Best Apps

By Filip Kowalski · Updated

Endel alternatives in 2026: six options, including the free ones

Six glass jars on a shelf, each holding a small nature scene

Nearly everyone reading this is doing one of two things: pricing a way out of a subscription, or looking for something that plays without asking for a card. Both are covered below, and so is the case for staying.

Slo is the option for people who would sooner set the background themselves than have software build it: 200+ app sounds, 89 free, and a manual mixer on iPhone, Android and Mac. All 180 browser sounds are free to try at slonoise.com.

The part most lists skip comes first. Endel makes its sound as you listen, on your device, from inputs its own site names as time of day, weather, heart rate and location. Nothing below does that. Every option here plays a recording or a fixed loop, and it sounds the same on a Tuesday morning as on a Friday night. So if the adapting is the part you liked, stay with Endel: it suits someone who wants to press one button, get audio shaped to the hour, and never think about what is playing.

If the adapting was mostly background sound you happened to be paying for, the six below cover the same evenings for less. We make Slo, which is one of them. Facts about the others come from each product’s own site or its live App Store listing, checked on 2 August 2026.

Why people leave

Mostly the renewal. Google search data we pulled on 2 August 2026 shows roughly 390 searches a month for “endel subscription” across seven English-language markets, 170 each for “endel price”, “endel lifetime subscription” and “is endel worth it”, 90 for “endel app cost”, and 50 for “cancel endel subscription”. Very few people search for a product comparison; they search for the price and the cancel button.

That shapes the list below. Five of the six download free, so you can listen to each one before you decide anything. Noisli’s iOS app is the only one you pay for up front.

The six options

OptionWhat it actually ispays howplatforms
Slocurated library plus a manual mixerfree browser tools, paid app tiersiOS, Android, Mac, web
myNoisegenerators with per-frequency slidersfree download, paid catalogue tieriOS, Android, web
Dark NoiseApple-native player with automationfree download, paid tieriPhone, iPad, Mac
Brain.fmcomposed functional music, not ambiencesubscriptioniOS, Android, web, desktop
Noislidesktop-browser workspace with a small mixerpaid iOS app, free web tieriOS, desktop web (Android listing gone, checked 30 Sept 2026)
Blankiesmall open-source mixerfree downloadiPhone, iPad, Mac

Two of these beat Slo at something specific, and you should know which before you read a word of praise from us. myNoise hands you a slider for each frequency band and asks you to tune the sound to your own ears; Slo sets the volume of whole sounds and cannot reshape one, so myNoise is the finer instrument. Dark Noise has Siri Shortcuts, widgets and a real Mac presence, and Slo has no answer to any of that, so a bedtime that already runs on Apple automation belongs with Dark Noise.

If you used Endel to focus

Brain.fm sits closest in spirit. It composes music for a task, where Endel assembles ambience, and the sound is different while the deal is the same: one button, audio for the next hour, a charge every month. It downloads free on the US App Store, and its pricing page on 2 August 2026 offers monthly and yearly subscriptions after a free trial. Pick it if what worked about Endel was that you never had to choose.

Noisli goes the other way and hands the choosing back. You get a workspace with mixable sounds, a timer and a writing pane, and the iOS app costs one payment with nothing recurring behind it. Its pricing page on 2 August 2026 lists a free web plan with 16 sounds and 1.5 hours of streaming a day, and says the features target desktop and laptop browsers. Pick it if your Endel sessions happened at a desk with the browser already open.

Slo covers the third case, the one where you would rather set the background once and forget it is on. Try a mix before you decide anything.

One caveat covers all three. No good evidence shows that any of them, Slo included, makes you concentrate better. Endel states on its own site that neuroscience supports its soundscapes, and we have not read that work and take no position on it. Buy any of these because you like listening to it, and treat a focus claim from us with the same suspicion you would give one from anybody else.

If you used Endel to sleep

myNoise is the careful option. Its generators give you a level control for each part of the sound, so you can pull down the band that grates on you and push up the one that covers the road outside. That takes a few minutes the first time and it is the reason people who like myNoise like it a lot. The US App Store listing on 2 August 2026 shows a free download with a paid in-app purchase for the full catalog, and the website has been free to use throughout.

Dark Noise is the Apple option. Sounds, custom mixes, widgets, Shortcuts and a Mac presence, built by a small independent developer since 2019, with a free download and a paid tier above it on the same dated listing. There is no Android version, so it only works if the whole house is on Apple.

Slo is the cross-platform option, with noise colors, rain, water, fire and room ambience, a volume on every layer, and browser players with a timer that need no install. Browser tools and presets are free, and the app sells paid entitlements, so read your own store listing for what it includes today.

For single sounds, brown noise is the deep rumble that covers traffic and boilers, green noise is a softer hiss whose name nobody defines the same way twice, and rain lays a wash of hiss over either of them. The river and green noise preset is the nearest thing here to a soundscape that keeps moving.

If the subscription itself was the problem

Three routes avoid a recurring charge.

Blankie is a small open-source mixer for iPhone, iPad and Mac, and its App Store listing on 2 August 2026 shows a free download. The library is much smaller than everything else here, which is the price of free.

myNoise on the web has been free to use for years, and for a free product it gives you more control than anything else in this category.

Noisli’s iOS app sells for a single payment, so over three or four years it works out cheaper than any subscription on this list.

Before you pay for any of them, spend one evening with a browser tab. Every sound page on this site runs free with a volume control and a timer, and if plain rain turns out to be enough, the decision goes away.

Questions people ask

Is there a free Endel alternative?

Several. Blankie is free with no tier above it, myNoise’s website is free to use, and the browser players here need no account or install. None of them adapts to context the way Endel does.

Does anything else adapt in real time?

Not among these six. Some products vary a mix over time or shuffle layers, which is not the same as responding to your weather, your clock or your heart rate. If that exact behavior is what you are paying for, Endel is the product that has it.

What is closest to Endel for focus?

Brain.fm, in listening experience and in business model. Noisli or Slo if you would rather assemble the sound yourself and stop renewing something.

Will Slo do what Endel did?

Only partly, and only for some people. Slo gives you a library and a mixer, so you decide what plays and at what level. It has no adaptive generation, no context inputs and no heart-rate reading. Someone who liked pressing one button and getting a soundscape that changed itself will find Slo a step backwards.

Endel has a binaural scenario. Do the alternatives?

Endel’s FAQ describes a Binaural Beats Scenario and notes it works only through stereo headphones, which is correct: the effect depends on each ear hearing a different tone. Slo carries one stereo file of this kind. Research on binaural beats is inconsistent, so treat it as a sound you might like rather than as a feature that does something for you.

Sources checked 2 August 2026

A note on prices. This page names none, Endel’s included. Every product here charges through a store that varies by country, promotion and checkout route, and third-party articles about Endel’s annual cost disagree with each other by a factor of two. Open the listing on your own device and read the figure it shows you. If you want to see how wide that spread gets, our Endel review lists every price on the App Store page as of 10 September 2026.

Explore more sounds in Slo

Stack two or three sounds, keep the blend, and let the timer stop it. Slo, on iOS, Android and Mac.

Download on the App Store Get it on Google Play

Filip Kowalski is the developer of Slo and writes about sound, sleep, and focus.