MOVE! Coach vs Empower VA
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
MOVE! Coach
This 16-week program guides users to successful weight loss or management through education and tools. Monitor, track, and receive feedback on progress with weight, diet, and exercise goals. It offers self-management modules, tracking tools, and support resources.
- 16-week guided weight loss program
- Self-management modules with videos and games
- Daily weight tracking and progress reports
- Goal setting and SMART goal features
- Stress management tools
- Identification of support resources
- HealthKit integration for data syncing
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MOVE! Coach Mobile is a weight loss app for Veterans, service members, their families, and others who want to lose weight. This 16-week program guides users to successful weight loss or weight management through education, and use of tools, in an easy and convenient way. Users can monitor, track, and receive feedback regarding their progress with weight, diet, and exercise goals. Some Key Features: Self-Management Modules – Educate users on a variety of weight-management success strategies using videos, worksheets, games, and other tools. Modules are made available weekly based on your progression through the 16-week program. Tracker – Assists users to track weight daily, set weight loss and SMART goals, and see progress reports and summaries Tools – Provides users with calculation tools and tools to manage stress Support – Helps users identify supports and resources for successful weight loss This app can be used by itself, but additional benefit may be achieved if used in combination with treatment with your healthcare provider and by tracking health & fitness activity with third-party HealthKit compatible apps. If you’re just starting out, MOVE! Coach can access your existing HealthKit height and weight data, and synchronize your progress recording weight entries with Apple’s Health app. MOVE! Coach Mobile was created by the National Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention (NCP), under VHA’s Office of Patient Care Services.
Empower VA
Discover your unique design through a whole-health approach and join a supportive community. Sync with Apple Health to automatically log workouts and track your activity.
- Whole-health approach
- Community support
- Self-love focus
- Apple Health sync
- Activity calendar
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Join a community of women learning to love their unique design through a whole-health approach. You can sync this app with Apple Health App. If you enable this connection, any workout in the Health app with automatically be added to your Activity Calendar.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Empower VA at 4.7 against MOVE! Coach's 4.2. Empower VA also leads on iOS requirement (13.0 vs 16.0). MOVE! Coach's advantage is ratings volume (518 vs 19). 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.
Empower VA holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 4.2. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: MOVE! Coach has 518 ratings behind it against 19, so its average is the more settled of the two.
MOVE! Coach ships an update every 3 months, Empower VA every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on November 1, 2026 and October 24, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | MOVE! Coach | Empower VA |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.2 (518 ratings) | 4.7 (19 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 21.9% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 518 — better | 19 |
| Update frequency | Every 3 months | Every 2 months — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone | iPhone, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 16.0 | 13.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 95 MB | 195 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 12+ |
| Developer | US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) | Empower LLC (VA) |
Customer experience
MOVE! Coach
Empower VA
Bugs and requests
MOVE! Coach
Reported bugs
46 issues- Half screen taken by crisis support
- Scrolling one line at a time
- Food entry errors (e.g., 190 calories showing as 1400)
- Cannot enter smaller increments of time for activities
- Difficulty editing recipes
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- No back button to change or edit entries
- Cannot see entire option when entering food
- Cannot delete added food entries
- No way to back up, requires closing and reopening app
- Squished interface on iPhone
- Screens with no way to exit or submit answers (e.g., goal weight)
- Cannot report problems
- Apple Watch Health data not loading directly
- Weight data reset after 6 months
- Graph not working properly (only shows two days)
- App does not function on iPhone 15 Pro Max
- App breaks at week 12 chapter 2, repeatedly shuts down
- No diet or exercise tracker found
- Cannot get past EULA prompt
- Crashes during modules, data lost upon restart
- Cannot unlock Module 16
- Cannot add height/weight to proceed
- Dark selections, barely readable
- Difficult to navigate
- Cannot see information when setting up (height, age)
- App crashes during Week 2, Chapter 2
- Cannot go back to add foods from previous day
- App crashes when trying to enter food info
- App crashes regularly on iPhone 6s Plus
- App closes when clicking on Self Assessment Guide Week 2
- Cannot see custom item entry screen (number entry in the way)
- App not updated for nearly a year
- Weekly diet report annoying
- App charges double calories for almond milk
- Entering recipes assumes whole recipe is one serving
- Favorites function is useless
- Cannot manually enter calories
- Food categories don't match package labels
- Difficult to find specific foods
- App crashes too much
- Diet and activity logs removed in updates
- Module 16 cannot be unlocked
- Cannot see information on screen
- Week 2 crashes the whole app
- Cannot change date for dietary entries
- Exercise calorie count is generic and inaccurate
Requested features
16 requests- Barcode scanner for food
- Integration with other health apps (Apple Health, MyFitnessPal, Fitbit)
- Ability to edit previous entries/dates
- More conversational serving sizes
- Allow smaller increments of time for activities
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- Sync data from other health apps
- Update app for newer iPhones
- Improve search function for food tracker
- QR scanner for food
- Link to MyFitnessPal
- Customizable exercise calorie counts (incline, speed)
- Ability to edit recipe entries
- Add missing foods
- Sync with My Healthy Vet
- Dark mode option
- Ability to report bugs directly
Empower VA
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
MOVE! Coach
No in-app purchases
Empower VA
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is MOVE! Coach free?
Is Empower VA free?
Which has better reviews, MOVE! Coach or Empower VA?
Do MOVE! Coach or Empower VA have ads?
Which is updated more often, MOVE! Coach or Empower VA?
Other comparisons
