Comparison

Rootd vs How We Feel

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Rootd

This app offers immediate and long-term relief from anxiety and panic attacks. It provides tools like a panic button, guided breathing, journaling, and educational lessons to help users understand and overcome their anxiety. Features also include soothing visualizations, sleep aids, and an emergency contact option.

Highlights
  • Panic attack SOS button
  • Guided deep breathing exercises
  • Anxiety journaling
  • Soothing visualizations
  • Educational lessons on anxiety
  • Sleep aids and relaxing sounds
  • Emergency contact feature
Features
Read full description

** Editor's Choice ** — Apple ** App of the Day ** — Apple ** Approved for privacy, security, clinical assurance, and safety ** — DHAF & ORCHA Rootd is anxiety and panic attack relief in your pocket. Award-winning, scientifically validated, female led and seen in Women's Health, Time Magazine, Healthline and more. With millions of users worldwide, Rootd is the go-to app for anxiety & panic attacks for more and more people each day. “I’ve suffered from panic attacks for almost 10 years. I’ve done CBT, medication, meditation, but nothing helped me in the moment when that panic attack hit, until I downloaded Rootd. Rootd makes it feel like someone is with me, even when I’m alone. I owe my continued stability to this simple genius app. It's a MUST for all who are facing the same type of war.” RainyNally Understand, and overcome anxiety & panic attacks with Rootd’s therapist-approved panic button, guided deep breathing, anxiety journal, soothing visualizations, stats page, emergency contact, and lessons. We set out to build Rootd after suffering from panic attacks and anxiety for several years. The only help we could find was either too expensive, ineffective, or poorly designed. Our mission is to help others find accessible relief from their panic and anxiety, and to end the stigma against those affected. Finally, an app for conquering panic attacks and anxiety that blends a guided process for both immediate and long term relief, with clean and engaging design. Rootd’s core features and content include: THE ROOTR, PANIC ATTACK SOS BUTTON A panic button to bring a swift end to panic attacks based on the latest techniques in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). LESSONS Find some peace of mind by learning about where anxiety comes from, how our bodies and minds experience panic attacks, and why this all might be happening to you. BREATHE The perfect tool to practice deep breathing daily and find calm during times of stress. JOURNAL Track and identify moods, habits, and subconscious triggers of anxiety and panic attacks. VISUALIZE Guided body scans, visualizations, ASMR, and nature sounds to get rooted when feeling anxious. SLEEP White noise, ASMR, sleep stories, relaxing sounds, and music for you to gain calm and sleep deeply. EMERGENCY CONTACT For when you need to hear a friendly voice, you can immediately call a friend, family member, or nearby help center directly from the app. PERSONAL STATS Take pride in your healing progress and gain appreciation for how far you’ve come. To continue your journey, you can upgrade to unlock Full Access to Rootd, including: MORE LESSONS Learn changes you can make and exercises you can perform to guide you through the remainder of the journey to lifelong relief and to living panic attack free. Rootd saves your Breathe, Visualize, and Sleep sessions to your Apple Health app. Subscription Pricing and Terms Get full access to all Rootd's content and features by purchasing a monthly or yearly auto-renewing Full Access subscription. Or get lifetime full access for a one-time payment. Pricing may vary by country. Payment will be charged to your iTunes Account at confirmation of purchase. Your Rootd subscription will automatically renew at the end of each term and your credit card will be charged through your iTunes account unless auto-renew is turned off at least 24-hours before the end of the current period. Subscriptions may be managed and auto-renewal turned off any time from your iTunes Account Settings after purchase. “I appreciate the simple, factual, and yet caring approach of Rootd that makes it an inviting, interesting, and easy to use tool. I endorse this for individuals looking for support and tools for managing anxiety and panic attacks.” Wendy Marion-Orienti - Licensed PRH counsellor Terms: https://www.rootd.io/terms-conditions Privacy Policy: https://www.rootd.io/privacy-policy

About

How We Feel

This app helps users understand and manage their emotions with science-based strategies. It tracks sleep, exercise, and health trends to identify patterns and offers guided exercises for stress, anxiety, and relationship building. Share your feelings with trusted friends to strengthen connections.

Highlights
  • Emotion identification and tracking
  • Sleep, exercise, and health trend monitoring
  • Science-based emotional regulation strategies
  • Guided video exercises (mindfulness, movement, cognitive)
  • Real-time emotion sharing with trusted friends
  • Pattern identification for emotional wellbeing
Features
Read full description

How We Feel is a free app created by scientists, designers, engineers, and therapists to help people better understand their emotions and find strategies to help them navigate their emotions in the moment. Conceived in conjunction with Yale University's Center for Emotional Intelligence and based on the work of Dr Marc Brackett, How We Feel helps people find the right word to describe how they feel while tracking their sleep, exercise, and health trends using HealthKit in order to spot patterns over time. Founded as a science-based nonprofit, How We Feel is made possible by donations from people who are passionate about bringing mental wellbeing to the widest possible audience. Our data privacy terms are clear and easy-to-understand: all of your data is kept on your device unless you opt-in to send an anonymized version of your check-ins to be used in research to help more people. Whether you are downloading this app in order to build better relationships, make your emotions to work for you, not against you, improve how you handle stress and anxiety or simply to feel better, How We Feel will help you identify patterns through daily HealthKit tracking and find emotional regulation strategies that will work for you. The How We Feel friends feature allows you to share how you feel with the people you trust most in real time, strengthening your most important relationships. Filled with step-by-step video strategies you can do in as little as one minute on themes like "Change Your Thinking" to help you address negative thought patterns with cognitive strategies; "Move Your Body" to express and release emotions through movement strategies;"Be Mindful" to gain perspective and minimize the negative impact of misunderstood emotions with mindfulness strategies; "Reach Out" to build intimacy and trust, two important tools for emotional wellbeing, with social strategies.

Screenshots

Rootd4 screens
How We Feel4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: How We Feel at none against Rootd's 11. How We Feel also leads on ads (none vs shown) and review sentiment (91% vs 82%). Rootd's advantage is update cadence (weekly vs fortnightly) and device support (4 vs 1). On price, rating and ratings volume there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Rootd sells 11 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per month. How We Feel asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.8 for Rootd against 4.9 for How We Feel. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 11K and 30K respectively. Written reviews are what separate them: 82% of Rootd's written reviews are positive against 91% of How We Feel's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Rootd ships an update weekly, How We Feel fortnightly. The most recent releases landed on October 18, 2026 and October 19, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard7 real differences · 3 level
Rootd versus How We Feel: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterRootdHow We Feel
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.8 (11K ratings)4.9 (30K ratings) — better
Positive reviews82.3% of reviews91.2% of reviews — better
Number of ratings11K30K — better
Update frequencyWeekly — betterFortnightly
AdsYesNo — better
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFreemiumFree — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple Watch — betteriPhone
Requires iOS15.6 — better17.0
Further details — not scored
Size150 MB235 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperSimply Rooted Media Inc.The How We Feel Project, Inc.

Customer experience

Rootd

All ratings10,527 ratings
Positive96.4%
Neutral2.1%
Negative1.5%
Written reviews555 reviews
Positive82.3%
Neutral4.3%
Negative13.3%

How We Feel

All ratings29,876 ratings
Positive97.5%
Neutral1.7%
Negative0.8%
Written reviews1,554 reviews
Positive91.2%
Neutral4.1%
Negative4.8%

User reviews

Rootd

From 11K App Store ratings

What we love

  • 💗 Helps with anxiety and panic attacks
  • 🧘‍♀️ Useful breathing and relaxation exercises
  • 📚 Informative lessons on understanding anxiety
  • 🆓 Provides helpful free features
  • 🔒 No ads or distractions

Room to improve

  • 💰 Paid features can be expensive
  • 🐛 Some technical issues like app crashes
  • 🚫 Limited free content, need to pay for full access
  • 🤖 Voice/audio quality could be improved
  • 🤔 Certain features not always reliable during panic attacks

How We Feel

From 30K App Store ratings

What we love

  • 👍 Easy to use and intuitive
  • 🤗 Helps with emotional awareness and regulation
  • 💎 Comprehensive range of emotions to choose from
  • 🎨 Visually appealing and aesthetically pleasing
  • 🆓 Completely free with no ads or in-app purchases

Room to improve

  • 🔍 Limited ability to add custom emotions
  • 🔀 Difficulty expressing mixed or complex emotions
  • 🕰️ Inability to log past emotions or edit timestamps
  • 🐛 Occasional app crashes or bugs
  • 🔒 Lack of password protection or app lock feature

Bugs and requests

Rootd

Reported bugs

3 issues
  • App crashes or freezes on launch
  • Certain features not functioning as expected
  • Syncing/login issues with paid subscriptions

Requested features

5 requests
  • More free content and exercises
  • Ability to customize/personalize the app
  • Integration with wearables or smart home devices
  • Expanded journaling and mood tracking capabilities
  • Games or interactive elements to distract during anxiety

How We Feel

Reported bugs

4 issues
  • App crashes when accessing the 'Tools' section
  • Exercise and sleep data incorrectly applied to past entries
  • Editing past entries leads to a blank screen
  • Inconsistent behavior when adding friends

Requested features

6 requests
  • Add ability to log multiple emotions at once
  • Implement a body map to identify physical sensations
  • Allow users to customize emotion categories
  • Provide an option to export data or sync across devices
  • Add a widget for quick mood check-ins
Show 1 more
  • Integrate with health/fitness tracking apps

In-app purchases

11 purchases

Rootd

Subscriptions10
  • Chat With Ron$2.991 Month
  • Rootd Full Access Monthly$6.991 Month
  • Unlimited Annual Access7 Days trial$29.991 Year
Show 7 more
  • Rootd Full Access 6 Months$34.996 Months
  • Rootd Full Access Yearly3 Days trial$44.991 Year
  • Rootd Full Access Yearly$59.991 Year
  • 7 Day Trial Yearly Plan7 Days trial$59.991 Year
  • Rootd Full Access Yearly3 Days trial$59.991 Year
  • Rootd Full Access Yearly$79.991 Year
  • Rootd Full Access Yearly7 Days trial$79.991 Year
One-time1
  • Rootd Lifetime Full Access$179.99
None

How We Feel

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Rootd free?
Rootd is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is How We Feel free?
How We Feel is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Rootd or How We Feel?
How We Feel is rated higher. Rootd averages 4.8 out of 5 from 11K ratings, while How We Feel averages 4.9 from 30K ratings.
Do Rootd or How We Feel have ads?
Rootd shows ads; How We Feel does not.
Which is updated more often, Rootd or How We Feel?
Rootd ships an update weekly, and How We Feel fortnightly. Most recently, Rootd was updated on October 18, 2026 and How We Feel on October 19, 2026.

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