Moodnotes vs MoodKit (2026): Is Moodnotes Still Maintained?

This one’s uncomfortable, so let’s do it carefully. Moodnotes was a genuinely great app: designed by ustwo, built on real CBT, 4.7 stars from eleven thousand people. Some of its ideas (mixed emotions with per-feeling intensity, the thinking-traps flow) are still better than what most of the category ships today.

But you’re not choosing an app’s past. As of August 2026, Moodnotes’ current version dates to October 2024, users saw no meaningful features for years before that, the free tier locks up after your first entries, and the subscription costs $14.99 a month or $69.99 a year. Meanwhile MoodKit (ours — bias fully declared) shipped widgets, Apple Health integration, and new experiment types this year alone.

That’s the whole comparison, really. The rest is detail.

Moodnotes vs MoodKit at a glance

	Moodnotes	MoodKit
Current version	October 2024	Active (2026 releases)
Core idea	CBT: catch and reframe thinking traps	Measure what drives your mood
Mood entry	Swipeable face + mixed emotions	One-tap mood + activity tags
Insights	Basic trends	Ranked drivers, combos, rhythms, with day counts
Self-experiments	No	Try / skip / next-day, with verdicts
Apple Health	No	Sleep, exercise, steps + State of Mind write (iOS 18)
Apple Watch	Yes	No
Photos in entries	Yes (Memories)	No
App lock	PIN only	Face ID / Touch ID
Widgets	Basic	Home + Lock Screen, one-tap logging, Year in Pixels
Free tier	Blocks after ~2 entries	Full-feature trial, then paid
Price (US)	$14.99/mo · $69.99/yr	$39.99/yr (1-week trial) · $79.99 lifetime

Facts checked August 2026. US App Store pricing.

What Moodnotes still has

Credit where it’s earned, even now:

• The CBT flow. Log a mood, catch the thought behind it, name the distortion (“mind reading,” “catastrophizing”), reframe it. MoodKit has nothing like this, on purpose; it’s a different philosophy. If this workflow helps you, you need it from somewhere.
• Mixed emotions. Recording “anxious 70%, excited 40%” simultaneously is a nuance most trackers still can’t express.
• Apple Watch and photo Memories. Both absent from MoodKit.

If those three things describe your usage, the right move probably isn’t MoodKit. It’s an actively-developed CBT app like Clarity, and our Moodnotes alternatives guide walks through them.

What you’d gain switching to MoodKit

Moodnotes asks what you were thinking. MoodKit asks what you were doing, then does the math:

• The Impact Leaderboard ranks your activities by measured effect on your mood, day counts shown.
• Hidden Patterns finds activity combinations you’d never test on your own.
• Apple Health factors: sleep, exercise, and steps ranked alongside your tags (optional, off by default), plus State of Mind write-back on iOS 18.
• Self-experiments: try a habit for a week, skip one, or measure next-day effects, ending in a verdict that can honestly be “no effect.”
• Alive-ness, which sounds silly until you’re paying for the alternative: widgets, streak freezes, and new experiment types all shipped in 2026.

And the money works differently. Two years of Moodnotes ($139.98) costs more than owning MoodKit forever ($79.99).

The exit checklist

Leaving any stagnant app, do these first:

1. Export now. Abandoned apps eventually break on some iOS update, and there’s no rescue team. Get your history out while export still works.
2. Check your subscription. If a Moodnotes renewal is coming, Settings → Apple Account → Subscriptions is the two-minute fix.
3. Pick by workflow, not nostalgia. CBT reframing → Clarity or Moodfit. Mood-driver analysis → MoodKit’s trial will show you everything in a week. Simple daily diary → Daylio.

An app you rely on for mental-health habits deserves a developer who’s still showing up. On that measure, in 2026, this comparison only goes one way.