Comparison

How We Feel vs Polara

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

Head to head
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.

About

Polara

This app helps pole dancers track their progress with tricks and practice sessions. Log your training, mark trick mastery, and get personalized suggestions. Build a profile of your achievements and sync with your calendar.

Highlights
  • Track trick progress
  • Log practice sessions
  • Personalized trick suggestions
  • Build progress profile
  • Add custom tricks and photos
  • Apple Calendar integration
  • Local-first data storage
Features
Read full description

Polara is a practice journal and trick progress tracker designed for pole dancers. Whether you are learning your first spin, working on inversions, or preparing for more advanced moves, Polara helps you record each practice and see your progress over time. KEY FEATURES • Track trick progress Browse a leveled trick library and mark moves as To Learn, Learning, or Landed. • Log your practice Record the date, duration, studio, tricks, and personal notes for each training session. • Find your dancer personality Get personalized trick suggestions based on your dancer personality test result. • Build your progress profile Review mastered tricks, moves in progress, practice history, streaks, and achievements. • Add custom tricks and photos Create your own trick entries and add reference images from your photo library. • Apple Calendar integration Add planned practices and training events to Apple Calendar. • Local-first data Your practice logs, trick progress, and profile information are stored locally on your device by default. JSON backup export and import help you keep control of your data. Polara’s core features are available for free. Polara Plus unlocks unlimited tracking, additional practice logs, custom tricks, calendar sync, and other advanced features. Practice safely and progress at your own pace. Polara does not provide medical advice or professional instruction. Seek qualified in-person coaching when attempting advanced movements. Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://luminetong.xyz/projects/polara/privacy-policy.html

Screenshots

How We Feel4 screens
Polara4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: How We Feel at none against Polara's 2. How We Feel also leads on ratings volume (30K vs 1) and update cadence (fortnightly vs every 6 weeks). Polara's advantage is review sentiment (100% vs 91%) and iOS requirement (15.1 vs 17.0). On price, rating, ads and device support 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. Polara sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $9.99 per year. 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 — 4.9 for How We Feel against 5.0 for Polara. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: How We Feel has 30K ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 91% of How We Feel's written reviews are positive against 100% of Polara's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

How We Feel ships an update fortnightly, Polara every 6 weeks. The most recent releases landed on November 12, 2026 and November 5, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard7 real differences · 4 level
How We Feel versus Polara: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterHow We FeelPolara
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.9 (30K ratings)5.0 (1 ratings) — better
Positive reviews91.1% of reviews100.0% of reviews — better
Number of ratings30K — better1
Update frequencyFortnightly — betterEvery 6 weeks
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationFree — betterFreemium
Best chart rank#89 — better—
DevicesiPhoneiPhone, iPod — better
Requires iOS17.015.1 — better
Further details — not scored
Size199 MB44 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperThe How We Feel Project, Inc.宇昊 贺

Customer experience

How We Feel

All ratings30,090 ratings
Positive97.5%
Neutral1.7%
Negative0.8%
Written reviews1,569 reviews
Positive91.1%
Neutral4.1%
Negative4.8%

Polara

All ratings1 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews1 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Bugs and requests

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

Polara

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

None

How We Feel

No in-app purchases

2 purchases

Polara

Subscriptions1
  • Polara Plus$9.991 Year
One-time1
  • Polara Plus Lifetime$29.99

Questions

Is How We Feel free?
How We Feel is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Polara free?
Polara is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, How We Feel or Polara?
Polara is rated higher. How We Feel averages 4.9 out of 5 from 30K ratings, while Polara averages 5.0 from 1 ratings.
Do How We Feel or Polara have ads?
Neither How We Feel nor Polara shows ads.
Which is updated more often, How We Feel or Polara?
How We Feel ships an update fortnightly, and Polara every 6 weeks. Most recently, How We Feel was updated on November 12, 2026 and Polara on November 5, 2026.

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