Rain and Brown Noise for Deep Sleep
Brown noise covers the traffic and the boiler, and rain softens the sharper sounds inside the room.
- Brown Noise 65%
- Rain 38%
Best myNoise Alternatives in 2026: 5 Compared
Almost everyone arrives here for one of three reasons: the generator you wanted is marked for patrons, the donation you already made turned out not to cover the phone app, or ten sliders is more setup than you have patience for on a weeknight.
Slo is the closest free swap for layering named sounds at separate volumes: all 180 sounds at slonoise.com play with no donation and no account, and the apps for iPhone, Android and Mac hold 200+ sounds with 89 of them free for good. What it gives up is the thing myNoise is known for, ten frequency sliders on every soundscape, and what you get back is a mix built in seconds. Noisli puts a small mixer next to a writing pane, A Soft Murmur keeps four sounds on a plain page, Rainy Mood does rain and little else, and Defonic sells a desktop license once.
What myNoise does better than anything here
myNoise has run since 2013 and is built and curated by one person, Dr Stéphane Pigeon, working through myNoise BVBA. The recordings are made in the field, and the store copy is explicit that none of the audio is AI-generated. Each soundscape carries ten sliders that set the level of a frequency band, so you can lift the part that covers your street and drop the part that scrapes at your ears. Nothing on this page does that, and it is why people who learn myNoise properly tend to stay with it.
So if you use those band sliders to tune each sound to your own hearing, stay with myNoise. If you have ever moved those sliders until a generator sat right against your own hearing, or against one particular noise through one particular wall, the five below will feel blunt by comparison, and a donation to keep that site running is a fair price for what it gives you.
Three things do send people looking, and all three are printed on the product itself:
- The web catalog is partly gated. The generator index prints ”℗ 25 more … For ℗atrons only. Any donation will unlock the full index page.” The site is free and ad-free; the whole library is not.
- A website donation does not cover the apps. The donation page states that lifetime privileged access “is granted to the website only” and that “mobile apps are managed independently and do not make part of the website membership.” A donor who then wants the iPhone app pays again.
- Ten sliders is a setup step. For some people that is the whole appeal. For others, a generator that has to be calibrated before it sounds right is the reason they never open it on a Tuesday night.
The donation itself is printed on the page as a recurring $5 a month or a one-off between $10 and $30.
How we checked
Every fact about myNoise and the other four came off the live sites and store listings on September 4, 2026. Where we could not confirm something, it sits in a list near the bottom with the gap named. Slo is our own app, so one of these five is ours; its figures come from the app source, version 3.132, and the slonoise.com catalogue on September 14, 2026. Evidence that any of this improves sleep or concentration is weak, so nobody here, us included, can promise it.
Quick comparison
| Alternative | Free tier, as printed | Mixer | Per-band control | Platforms | Price, where the page states one |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Slo | All 180 browser sounds, nothing gated; 89 of the 200+ app sounds | Yes, any number of layers, one volume per layer, saved mixes | No | Web, iOS, Android, Mac | Monthly or yearly subscription, or a one-time lifetime purchase |
| Noisli | 16 sounds, 1.5 hours of streaming a day | Yes | No | Web, iOS (Android listing gone, checked 30 Sept 2026) | Pro €8/month billed yearly; Business €20/month |
| A Soft Murmur | 4 sounds: rain, thunder, waves, wind | Yes | No | Web, iOS, Android | Web Pro $14.99 a year |
| Rainy Mood | The web rain player | Scene-based, not layer-based | No | Web, iOS, Android, Spotify, Apple Music | iOS $2.99; Lite free |
| Defonic | Free web tier | Yes | No | Web, Android, Windows | $19 lifetime for the Windows software |
Not one of the five gives you the frequency sliders. Read the table as a list of trade-offs, then pick the trade you can live with.
1. Slo: closest free mixer, with nothing behind a donation
Slo is the same basic idea as myNoise with the calibration step taken out. You pick sounds by name, set a volume for each, and set a timer. The browser catalog runs to 180 sounds, all free, no account and no daily limit, and the mixer at slonoise.com holds a volume per layer across 36 saved presets. Browser timers stop at 15, 30 or 60 minutes.
The apps for iPhone, Android and Mac hold 200+ recorded sounds, 89 of them free for good, including 11 rain tracks, 5 fan tracks and 22 noise recordings across brown, pink, white, grey, green, blue and violet. In the app you can stack as many layers as you like, a saved mix keeps its balance, and the timer runs from 15 minutes to 24 hours with a fade-out of up to 2 minutes. Sounds download the first time you press play and keep working with the phone offline. Everything past the 89 free sounds costs a monthly or yearly subscription, or one lifetime payment.
Choose it if: you used myNoise to put rain under a deep rumble and never touched the ten sliders.
Skip it if: the sliders were the point. Nothing here shapes a sound band by band, and an evening spent looking for that in Slo is an evening wasted.
2. Noisli: closest for a work session
Noisli’s free web plan lists 16 sounds and 1.5 hours of streaming a day. Pro raises that to 28 sounds with no daily limit and adds playlists, favorites, an advanced timer and a Markdown editor. The plans page reads €8 a month billed yearly for Pro, and €20 a month for Business.
Choose it if: you want the sound and the writing window in the same tab.
Skip it if: you are staying on the free plan, because 1.5 hours a day runs out in the middle of the afternoon you wanted it for.
3. A Soft Murmur: closest in spirit, smallest in scope
Four sounds are free, rain, thunder, waves and wind, each with its own slider, and six more sit behind a purchase. Web Pro is listed at $14.99 a year. The iOS app was last updated in October 2023, which is worth knowing before you build a bedtime around it.
Choose it if: myNoise felt like too much machinery and four sliders on a plain page is all you ever used.
Skip it if: you want a library to dig through on a night when rain is not doing it.
4. Rainy Mood: not a mixer, and not trying to be
One rain recording, made with care, plus extra scenes in the app: Classic, Ocean, Countryside and Café. It also plays on Spotify and Apple Music, which none of the others here do. The iOS app is listed at $2.99, with a free Lite version.
Choose it if: what you actually opened myNoise for was rain, and you would rather press one button.
Skip it if: you like putting one sound under another and hearing what happens.
5. Defonic: closest on the licence model
A web mixer with a Windows application beside it, running since 2014 out of Paris. The homepage prints “$19 — lifetime licence. No subscription” for the software. We could not check the web tier’s limits or any web premium price, because the pricing page returned a 404 on the day we looked.
Choose it if: a donation page or a renewal notice is the thing you are trying to get away from, and you work on Windows.
Skip it if: you listen on an iPhone. The mobile side is Android only.
Two-layer starting points
Test whether named layers are enough
Open one, change a single volume, and see whether you reach for more control or stop thinking about it. That answer decides which of the five suits you.
River and Green Noise for Focus
Running water with a steady hiss underneath, for a desk where the room keeps interrupting you.
- Green Noise 60%
- River 35%
What we could not verify
Four gaps, named here so no plausible-looking number fills them:
- The size of the myNoise web catalog. The 300+ figure comes from the app store listings, not the website, and the generator index prints no total.
- The myNoise iOS unlock price. It is not on the listing we read. The Play listing gives a range of $0.99 to $19.99 per item, and converting that into an iPhone figure would be a guess.
- A Soft Murmur’s app unlock price. The site calls it a one-off purchase without naming an amount.
- Defonic’s free-tier limits and any web premium price. The pricing page was a 404 on September 4, 2026.
Frequently asked questions
Is myNoise free?
The website is free and ad-free, but its generator index shows a curated selection with the rest marked for patrons only. A donation unlocks the full index. The donation page also states that lifetime privileged access applies to the website only and that the mobile apps are managed separately.
Why do people look for a myNoise alternative?
Three reasons show on the product itself: much of the generator index is gated behind a donation, a website donation does not carry over to the mobile apps, and ten frequency sliders per generator is more setup than some people want. None of that is a criticism of the audio, which is field-recorded and well regarded.
What is the closest free replacement for myNoise?
For layering named sounds at separate volumes with nothing gated, Slo’s browser mixer is the closest. All 180 sounds at slonoise.com are free, with no account and no donation, and the mixer gives each layer its own volume. It has no per-frequency sliders, which is the trade: faster to set up, less control over the shape of each sound.
Does myNoise have an app?
Yes, on iOS and Android. As of September 4, 2026 the App Store listing shows version 3.21.75 and the Play listing shows in-app purchases from $0.99 to $19.99 per item. The store copy describes a one-time unlock rather than a subscription.
Which alternative keeps the frequency sliders?
None of the five here. Per-band control of every soundscape is the thing myNoise does that its alternatives do not, which is why this page is a list of trade-offs rather than replacements.
Sources checked September 4, 2026
- myNoise home, generator index and donation page
- myNoise on the App Store and Google Play
- Noisli plans
- A Soft Murmur
- Rainy Mood
- Defonic
- Slo app source, version 3.132 (sound list, timer, fade-out and store products), and the slonoise.com sound catalogue, reviewed September 14, 2026
Related guides
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.
