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Woebot vs Wysa (2026): Why This Comparison Isn't Really a Contest Anymore

Is Woebot or Wysa better, and is Woebot even still around?

If you're comparing Woebot and Wysa, the first thing to know changes the whole comparison: Woebot's consumer app was retired June 30, 2025, and there is no way for a new user to sign up. Wysa is a free, no-account-required AI chatbot built around 200+ CBT/DBT/mindfulness tools, backed by 45+ peer-reviewed studies. Here's what each one actually did or does, sourced from their own materials and verified 2026-08-31.

If you're searching "Woebot vs Wysa," the honest first thing to know is that this isn't really a two-way comparison anymore. Woebot Health retired its consumer app on June 30, 2025 — new accounts can no longer be created and previous accounts can no longer be accessed, per the company's own FAQ. Wysa is still fully available, free to start with no account required, and built around a library of 200+ CBT, DBT, and mindfulness tools. Both were built on fixed, technique-matching architectures rather than open-ended generative conversation. This page describes what each app actually did or does, sourced from their own materials and verified 2026-08-31, plus a brief, accurate look at three other names that come up in the same search — Replika, Tess, and Youper — because real search queries pair them with this comparison.

Woebot No Longer Has a Consumer App

No. Woebot Health's own FAQ states, verbatim: "The Woebot app was retired June 30, 2025. New accounts can no longer be created, and previous accounts can no longer be accessed." The company continues to operate, but its site today navigates only to "Woebot, the behavioral health copilot for Providers" and "Woebot, the behavioral health for Payers" — enterprise and health-system products, not a public consumer app. There is no path today for an individual to sign up for Woebot on their own.

Woebot founder and clinical psychologist Alison Darcy told STAT News the shutdown reflected two combined pressures: the cost and challenge of fulfilling FDA requirements for marketing authorization, and the arrival of large language models the company wanted to use but that, in the reporting's words, the FDA hasn't yet figured out how to regulate. Woebot's investigational device, WB001, held FDA Breakthrough Device Designation — a program that expedites FDA review and interaction, not a marketing clearance or approval — and it was never brought to market as a cleared or approved medical device before the consumer app was retired.

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What Woebot Did, While It Operated

Understanding what Woebot offered still matters, because it explains what a former user is actually looking to replace. Woebot delivered pre-written, rule-based dialogue drawing on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy with elements of Interpersonal Psychotherapy and Dialectical Behavior Therapy, through daily check-ins, mood tracking, and journaling. The peer-reviewed trial published on its underlying model describes it as a structured, scripted conversational agent rather than an open-ended generative chatbot — every reply was selected from a fixed set of pre-written responses based on what a user typed, not generated fresh.

That architecture had a predictable ceiling. Users who spent months with Woebot before its shutdown reported the same handful of scripted prompts recurring even after they had clearly moved past the issue those prompts addressed — a structural consequence of a rule-based dialogue tree having no real memory of what had already been covered. IX Coach, another AI coaching tool disclosed as AI rather than therapy, is built around the opposite intent on this exact point — generating its replies within the conversation and carrying memory forward across sessions rather than routing between fixed, pre-written prompts.

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What Wysa Actually Does

Wysa is a free, no-account-required AI chatbot — a cartoon penguin you talk or type to — built around a library of 200+ self-help tools drawing on CBT, DBT, and mindfulness. Its own App Store listing states: "Self-help techniques, inspired from research-backed and widely used approaches like CBT (cognitive behavioral) and DBT (dialectical behavior), alongside meditation, are employed to support you with everyday wellbeing challenges like low mood, stress, anxiety, sleep and a whole range of other wellbeing needs." Wysa's own App Store listing is published under the name "Wysa: Mental Wellbeing AI" — that framing is Wysa's own primary stated positioning for its core product, not a third-party label.

Wysa reports a materially larger evidence base than Woebot had at the time it shut down: 8 clinical trials, 6 service evaluations, 13 real-world studies, and 45+ peer-reviewed publications with academic partners including Cambridge, Harvard, and Washington University in St. Louis. In May 2022, Wysa received FDA Breakthrough Device Designation — again, an accelerated-review pathway, not a marketing clearance or approval — specifically for an AI-led conversational CBT tool for adults 18+ with chronic musculoskeletal pain and associated depression and anxiety, following a JMIR-published pilot study in that population. That designation does not extend to Wysa's general consumer wellbeing product as a cleared medical treatment.

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Where Wysa Draws Its Own Limits

Wysa is explicit about what it isn't. Its own FAQ states the app "is not a substitute for professional medical advice, and does not provide medical advice or diagnoses," and "is also not recommended for use in crisis situations, nor is it suitable for use by those with severe and enduring mental health problems." Intended use is age 13+ for self-help and self-monitoring of everyday emotional wellbeing. It includes an SOS feature surfacing crisis resources, and states its AI screens for signs of distress and directs users toward local or national crisis helplines — a referral mechanism, not treatment.

The same tool-library design that makes Wysa strong produces its most common complaint. Wysa's own App Store reviews — 24,000 ratings, 4.8 average, verified live 2026-08-31 — carry a recurring theme alongside the praise: technique suggestions can feel repetitive with continued use, the same breathing exercise offered for a different anxiety trigger each time, and the AI occasionally misreads emotional tone.

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Woebot vs Wysa: Pricing

No current consumer price exists for Woebot. The individually-subscribable app was retired June 30, 2025. Access today requires an institutional access code — employer, insurer, health system, or research study — under a B2B/enterprise licensing arrangement, and that pricing is not public.

Wysa's core chatbot and in-conversation tools are free, no account required. Per Wysa's own materials: Wysa Premium Plus is $99.99/month and adds a human Wellbeing Coach (4 live text-based sessions/month plus between-session support) on top of the tools library; Wysa Premium is $99.99/year for the tools library alone, without the coach. Third-party review sites report additional legacy in-app-purchase tiers that don't match Wysa's own current stated pricing and aren't quoted here as the live price.

Replika's own site frames the product as "The AI friend to do life with" — companionship and emotional presence, not therapy or a clinical wellbeing tool. Its marketing centers on being remembered and consistently present, with no medical or diagnostic framing on its landing page, and it doesn't publish pricing on that page either — subscription tiers are shown inside the app itself.

Tess, built by X2AI (whose company site has since rebranded to Cass), is a multilingual behavioral-health chatbot delivered via SMS, WhatsApp, and app, sold to universities, hospitals, and employee-wellness programs. X2AI's own site describes it as an enterprise and institutional deployment, not a consumer app an individual signs up for directly — the same B2B model Woebot moved to after its own consumer app retired.

Youper is a wellbeing AI chatbot combining CBT, DBT, ACT, and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for mood tracking, journaling, and structured exercises. Youper, Inc.'s own shutdown notice states, verbatim, that the service ends "September 30, 2026," auto-renewing subscriptions are already disabled with refund instructions issued for prepaid time, and beginning October 1, 2026 "all user accounts, chat histories, and personal information will be securely and permanently deleted from our servers and backups." A second consumer chatbot in this same category, on the same shutdown path Woebot already completed.

What This Means If You're Looking for Support Right Now

Two of the names people search alongside Woebot and Wysa — Woebot itself, and now Youper — are on the same trajectory: a scripted or tool-library chatbot built for individual consumers, discontinued or restricted to institutional access. Of the products still open to the public today, Wysa is the closer match to what Woebot offered: a structured, evidence-graded technique library, free to start, built specifically around anxiety, low mood, and everyday wellbeing.

IX Coach is a different architecture from either. IX Coach's own pricing page describes its plan as including "full coaching sessions, premium AI models, memory across sessions, and extended session length" — one flat plan. It's an AI coaching product, disclosed as AI and not therapy, built from twenty years of one practitioner's cross-modality experience — psychological, coaching, and spiritual methods — synthesized into a single coaching voice. That's a generative, continuous-memory design, distinct from Woebot's retired rule-based scripted dialogue and from Wysa's stated tool-library model, where the same technique can recur for a different trigger because the system is matching a message to a library entry rather than tracking a specific, recurring pattern across the conversation. IX Coach doesn't carry Wysa's clinical trial count or FDA designation — that's a real, current gap, named as one rather than minimized. Pricing is 7 days free, then $40/month (about $1.30/day), a single flat rate rather than Wysa's separate $99.99/month coach tier.

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Is Woebot or Wysa better?

Woebot isn't available to compare against directly — its consumer app was retired June 30, 2025, and there is no way for a new individual user to sign up. Of the two, only Wysa can currently be evaluated: it's free to start, built around a 200+ tool CBT/DBT/mindfulness library, and backed by a larger, more current evidence base (8 clinical trials, FDA Breakthrough Device Designation) than Woebot had when it shut down.

Can I still use Woebot?

No. Woebot Health's own FAQ states new accounts can no longer be created and previous accounts can no longer be accessed, effective June 30, 2025. The company continues to operate, but only through employer, insurer, health-system, and research-study partnerships — there is no public download or signup.

Is Wysa free?

Yes, in the sense that matters most: the core chatbot conversation and its tool library — CBT, DBT, and mindfulness techniques — are free and require no account. Paid tiers ($99.99/month for tools plus a human coach, or $99.99/year for tools alone) add a human Wellbeing Coach or standalone tools access outside conversation, but the free chatbot is the core product, not a limited trial of it.

Frequently asked questions

Is Woebot or Wysa better, and is Woebot even still around?

If you're comparing Woebot and Wysa, the first thing to know changes the whole comparison: Woebot's consumer app was retired June 30, 2025, and there is no way for a new user to sign up. Wysa is a free, no-account-required AI chatbot built around 200+ CBT/DBT/mindfulness tools, backed by 45+ peer-reviewed studies. Here's what each one actually did or does, sourced from their own materials and verified 2026-08-31.

Is Woebot or Wysa better?

Woebot isn't available to compare against directly — its consumer app was retired June 30, 2025, and there is no way for a new individual user to sign up. Of the two, only Wysa can currently be evaluated: it's free to start, built around a 200+ tool CBT/DBT/mindfulness library, and backed by a larger, more current evidence base (8 clinical trials, FDA Breakthrough Device Designation) than Woebot had when it shut down.

Can I still use Woebot?

No. Woebot Health's own FAQ states new accounts can no longer be created and previous accounts can no longer be accessed, effective June 30, 2025. The company continues to operate, but only through employer, insurer, health-system, and research-study partnerships — there is no public download or signup.

Is Wysa free?

Yes, in the sense that matters most: the core chatbot conversation and its tool library — CBT, DBT, and mindfulness techniques — are free and require no account. Paid tiers ($99.99/month for tools plus a human coach, or $99.99/year for tools alone) add a human Wellbeing Coach or standalone tools access outside conversation, but the free chatbot is the core product, not a limited trial of it.

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