I admit it, I’m obsessed with mood tracker apps. This became blatantly obvious during the pandemic as I had more time on my hands and too many emotions to juggle. Because I was spending basically all my time at home I could pay better attention to my habits, moods, or any symptoms that came up.
I’m someone who is very careful about my lifestyle choices. In the past, I have dealt with depression and I never want to feel as dark as I once did. I accept that due to my chemical makeup I need to be more cautious about my routine than other people. Letting go of certain habits and acquiring others has done wonders for my self-esteem and mental health. And that is the true value of getting to know yourself through a tracker.
So during lockdown, I went on a downloading binge to test out different apps that would fit my needs and design preferences. The shortlist came down to two choices: Bearable and Daylio. These two apps have similar customizable features, are nicely designed, and give you more extensive reports about your moods with a paid subscription. So what’s the difference between them?
Features
The most significant difference between Daylio and Bearable is the amount of data you can input into your account and its organization. On Daylio your mood scale is smaller than on Bearable, meaning you miss some of that nuance between feeling at a 4 instead of a 5. (Daylio lets you rate your mood from 1-5; Bearable from 1-10).
Bearable also invites you to quickly tap some descriptive words to justify your mood rating, whereas on Daylio you are taken immediately to choose your daily activities.
(Above screenshot taken from Bearable App)
(Above screenshots taken from Daylio)
On both apps, you can add activities or factors that contribute to your mood on any given day as well as the time period you are feeling a certain way. You might come to learn that perhaps you are not the morning person you once thought you were, or that your symptoms flare up at night.
Daylio however is more open-ended and do-it-yourself. You can add numerous activities to your profile and pair them with icons. You can also group them together, so for example, maybe you have a group for “exercise” and within it you can add yoga, running, dance, etc.
Bearable also allows you to input a handful of factors, however, the app already comes with its own taxonomy. So you can add or edit within pre-made categories such as Hobbies, Places, Meds, Food Diary, or even add your own custom category.
(Above screenshots taken from Bearable App)
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(Above screenshots taken from Daylio)
Even though you can create all of these categories and labels on Daylio, it’s a huge help on Bearable to already have them set up in an organized system. This is especially true in the symptoms section. On Bearable you can select and edit symptoms, choose their intensity, and time frame.
Another notable difference is that you can sync Apple Health and Google Fit data to your profile on Bearable. This way you can track physiological things like steps, weight, heart rate and blood pressure, although I have not used this feature.
Daylio has an added gamification aspect to it. You get achievement badges for usage or as I received at the beginning of the pandemic, the “Emotional Roller Coaster” badge for hitting all moods in one week. I’m not particularly keen on their gamification tactic, but that badge did make me laugh.
Winner: Bearable – Both apps are very customisable, but I like how Bearable has premade sections specifically designed not only for mood, but also symptoms, sleep, diet, medication, health measurements, and more. This also allows you to go into a lot more detail if you choose to and it’s much easier to immediately get started, whereas Daylio can take a while to set up, given it’s do-it-yourself nature.
Insights
Both apps give you insights and for a premium subscription, you can unlock even more information on yourself. How valuable these insights are will completely depend on how often you’ve been taking note of your days. And it’s important to remember that some insights show a relationship of correlation, not necessarily causation. For example on days where you’re feeling low, you might be more prone to go for a walk. It doesn’t mean walks are causing you to feel bad. However, if you go all-in with your tracking you’d be able to check your mood before and after a walk making your data more precise.
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(Above screenshots taken from Bearable App)
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(Above screenshots taken from Daylio)
Both apps present similar types of insights. Average mood within a specific time frame, what factors are associated with a mood, and several other more detailed mood charts.
However, because Bearable also focuses on symptoms in addition to mood (whereas Daylio is only a mood tracker), you also get insights based on your symptom score and can see which factors have the biggest effects on symptoms.
Winner: Bearable – both apps have great insights, but Daylio is limited to Mood-only stats, so can only be used for mental health. Bearable has both mood and symptoms insights and their public roadmap suggests that they also have sleep, medication and diet-specific insights sections coming in the future.
Bearable vs Daylio – Conclusion
Both are good choices if you are looking for mood and habit tracking apps. But if you are looking more closely at tracking symptoms, or you’d rather not go through the trouble of creating countless new activities or factors, then Bearable is the better option. It’s the app I’ll be sticking to and an added bonus of using Bearable is that the founders are super approachable. You can request features on their public roadmap or participate in an active subreddit of users trying to hack their own health by tracking.
Written by Mariana Suchodolski.
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Start to reclaim control over your well-being today! Download Bearable for free on Apple or Android.
