Healium and Calm are both digital wellness platforms designed to reduce stress, enhance mindfulness, and improve emotional well-being. While both offer experiences rooted in mental health science, they differ in delivery methods, enterprise functionality, and biofeedback integration.
This article provides a side-by-side comparison of Healium and Calm, helping organizations such as healthcare systems, schools, VA programs, and research teams decide which solution best meets their clinical or institutional needs.
|
Category |
Healium |
Calm |
|
Target Markets |
Therapists, clinics, schools, hospitals, VA programs, pain clinics, researchers, and other wellness professionals |
Individuals, Corporate Wellness, Healthcare via Calm Health |
|
Core Technology |
VR meditation visualized by the user's real-time biofeedback (using EEG headbands, and smart watches for heart rate) and mobile companion app |
Mobile App, Guided Meditation, Sleep Audio, Calm Health enterprise tools |
|
Content Focus |
Stress, anxiety, positivity, focus, mindfulness, and sleep. |
Sleep, Anxiety, Stress, Mindfulness, Focus |
|
Biofeedback Integration |
✓ Variety of wearables (including EEG and heart-rate feedback visualized in real time) |
❌ No native EEG/HR integration (except external pairing via Calm Health) |
|
Pricing / Access Model |
Subscription-based with clinician, research and institution packages. |
Consumer subscriptions; enterprise pricing via Calm Health |
|
Clinical Validation / Research Backing |
Backed by numerous peer-reviewed journals and published studies on stress and anxiety reduction, sleep, mood, and resilience improvement |
Multiple RCTs support anxiety and sleep benefits |
|
Device Compatibility |
Compatible devices include VR goggles such as Meta Quest, Pico, and Apple Vision Pro + popular wearables (like Apple Watch, Samsung watch, Muse 2, Brainlink Lite EEG headbands) plus a mobile companion app is available for Android and Apple IOS. |
Mobile (iOS, Android), desktop, Calm Health integrations |
|
Unique Differentiator |
Real-time biofeedback training from variety of wearables + new beautiful, immersive, award-winning content every 60 days. |
Large content library and celebrity-driven experiences |
Healium is a science-backed, virtual reality kit and platform that combines beautiful immersive environments with real-time biofeedback to reduce stress, improve focus, sleep, and promote emotional regulation. Built with biofeedback training in mind, Healium supports therapists, educators, healthcare systems, VA facilities, and researchers with scalable tools to deliver measurable mental wellness interventions.
By integrating with EEG headbands and smart watches, Healium’s VR experiences adapt in real time to users’ brainwave or heart rate data, making each session a personalized, physiological feedback loop. With HIPAA-ready infrastructure, multi-user management, and personalized progress dashboards, Healium is tailored to organizations seeking outcomes-driven mental health support.
Calm is a leading consumer wellness app focused on meditation, sleep, and stress management, serving millions of individual users worldwide. Its vast content library includes guided meditations, sleep stories, calming music, and mindfulness sessions narrated by celebrities and mental health experts.
While best known for its individual app experience, Calm also offers an enterprise-grade solution through Calm Health, which delivers clinically supported mental health content for employers, payers, and health systems. Calm is widely appreciated for its ease of use, polished experience, and expansive library, making it a top choice for those looking for accessible, daily mental wellness support without the need for hardware or clinical oversight.
Healium is built for clinical and institutional settings, including therapists, clinics, schools, hospitals, VAs, and researchers. It’s designed to support structured mental health programs, outcome tracking, and regulated environments where biometric responsiveness and reporting matter.
Calm, by contrast, was originally developed for individual consumers, and while it now includes a healthcare-facing product (Calm Health), its core use case remains personal wellness, sleep support, and stress relief through self-guided meditations.
Healium uses virtual reality and biometric input devices like EEG headbands and Apple Watch to drive real-time feedback in immersive environments. Its experiences visually respond to the user’s brain or heart data, transforming physiological states into beautiful interactive VR experiences.
Calm is delivered through mobile and desktop apps, offering a broad range of content via guided audio, music, and stories. While Calm Health may integrate with some wellness tools in clinical settings, it does not natively incorporate EEG or heart rate input into its experiences.
Healium is grounded in peer-reviewed research, demonstrating efficacy in reducing anxiety and improving sleep and focus through real-time biometric feedback. Its approach has been tested in healthcare, academic, and first responder populations with measurable outcomes.
Calm has also undergone multiple randomized controlled trials showing improvements in stress, sleep, and emotional well-being. However, these studies primarily evaluate audio-visual content, not dynamic or biofeedback-responsive interventions.
Healium is designed for enterprise deployment at scale. It includes tools for multi-user management, HIPAA-compliant data handling, progress dashboards, and training modules, making it well-suited for clinical teams, therapists, schools, and healthcare systems.
Calm provides enterprise offerings through Calm Business and Calm Health, which offer access to its app content for employees or patients. However, it does not currently offer biometric tracking, customizable clinical tools, or multi-patient management in the way Healium does.
Healium follows a subscription-based model tailored for organizations and clinics. Pricing is typically based on the number of users, VR headsets, or kits, and includes access to biometric features, though compatible hardware (like EEG or Apple Watch).
Calm uses a consumer subscription model, with a monthly or annual fee per user. For enterprises, Calm Health and Calm Business offer bulk access and integrations, but without the hardware-linked interactivity or biometric insights that Healium enables.
Both Healium and Calm offer effective solutions for managing stress and promoting emotional wellness, but they cater to distinct audiences. Calm is ideal for individuals or organizations seeking broad access to self-guided mindfulness content with minimal setup.
Healium, on the other hand, is the better fit for organizations and clinics that need a clinically validated, VR-based solution with measurable outcomes. Its integration with biometric devices and its enterprise-ready features make it a strong choice for therapists, clinics, hospitals, schools, researchers, and mental health teams seeking responsive and trackable interventions.
Looking for a Calm alternative that’s built for wellness professionals and backed by biometric data? Healium offers immersive, science-backed VR experiences designed for stress reduction, focus, and resilience with real-time, visualized physiological feedback and clinical reporting tools.
Connect with Healium’s team to explore how you can implement VR-powered mental wellness across your organization.