If you're searching for a Woebot alternative, here's the situation: there isn't a Woebot anymore. Per the company's own FAQ, "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 pivoted to enterprise tools for healthcare providers. So the question isn't "Woebot or something else" — it's "what was Woebot doing for you, and what does that job best now?" For structured CBT-style mental health support, the honest answer is Wysa. For relationship-specific guidance, it's Lainie.
What Woebot Did Well — and Why It's Gone
Woebot deserves a straight eulogy. Built by clinical psychologist Alison Darcy, it delivered cognitive behavioral therapy techniques through a friendly, scripted chatbot — and unlike most of the category, it had receipts: a 2017 randomized controlled trial in JMIR Mental Health found college students using Woebot for two weeks significantly reduced depression symptoms versus an information-only control group. Roughly 1.5 million people used it over its lifetime.
It didn't shut down because it stopped working. Darcy cited the cost and challenge of meeting FDA requirements for marketing authorization, at the exact moment large language models — which Woebot wanted to adopt — landed in a regulatory gray zone. The most carefully built chatbot in mental health got squeezed between old rules and new technology.
That history matters when picking a replacement: Woebot users are used to evidence and guardrails. You should keep expecting both.
What Replaces It Depends on What You Used It For
The one-sentence takeaway: Wysa is the closest like-for-like Woebot replacement for CBT-based mood support, while Lainie is the better fit if the thing stressing you out has a name and a phone number.
| What you need | Best fit | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Structured CBT/DBT exercises, mood tracking | Wysa | Closest to Woebot's model; published research; free tier, Premium ~$9.99–$19.99/mo |
| Help with a specific relationship situation | Lainie | Screenshot analysis, pattern naming, exact-words scripts; $7.99/mo |
| Sleep, anxiety, and meditation content | Wysa | Dedicated exercise library for sleep and anxiety |
| Scripts for a hard conversation with a partner | Lainie | Built specifically for "what do I actually say" |
| A human in the loop | Wysa | Paid coaching tiers with real coaches |
| Crisis-aware routing | Both | Lainie routes to 988/NDVH; Wysa has SOS resources |
The Honest Wysa Recommendation
If Woebot was your daily mood check-in and skills practice, download Wysa first. It's the same species: an AI chatbot (a penguin, in this case) using, in its own words, "research-backed, widely used CBT and DBT techniques, alongside meditation" for low mood, stress, anxiety, and sleep. It has its own peer-reviewed real-world data study showing higher engagement associated with greater improvement in depression symptoms. Free tier available; Premium runs roughly $9.99–$19.99/month depending on plan, with human-coaching tiers above that.
That's not a grudging mention — for general mental health self-care, Wysa is simply the closer fit, and pretending otherwise would be the kind of move this page exists to avoid.
Where Lainie Fits
Here's the pattern worth noticing: a lot of "mental health app" usage is actually relationship distress wearing a wellness costume. You weren't doing breathing exercises because of abstract anxiety — you were doing them because he didn't text back, because every conversation with your mother ends in guilt, because you and your partner have the same fight on repeat.
If that's you, a CBT exercise treats the symptom. Lainie goes at the situation:
- Screenshot analysis. Share the actual thread and get a read on what's happening in it — not how to feel calmer about it, but what it is and what to send next.
- Pattern naming. Recurring fight that starts about dishes and ends about respect? Lainie identifies dynamics — pursuer-distancer, anxious-avoidant — so you can see the cycle instead of just living in it.
- Exact-words scripts. Sentence-level suggestions for the conversation you're avoiding, with the reasoning behind each line.
- Memory built for advice. Lainie remembers your partner, your history, and what it already suggested, so week three builds on week one.
- Crisis routing. Woebot users valued guardrails; Lainie keeps that principle. If a conversation signals danger, it routes to the 988 Lifeline or the National Domestic Violence Hotline rather than improvising.
What Lainie is not: a therapy program, a CBT course, a mood tracker, or a medical device. It won't teach you cognitive restructuring. It's an advisor about your relationships, and it stays in its lane — seven coaching modes deep within that lane, from dating decisions to conflict to breakup recovery, with voice input for the nights when typing it all out is the barrier.
Choose Wysa If / Choose Lainie If
Choose Wysa if: you used Woebot for what Woebot was for — managing low mood, anxiety, stress, or sleep with structured, evidence-informed exercises. It's the genuine successor for that job, and the free tier lets you confirm the fit before paying.
Choose Lainie if: the entries in your old Woebot check-ins kept being about a person. Partner, situationship, friend, parent. You don't need a mood tool with a relationship blind spot — you need a relationship tool.
Plenty of people could reasonably use both: Wysa for the inner weather, Lainie for the interpersonal forecast. Different tools, different jobs — Woebot just happened to be where many people did a bit of each.