Lotus Bud Meditation Timer vs Simetim Meditation Timer
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
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.
- 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)
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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.
Simetim Meditation Timer
This app provides a simple and customizable timer for meditation sessions. It offers basic tracking and visual aids in its free version, with advanced features like progress graphs and reminders available in the paid upgrade. Designed for all experience levels, it aims to support your mindfulness journey.
- Customizable meditation timer
- Progress tracking
- Session reminders
- Background operation
- Health App integration
- Customizable themes and sounds
- Data export
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Simetim is a simple and easy-to-use meditation timer and tracker. In the free version, you get timers with bells, a progress bar, and a counter to keep track of your sessions. The paid version offers more. You can track your progress, set reminders, and choose from more themes, pictures, and sounds. It's designed to help you with your meditation journey, no matter your experience level. The app's main color theme is soft and low-contrast, perfect for meditating in low light. Simetim is here to support your meditation and mindfulness practice. As Alan Watts once said, it helps you 'quieten your mind and come to your senses.' We always want to make Simetim better, so we'd love to hear from you. Please send your feedback to support@nishco.zendesk.com or use the feedback button in the app. Note: Some features shown are only in the paid version. Check below for a full list. Features: • Easy-to-see progress bar • Start and end bells • Dark, easy-on-the-eyes color theme • Timer with various display options • Simple gesture controls • Customizable warm-up and cool-down times • Choose your background image • The app works in the background • Connects with the Health App to track Mindful Minutes (with your permission) Paid Version Extras: • Track your sessions (sync with iCloud, add notes, save background sessions) • View your progress with graphs (daily, weekly, monthly, yearly) • Set reminders • Save your favorite settings • Interval sounds (at set or random times) • More background images and themes • More sounds • Export your session data as a CSV file
Screenshots
Verdict
Lotus Bud Meditation Timer and Simetim Meditation Timer both sit at 4.6 stars, but that hides the real split: 89% of Simetim Meditation Timer's written reviews are positive against 41% of Lotus Bud Meditation Timer's. Simetim Meditation Timer also leads on ratings volume (20 vs 5) and iOS requirement (16.6 vs 27.0). On price, rating, update cadence 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. Lotus Bud Meditation Timer sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and Simetim Meditation Timer sells 6 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.6 for Lotus Bud Meditation Timer against 4.7 for Simetim Meditation Timer. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 5 and 20 respectively. Written reviews are what separate them: 41% of Lotus Bud Meditation Timer's written reviews are positive against 89% of Simetim Meditation Timer's.
Lotus Bud Meditation Timer ships an update monthly, Simetim Meditation Timer every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 24, 2026 and October 29, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Lotus Bud Meditation Timer | Simetim Meditation Timer |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.6 (5 ratings) | 4.7 (20 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 41.2% of reviews | 88.9% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 5 | 20 — better |
| Update frequency | Monthly | Every 2 weeks — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Freemium |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 27.0 | 16.6 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 60 MB | 41 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Chad Sager | Nishco Ltd |
Customer experience
Lotus Bud Meditation Timer
Simetim Meditation Timer
In-app purchases
Lotus Bud Meditation Timer
- Intention and Reflection (Goals and Journaling)$2.99
Simetim Meditation Timer
- Statistics, logging, shortcuts$0.99
- Unlock extra images, sounds and themes$0.99
- Tip$1.99
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- Generous Tip$4.99
- Unlock all features$7.99
- Amazing Tip$9.99
Questions
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