Apps like PTSD Coach

PTSD Coach comes from the US Department of Veterans Affairs’ National Center for PTSD, made with the Department of Defense, and has been on the App Store since April 2011. It is the most-rated app here: 4,339 App Store ratings and 3,008 on Google Play, with 100K+ Play downloads. It is free with nothing to buy. Most of the apps people find next to it come from the same two departments, and they differ less in price than in who they are for.

Who each one is for, side by side

Read on 23 October 2026, in the US. Ratings and update dates come from Apple’s lookup API and Google Play. Every app here is free, and none shows an In-App Purchases row on the App Store.

The privacy column is the top line of each App Store privacy panel, as the developer declared it; the VA apps list each category for analytics. On Google Play, PTSD Coach, PTSD Family Coach and Safety Plan say no data is shared with third parties, and Virtual Hope Box says no data is collected. PFA Mobile’s last App Store update was 8 May 2025.

The alternatives

PTSD Family Coach, for the people at home

The same publisher’s app for family members of someone with PTSD. It covers looking after yourself, the relationship and any children, and how to help a loved one into treatment, with 24 tools and a stress check you can repeat over time. The listing says it carries a lot of material specific to veterans and service members.

Safety Plan, for the worst moments

A 2023 VA app that walks through the six steps of a suicide safety plan, lets you share the plan with people close to you, and keeps it to hand in a crisis, with calming exercises, mood tracking and quick access to crisis support. Its current version imports the safety plan from PTSD Coach, so the two are meant to be used together.

Virtual Hope Box, set up with a therapist

From the Defense Health Agency, and described on its listing as an accessory to treatment: a patient and provider fill it with photos, recorded messages, music, coping cards and reminders of good days, and it adds breathing, guided imagery and distraction exercises. The “(new)” App Store version needs iOS 18 or later. Both its App Store and Google Play listings say it collects no data.

PFA Mobile, for organized responders

Psychological first aid for responders working a disaster or other organized response: the fundamentals, interventions matched to what a survivor needs, mentor tips, a readiness self-check and a survivor needs form for referral. It comes from the VA with the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, is on the App Store in English and Japanese, and was last updated in May 2025.

Community Stress First Aid, ours

For the person standing next to someone in trouble, whether or not they have any training. 911 and 988 sit above everything on the home screen. Below them are the ACE suicide intervention model (Ask, Care, Escort), a crisis referral path from Mild to Critical, the stress continuum and the Stress First Aid model, all readable with no signal. Every number in it was checked against its organization’s own site on 22 August 2026, and the app prints that date. It has no ads, no account and no analytics. It has no self-assessment, no tracking and nothing to fill in.

What these do better than ours

Almost everything, if the person who needs help is you. PTSD Coach has a self-assessment, coping tools you can make your own with your contacts, photos and music, and fifteen years of use behind it. Family Coach and Safety Plan track how you are doing over time, and Safety Plan can share a plan with the people who would act on it. Virtual Hope Box is built to be filled in with a therapist. Ours does none of that. It is a reference for helping someone else in the moment.