How We Feel calls itself a journal for your wellbeing, and it is free, made possible by donations. It is built around checking in with your emotions, spotting patterns and regulating.
Insenia is built around one moment: the evening. Five questions, a slider or a tap, the colour of the day, and after about two weeks a mirror of the pattern.
What How We Feel does well
- Free, run by a non-profit and made possible by donations, as its site says.
- Built with Yale and Marc Brackett, with a paper in Nature and a Pinterest co-founder behind it.
- A check in, spot patterns and regulate flow, with the pattern and regulation steps shown in video on the site.
- Resources for practitioners and a Substack with its own readership.
What Insenia does differently
- Five questions each evening rather than an emotion check-in at any hour, generated for you and following up on the day before.
- Never typed. A slider or a tap, thirty to sixty seconds, roughly the time it takes to brush your teeth.
- No streaks, no missed days, one notification a day and never more.
- No account, no email, no name. Answers stored on the phone first, export as JSON, delete everything in two taps, no ads, no trackers, no analytics SDKs.
- Optional sleep and steps from Apple Health or Health Connect, read on the device only, shown as nights above and evenings below.
Side by side
| Insenia | How We Feel | |
|---|---|---|
| Input | Five questions, slider or tap | Emotion check in |
| Time per entry | Thirty to sixty seconds | Not stated on their site |
| Streaks | None, no missed days | Not stated on their site |
| Account | None, no email, no name | Not stated on their site |
| Where data lives | On the phone first, pseudonymous key on the device | Not stated on their site |
| Typing | Never | Not stated on their site |
| Questions | Generated each night, follow up on yesterday | Check in on how you feel |
| Platforms | iPhone and Android | A download button on the site, platforms not stated on the home page |
| Price | Ritual free forever, deeper picture 49.99 a year or 6.99 a month, 7 days free | Free, made possible by donations |
| Patterns | Days list in colour, weekly mirror, monthly portrait after about two weeks | Spot patterns, shown in video on the site |
Who should pick which
Pick How We Feel if you want a free, non-profit app grounded in emotion research, and you want to name feelings and work on regulating them.
Pick Insenia if you want a fixed evening moment with no typing and no scorekeeping, and a pattern that is described to you rather than a feeling you have to name. The web version oftonight's fiveshows what one evening looks like.
How We Feel facts fromtheir public site, read on 2026-10-24. If something has changed, tell us and we will correct it.