How We Feel gives you 144 words to name what you feel. QuiLie gives you something to say about why you've been hiding it — and an AI that responds to the truth underneath the word you chose.
Start Your 3-Day Free Trial No credit card · iOS, Android & WebHow We Feel is the most academically credible, most ethically designed, and most generously offered app in this entire category. Here's an honest account of why it deserves every one of its 4.9 stars.
How We Feel is the only app in this category that made us feel genuine admiration. It is a nonprofit. It is completely free — no premium tier, no ads, no in-app purchases. It was founded by Ben Silbermann (co-founder of Pinterest) and Dr. Marc Brackett from Yale's Center for Emotional Intelligence, and it was built not to generate revenue but to improve the emotional health of as many people as possible. When Apple's CEO Tim Cook visited the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, he posed for a photo with the founders. That's the level of credibility this app carries.
The Mood Meter is a genuine scientific achievement. Based on decades of research from the circumplex model of emotion and refined through RULER — the evidence-based approach to social and emotional learning used in over 5,000 schools across 27 countries — the 144-word emotion grid is the most nuanced vocabulary tool ever built into a consumer app. The distinction between "frustrated" and "seething," between "content" and "serene," between "uneasy" and "anxious" — having those words available matters. Naming an emotion precisely is not a small thing. "Sometimes I don't understand what emotion I'm feeling until I look over their large wall of emotions and can get incredibly specific on just what my brain is experiencing" — that's a real, meaningful experience that the app enables.
The regulation strategies are genuinely helpful — evidence-based video tools across four categories: Change Your Thinking (cognitive strategies), Move Your Body (somatic strategies), Be Mindful (mindfulness strategies), and Reach Out (social strategies). These aren't generic wellness content. They're built by therapists and validated by research. And the Friends feature — sharing your emotional state in real time with people you trust — is one of the few features in any wellness app that genuinely serves connection rather than just data.
One adolescent and family therapist wrote: "I have had more success in getting resistant adolescents and families to track their mood with HowWeFeel than anything else. Thank you." That's a clinician endorsement, and it's earned.
But naming what you feel is the beginning of emotional intelligence — not the end of it. And there's a person who has named the emotion, understands its quadrant, knows the strategy for regulating it — and still hasn't said the honest thing about why they keep wearing a mask every day. That person needs QuiLie.
How We Feel gives you the vocabulary. QuiLie gives you the conversation that happens after you find the word — the one where you actually say what's underneath it and hear something honest back.
How We Feel and QuiLie are the most compatible pair in this series — they serve sequential stages of emotional growth, not competing ones. Here's what each one believes.
How We Feel gives you the most nuanced emotion vocabulary ever built into a consumer app. But vocabulary is the map — not the territory. And some of what's happening inside you doesn't fit inside any quadrant.
Real users said it directly: "sometimes I feel angst, guilt, shame, inadequate, bitter, pensive — but they are not options so I have to pick something else, which doesn't show an accurate picture of my moods." Another wrote: "I wish that you could write in your own emotions. Sometimes I know exactly what I'm feeling and it's a little disappointing when I can't track it." The grid is exceptional — and still, the specific feeling of performing yourself all day and arriving home hollow doesn't map cleanly to any quadrant. That feeling has a name. It's the mask. And QuiLie was built for exactly it.
How We Feel is built on the research insight that naming emotions reduces their intensity — and that's scientifically real. But for the person who is performing a version of themselves every day at work, in relationships, in social situations — naming "depleted" every Sunday doesn't address why the depletion keeps returning. The regulation strategy helps you manage the symptom. QuiLie goes for the source: the mask, the performance, the gap between who you are and who you show.
How We Feel recently added an optional AI feature called Reflect — but the core experience is still built around the Mood Meter check-in. The AI works at the level of emotional category and strategy. QuiLie's AI reads the specific words you wrote and responds to their content — the specific sentence, the specific thing you said, the specific mask you described wearing. That's a different kind of intelligence entirely.
Sharing your emotional state in real time with people you trust is genuinely valuable — How We Feel's Friends feature is one of the best social designs in wellness apps. But for the person who wears a mask every day, the hardest first step isn't sharing with friends. It's admitting the truth to themselves. QuiLie is a private space for that first step — a place to be honest before you're ready to be honest with anyone else.
You found the word on How We Feel's Mood Meter. Now write the sentence. The one that says why you've been feeling it every week. Your private AI coach reads it — and tells you what's underneath.
How We Feel gave you the vocabulary. QuiLie gives you the space to use it honestly — and something to respond to what you said. Write one honest sentence about your day. Not a check-in. Not a quadrant. The real thing you've been carrying. Your private AI coach reads it and tells you what it found: the mask, the pattern, the question you haven't asked yourself yet.
From naming to understanding
"Checked in as 'forlorn' on How We Feel for the fourth time this week. It keeps appearing after work calls. I perform fine in the calls. Then immediately feel empty."
Log the specific moments you caught yourself performing — the smile, the agreement, the emotion you hid. The data How We Feel's Mood Meter never had access to. Over time, they become your map of the mask.
Your authenticity score rises with every honest moment. Your personal mask — a visual character — literally changes as you grow. Emotional progress that goes past quadrant tracking into actual identity change.
Every Sunday, a letter about the week you actually lived — your patterns, blind spots, and growth, written by something that read everything you wrote and noticed the mask underneath the mood word you kept choosing.
Invite one person you trust. Share a daily intention. Build a shared streak. The private step between How We Feel's Friends feature and the full honesty that comes when you've already been honest with yourself first.
Two apps built on genuine care for emotional health. Two different stages of the same journey.
| What you get | How We Feel | QuiLie |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Completely free — nonprofit, no ads | From $2.99/wk · 3-day free trial, no card |
| Emotion vocabulary | 144 words across 4 quadrants — best in class | Free-text — say exactly what you feel in your own words |
| AI reads your specific writing and responds | Optional Reflect feature — quadrant-level, not content-level | Every entry — AI responds to your specific words |
| Scientific credibility | Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence — exceptional | Built on honesty and self-reflection principles |
| Regulation strategies | Evidence-based video tools — 4 categories | AI insight addresses the root, not the symptom |
| Friends / social sharing | Real-time emotional sharing with trusted people | Partner Mode — one trusted person, shared streak |
| Mask-layer awareness | Not the focus — tracks emotions as reported | The entire point — finds what's under the emotion you chose |
| Weekly personal summary | Mood patterns and emotion frequency trends | A personal letter about your actual week |
| Privacy | On-device by default, opt-in anonymized research | Encrypted, private by design |
| Platform | iOS and Android | iOS, Android, and Web |
| Best for | Building emotion vocabulary and regulation skills | Understanding why you suppress the emotion you just named |
These aren't How We Feel failures. They're people who built emotional vocabulary with the Mood Meter — and now need somewhere to use it honestly, and get something honest back.
How We Feel taught you the difference between "forlorn" and "melancholy." Now you want somewhere to write about why you keep landing in that quadrant — and have something respond to what you say, not just log it.
You've tracked your emotions for months. You see the pattern — "depleted" after work, "anxious" on Sundays. How We Feel showed you the shape. QuiLie helps you understand what's causing it and why the mask is the real driver.
You use How We Feel's Friends feature to share your emotional state. But the thing underneath — the mask, the performance, the version of yourself you show every day — that's not ready for friends yet. QuiLie is the private step before that.
Three days free. No card. Write the sentence that goes underneath the quadrant you keep landing in — and hear something honest back.
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