Free alternatives to the paid sound apps
An honest map of the category: what each product charges, what it does that this site cannot, and where a free generator is simply enough.
If you want a controllable tone or noise generator with a timer, a free browser tool covers it. What the paid apps sell is composed, adaptive audio — music written or generated for the purpose — plus phone-native features like background playback. Those are real differences; they are just not the same product as a beat generator.
The category at a glance
| Product | Price (checked Sept 2026) | Free tier | What it really sells |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brain.fm | $14.99/mo · $99.99/yr | Trial only | Composed functional music, its own research programme |
| Endel | ≈$6.99/mo · ≈$49.99/yr | Limited sessions | Adaptive generative soundscapes tied to time and movement |
| myNoise | Free, donation unlocks extras | Yes, generous | A hundred hand-built soundscapes with per-band sliders |
| Gnaural | Free, open source | Yes, all of it | Scriptable multi-stage beat schedules on the desktop |
| This site | Free, no account | Everything | Precise beat and carrier control, noise beds, timers |
When to pay for one of them
- You want music, not tones. Nothing here is composed. If a bare beat or a noise bed bores you into stopping, a subscription that produces actual music may be worth it.
- You want it to adapt. Endel changes with time of day and movement; that is a real feature and no browser tab does it.
- You want someone else to decide. Paying for a "focus" button that just works is a legitimate purchase. This site hands you two sliders instead.
When you do not
- You know the frequency you want. Then you want a generator, and generators are free.
- You mainly need to cover a noisy room — that is masking, and it is the same physics whoever sells it.
- You want to try binaural beats before deciding whether they do anything for you. Do that for free first; the honest state of the evidence is on our evidence page.
Prices here were checked on 4 September 2026 and will drift. Every page in this section carries the date it was verified rather than pretending to be evergreen.
Questions
Is there a free alternative to Brain.fm?
For tones and noise, yes — this site and myNoise are both free. For composed functional music there is no free equivalent, which is the part Brain.fm actually sells.
Are paid sound apps worth it?
If you want composed or adaptive audio and will use it daily, possibly. If you want a beat at a specific frequency with a timer, you are paying for something you can have for nothing.
Do any of them have better evidence behind them?
Brain.fm publishes and funds research on its own audio, which is more than most. That is not the same as an established effect, and no product in this category has one.