2025 research archive
This is the preserved 2025 edition. Read the 2026 update.
Top 100 Most Reviewed Yoga Alliance Schools
Written by Ryan Stanley, Owner and Executive Director, Soul of Yoga Institute
August 30th, 2025
Why did I start this research project?
Since I became an owner of a yoga teacher training school, I have always had a curiosity about which of the seemingly infinite options for teacher training were truly the best, and where the Soul of Yoga Institute stood. School ratings have been available and sortable through the Yoga Alliance directory for some time, but there are over 2500 yoga teacher training schools with a 4.9 rating or above, so skimming through so many schools with very few reviews was not getting me what I needed.
What I needed was the ability to sort by popularity, or number of reviews, as another key factor in narrowing down the best schools in the world. While Yoga Alliance does track the number of reviews for each school, there was no way to sort by the number of reviews or cross reference that number with the overall school rating. Driven by a need to get to the truth, our team dove in, capturing both the number of reviews and ratings for all 7500+ school entries in the worldwide directory so we could sort them ourselves.
What did we find out about the most popular yoga teacher training schools?
Once we were able to sort by the number of reviews and pulled the top 100, the trend was overwhelmingly clear. The most popular yoga schools in the world either had many locations or fully online programs (hundreds of locations in the case of Core Power Yoga, or totally online like the Yoga and Ayurveda Center Online Yoga School).
To understand what the top 100 most reviewed schools were offering, I visited the website of every single top 100 school, gathering the type of programs being offered and learning as much as possible about each school.
After these two rounds of research, we now have insights into the programs, popularity, and ratings all at the same time which allow us to present the most informed perspective to date. With all of this new information, we were able to cross reference quantity of reviews with the rating data, then sort and filter several new lists to answer the questions such as:
- Which schools have the most students registered with Yoga Alliance after graduation?
- What are the most reviewed and highest rated yoga schools still offering fully in-person, hybrid, or fully online training?
- What are the highest rated and most attended yoga schools inside and outside of the United States?
Which yoga teacher training schools are the top 3 overall?
You can jump to the quantitative lists below at any time, but for anyone interested in my subjective and qualitative insights after such in-depth research I will share my thoughts. In a sea of many incredible yoga schools there are 3 out of the 100 that I would recommend exploring more:
- The Yoga Institute in Mumbai, India – Fusion of lineages taught in a very popular Indian school, claiming to be the oldest school in the world, with different founders and lineages than most of our western programs.
- The Ayurprana Asheville Yoga Center in North Carolina, US – A rare blend of Bhakti, music, ayurveda, and yoga in a beautiful school run by Sean Johnson, one of my favorite yoga teachers and musicians in the world.
- The Soul of Yoga Institute in California, US – I know it is my program and it could be a conflict, but I am now more proud of it than ever. No other program in the top 100 has the combination of high ratings, renowned teachers, flexibility of in-person/hybrid/online formats, and credentialing all the way through both yoga therapy and master’s degree programs.
And lastly a fourth honorable mention to the Heart of Yoga, which is an online school founded by Mark Whitwell offering retreats around the world. Although it didn’t make the top 100 based on the number of reviews, it is where I received my first training. Even after such thorough research and investigation of all the other school options, and owning my own yoga school, I still hold it in the highest regard.
Top 100 Most Reviewed Yoga Alliance Schools, 2025
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YogaWorks (Santa Monica Teacher Training Center)
United States
In Person: Yes | Online: No | Hybrid: No
- #7Top 100 Most Reviewed
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South Okanagan Yoga Academy (Headquarters/Calgary/Edmonton)
Canada
In Person: Yes | Online: Yes | Hybrid: No
- #71Top 100 Most Reviewed
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COSTA RICA: Lakshmi Rising School for Yoga and Wellness
Costa Rica
In Person: Yes | Online: No | Hybrid: No
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Frequently asked questions (2025 edition)
Who or what is Yoga Alliance?
Yoga Alliance (YogaAlliance.org) is the most significant trade association within the yoga world and has also become the single most important credentialing entity.
The number of yoga schools registered with Yoga Alliance is almost unfathomable. As of July 25, 2005 the Yoga Alliance (YA) online searchable directory contained more than 7500 listings of Registered Yoga School locations worldwide offering various levels of certifications and continuing education. It is hard to imagine any other trade association in any other field having more abundance of listed registered educational institutions.
When was the Yoga Alliance and Website data reviewed?
We started our review at the beginning of July 2025 and completed our review on August 5th 2025. All lists are based on the school websites and Yoga Alliance directory as they existed at that time.
How can you trust that the number of Yoga Alliance reviews is correlated with the school’s popularity?
All students registering to become a listed Yoga Alliance member must complete a public review of the school they attended, which is then published publicly on the school’s directory listing. Reviews for each school contain a description of this practice on the Yoga Alliance website which states,
“As part of the Yoga Alliance Social Credentialing system, teachers that register with Yoga Alliance must submit a review of the RYS training program they completed. Feedback from trainees provides Registered Yoga Schools with the opportunity to understand their trainees’ experiences in order to continually improve their trainings.”
Based on this Yoga Alliance process, the number of reviews becomes a proxy for the popularity, or the most sought after and most highly attended yoga schools. This number of reviews is indicative of where the greatest volume of yoga students ultimately chooses to go to school, and this crowd sourced data is a testament to the school’s ability to both attract students and graduate yoga teachers.