Coping Coach by VA vs Virtual Hope Box (new)
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Coping Coach by VA
This app offers tools and resources to help users build resilience, manage stress, and improve well-being during challenging times. It provides customized support for coping, staying healthy, and navigating life changes like parenting or working from home. Users can track their mood and access additional help.
- Build resilience
- Manage stress
- Increase well-being
- Coping resources
- Mood tracking
- Progress visualization
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Life can be overwhelming, and we all face moments of stress, uncertainty, and change. Coping Coach is designed to help you build resilience, manage stress, and increase your well-being whenever you need it most. The app is free, secure, and connects you to important resources for coping and adapting through life's challenges. Customized tools are available to help you cope with stress, stay well, and stay connected whether you're navigating daily pressures, caregiving responsibilities, or major life transitions. You can track your mood, visualize your progress, and find resources to seek additional help and support. No account or password is required and user data is not collected. Coping Coach was made by the mobile mental health team of the National Center for PTSD, Dissemination & Training Division.
Virtual Hope Box (new)
This app provides tools to help users cope with difficult emotions, relax, and engage in positive thinking. It allows for personalized content creation with loved ones and therapists, offering distraction techniques and guided exercises.
- Multimedia content storage
- Personalized coping cards
- Positive activity planning
- Distraction tools
- Guided relaxation exercises
- Controlled breathing techniques
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The Virtual Hope Box (VHB) is a smartphone application designed for use by patients and their mental health providers as an accessory to treatment. The VHB contains simple tools to help patients with coping, relaxation, distraction, and positive thinking. Patients and providers can work together to personalize the VHB content on the patient's own smartphone according to the patient's specific needs. The patient can then use the VHB away from clinic, continuing to add or change content as needed. Patients can use the VHB to store a variety of rich multimedia content that they find personally supportive in times of need. For example, a patient can include family photos, videos and recorded messages from loved ones, inspirational quotes, music they find especially soothing, reminders of previous successes, positive life experiences and future aspirations, and affirmations of their worth in their VHB. A patient can also collaborate with their provider to create coping cards to use in response to personal problem areas they experience. Finally, the VHB provides the patient with positive activity planning, distraction tools, and interactive relaxation exercises including guided imagery, controlled breathing and muscle relaxation.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Coping Coach by VA at 4.8 against Virtual Hope Box (new)'s 4.1. Coping Coach by VA also leads on ratings volume (1.5K vs 16) and review sentiment (88% vs 71%). On price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases 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
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Coping Coach by VA holds the better App Store score, 4.8 against 4.1. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Coping Coach by VA has 1.5K ratings behind it against 16, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 88% of Coping Coach by VA's written reviews are positive against 71% of Virtual Hope Box (new)'s.
Coping Coach by VA ships an update every 2 months, Virtual Hope Box (new) every 4 months. The most recent releases landed on November 3, 2026 and November 4, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Coping Coach by VA | Virtual Hope Box (new) |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.8 (1.5K ratings) — better | 4.1 (16 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 87.5% of reviews — better | 71.4% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 1.5K — better | 16 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months — better | Every 4 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 13.0 — better | 18.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 197 MB | 64 MB |
| Age rating | 17+ | 4+ |
| Developer | US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) | Defense Health Agency |
Customer experience
Coping Coach by VA
Virtual Hope Box (new)
Bugs and requests
Coping Coach by VA
Reported bugs
1 issue- Login issues on some devices
Requested features
2 requests- COVID-19 screening feature
- More customization options
Virtual Hope Box (new)
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Coping Coach by VA
No in-app purchases
Virtual Hope Box (new)
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Coping Coach by VA free?
Is Virtual Hope Box (new) free?
Which has better reviews, Coping Coach by VA or Virtual Hope Box (new)?
Do Coping Coach by VA or Virtual Hope Box (new) have ads?
Which is updated more often, Coping Coach by VA or Virtual Hope Box (new)?
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