, rating, ratings volume and update cadence 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. Lotus Bud Meditation Timer sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and Less sells 4 in-app purchases, starting at $0.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.6 for Lotus Bud Meditation Timer against 4.5 for Less. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 5 and 11 respectively. Written reviews are what separate them: 41% of Lotus Bud Meditation Timer's written reviews are positive against 100% of Less's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Lotus Bud Meditation Timer ships an update monthly, Less every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on September 19, 2026 and July 7, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences · 8 level
Lotus Bud Meditation Timer versus Less: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterLotus Bud Meditation TimerLess
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.6 (5 ratings) — better4.5 (11 ratings)
Positive reviews41.2% of reviews100.0% of reviews — better
Number of ratings511 — better
Update frequencyMonthlyEvery 3 weeks — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree with in-app purchases
DevicesiPhone, iPad, Apple Watch — betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS27.016.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size54 MB38 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperChad SagerNew Ancients

Customer experience

Lotus Bud Meditation Timer

All ratings5 ratings
Positive80.0%
Neutral20.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews17 reviews
Positive41.2%
Neutral23.5%
Negative35.3%

Less

All ratings11 ratings
Positive81.8%
Neutral9.1%
Negative9.1%
Written reviews7 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

1 purchases

Lotus Bud Meditation Timer

One-time1
  • Intention and Reflection (Goals and Journaling)$2.99
4 purchases

Less

Subscriptions3
  • Less+ Monthly7 Days trial$0.991 Month
  • Less+7 Days trial$2.991 Year
  • Less+ Yearly7 Days trial$9.991 Year
One-time1
  • Unlock Mala Features$2.99

Questions

Is Lotus Bud Meditation Timer free?
Lotus Bud Meditation Timer is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Less free?
Less is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Lotus Bud Meditation Timer or Less?
Lotus Bud Meditation Timer is rated higher. Lotus Bud Meditation Timer averages 4.6 out of 5 from 5 ratings, while Less averages 4.5 from 11 ratings.
Do Lotus Bud Meditation Timer or Less have ads?
Neither Lotus Bud Meditation Timer nor Less shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Lotus Bud Meditation Timer or Less?
Lotus Bud Meditation Timer ships an update monthly, and Less every 3 weeks. Most recently, Lotus Bud Meditation Timer was updated on September 19, 2026 and Less on July 7, 2026.

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