Sober Grid Alternatives: What to Use Now That It Is Gone

If you're looking for Sober Grid alternatives, it's probably because the app stopped working and nobody told you why. That's roughly what happened. This page covers what we know about the shutdown, what Sober Grid actually did for people, and which current app does each of those things now. We make one of the apps mentioned, so read the recommendations with that in mind. Where another app is the better fit, we say so.

What happened to Sober Grid

Sober Grid launched in 2015 as a social network for people in recovery, built by Beau Mann around the idea that you should be able to find sober people near you, right now. For a few years it was one of the bigger names in the category.

Then it went quiet. The app was removed from the Apple App Store in November 2023. Through early 2025, people who still had it installed started reporting outages and login failures, and the servers never really came back. As far as anyone can tell, the company never put out a statement. There was no shutdown notice, no data export window, no forwarding address. The Wikipedia entry records the timeline as far as it's known publicly.

If you were using it, that's a rotten way to lose a support tool, and it's worth saying plainly before getting practical: the app going away says nothing about you or your recovery. It says something about the company.

What Sober Grid actually did

Before picking a replacement it helps to be specific about what you're replacing, because Sober Grid did several things at once and no single app does all of them. From its own feature list and from how people described using it:

• A geolocated feed of sober people. The core of it. You could see who was nearby and in recovery, and talk to them.
• The "Burning Desire" button. One tap that told the community you were struggling right now, so people could respond.
• A sobriety day counter. The standard streak, with milestones.
• A meeting locator. Finding AA and other meetings near you.
• Badges and daily quests. Small tasks each day, a gratitude list, checking in, commenting on other people's posts, with badges for keeping it up.
• Somewhere to write. The feed doubled as a place to put your thinking in front of people who understood it.

Most people leaned on one or two of these far more than the rest. Work out which ones you'll miss and the choice of app gets a lot shorter.

Where each of those went

The sober social network: Loosid

If what you'll miss is the feed of people, Loosid is the closest living relative. It's built as a sober social layer first: an open community, sober events, and a dating side that Sober Grid never had. It is the one app on this page that treats "I don't know any sober people" as the main problem to solve. We don't compete with it on that and wouldn't try.

Community plus a counter: I Am Sober

The largest general-purpose sobriety app, with a big message board, daily pledges and a skills workbook. It won't show you who's within five miles, but if you want a lot of people in one place and a solid day counter under them, it's the default answer for a reason. How it compares on structure.

Several counters at once: Nomo

If you were tracking more than alcohol, Nomo runs multiple sobriety clocks side by side and adds accountability partners and shareable chips. Built by someone in recovery, and it handles the multi-habit case more gracefully than anything else here. More on Nomo and its alternatives.

The Burning Desire button: SoberLine

This is ours, so weigh it accordingly. Sober Grid's best idea was the button you pressed when you were about to drink. SoberLine is built around the same moment, with a different answer to it. The 24/7 Panic Button doesn't send a signal to a crowd; it gives you something to do for the ten minutes a craving actually lasts: guided breathing, urge surfing, your own reasons written down, and distraction games. Around it there's a day counter, a Recovery Tree that grows with your dry days, a money-saved total, a health timeline and a 30-day path. The community is there, but it's anonymous and asynchronous, which is a real difference from Sober Grid and for some people the wrong one.

Honest limits: iPhone and iPad only, no meeting locator, no live coaching, and it tracks alcohol rather than several habits. If the social feed was the thing, go to Loosid first.

The meeting locator: not an app

None of the apps above do this as well as the sources meetings actually come from. AA, SMART Recovery and LifeRing each publish their own meeting finders, most with online meetings at most hours, and the US government's FindTreatment.gov covers treatment services by location. How the main groups differ is worth reading before you pick a finder, because they aren't interchangeable.

Daily quests and badges: any habit tracker, or the app you already picked

Most of the apps above have some version of a daily check-in and a milestone system. If the quests were what kept you opening the app every morning, look for one with a daily promise or pledge built in, and treat that as the replacement rather than hunting for an exact copy.

Your Sober Grid data

Probably gone, and it's better to hear that now than after a week of trying. With the servers down and no export window announced, there's no known way to recover a Sober Grid streak or history. If your day count matters to you, and it should, write down your sober date somewhere before you install anything else. Every app on this page lets you set a start date in the past, so you don't lose the days. You lose the badges. The days were always yours.

It's also a decent argument for keeping more than the count: a date, a money total and a few written notes survive any app shutting down. A streak stored only in someone else's database doesn't.

What SoberLine looks like

If the Burning Desire button was the part of Sober Grid you used, this is the screen that replaces it:

24/7 Panic Button: breathing, urge surfing, your reasons, distraction games

A live day counter you can backdate to your real sober date

A Recovery Tree that grows with your dry days

Anonymous community, no real name and no location shared

Frequently asked questions

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