KeptWell vs CaringBridge
KeptWell vs CaringBridge: a head-to-head comparison
Reviewed
Two tools families reach for during a serious diagnosis, built for opposite halves of the same problem. CaringBridge is the public-facing journal: a place to broadcast updates, receive support from extended family, and coordinate meals and rides. KeptWell is the private medical record hub: a place to upload every document, have an AI read it in plain English, and let the immediate family ask the chart questions.
The short version
CaringBridge is a journal for telling friends and extended family how your loved one is doing. KeptWell is where the immediate family keeps track of what is actually happening in the chart: the documents, the labs, the medications, what the oncology nurse said on the phone last Tuesday. An AI reads every page in plain English, and nothing in a circle is ever public. The two do not overlap, so many families use both.
Feature-by-feature, side by side
Both products are free today, and KeptWell is not planning a family subscription. The structural choices below are what determines which one fits your family.
| Feature | KeptWell | CaringBridge |
|---|---|---|
| What the product is built for | Private medical record hub for the immediate family | Public-facing health-update journal for friends and extended community |
| Privacy model | Private care circle, invite-only, no public page | Public site by default; privacy setting available |
| Uploads medical documents (PDFs, scans, photos) | Yes — The core workflow | No — Text posts and photos only |
| AI reads every document in plain English | Yes — A vision-capable AI reads every page | No |
| Extracts labs, medications, diagnoses as structured data | Yes | No |
| Chat with the entire record (citation-backed) | Yes | No |
| Audio recording transcription (visits, nurse calls) | Yes | No |
| Public journal posts and guestbook | No | Yes — The core feature since 1997 |
| Meal trains, rides, volunteer coordination | No | Yes — Built-in Planner |
| Family member roles and permissions | Admin and member; private notes per user | Site organizer and visitor |
| Cost | Free for families today; no family subscription planned | Free, donation-funded nonprofit |
| Sells data or runs ads | Never | Never |
When KeptWell is the fit
Pick KeptWell when
These are the questions families tell us pushed them from a journal-style update tool into a medical record hub.
You want the records, not the updates
If what is wearing your family down is the binder full of lab reports and after-visit summaries (not the question of how to tell people how things are going), CaringBridge is not built for that. KeptWell ingests the actual documents. Lab PDFs, discharge summaries, imaging reports, photos of paper records, audio recordings of doctor visits. The AI reads every page, writes a plain-English summary in a warm nurse voice, and pulls out the structured details (lab values, medication changes, diagnoses, procedures) so they are searchable and chartable over time. You upload; the binder organizes itself.
You want to ask the chart questions, not write a post
Two months into active treatment, no one remembers what the platelet count was at the last cycle or which medication caused the rash. KeptWell's chat has read every document in your circle and answers in plain English with citations back to the exact page in the exact document. Ask "what was the last A1C and how is it trending" or "what did the discharge summary say about follow-up" and get a real answer, not a blank text box waiting for an update.
You want private by design, not private by setting
CaringBridge sites can be set to private, but privacy there is a setting you choose. A KeptWell circle has no public page and no public option: the only way to see anything in it is to be invited by the admin. If you never want your family's medical information to become a post, even by accident, that structure matters more than a privacy setting.
Other head-to-heads families have asked us about
KeptWell vs MyChart
If the tool you are also juggling is a hospital patient portal, see how KeptWell sits as a layer above every MyChart you already have.
KeptWell vs PicnicHealth
If what you actually want is a medical record hub and not a public journal, the deeper head-to-head is with PicnicHealth, the closest functional comparison.
A note from KeptWell
Keep every record in one place your whole family can read
KeptWell takes the scans, lab results, visit notes, and appointment recordings a family collects and turns them into one organized, searchable record. Upload a document and it's read, summarized in plain English, and filed where everyone in the care circle can find it. Ask a question and get an answer grounded in the actual records.
It's free to start, with no credit card. We never sell your data or show you ads.
Common questions
- Can I use KeptWell and CaringBridge together?
- Yes, many families do. CaringBridge handles the outward-facing job: posts to friends, guestbook messages, mobilizing meals and rides. KeptWell handles the inward-facing job: documents, lab trends, medication histories, AI-assisted questions about the chart, the conversations the immediate family needs to have with the care team. The two products do not duplicate each other, so using both creates no extra work.
- Is CaringBridge free?
- Yes. CaringBridge is a nonprofit and has been free since 1997, funded by family and supporter donations. KeptWell is also free today, and we are not building a family subscription. If KeptWell needs revenue, we expect it to come from organizations such as employers and patient advocates rather than from the families using it.
- Does CaringBridge store medical records?
- No. CaringBridge is a journal platform: text posts, photos, comments. It does not store, parse, or analyze medical documents like discharge summaries, lab results, or imaging reports. If you have been pasting lab values into CaringBridge posts because there was nowhere else to put them, that is the gap KeptWell is built to fill.
- Will KeptWell ever add a public journal like CaringBridge?
- No. The point of a private medical record hub is that nothing in it is ever broadcast, even with a privacy setting. If we wanted to compete on public journals we would have built something that looks like CaringBridge. We are deliberately building the opposite shape, because that is the gap families have told us is unfilled.
- Does KeptWell have meal trains or volunteer coordination?
- No meal trains or ride sign-ups. KeptWell coordinates the medical side of care: an appointment can be assigned to anyone in the circle, and the documents, labs, medications, and visit recordings sit in one private circle the family shares, read by an AI in plain English.
- Where can I read the deeper comparison?
- The dedicated alternatives page covers more of the structural differences (privacy model, who each product is for, what we do and do not do) and links out to the rest of our published alternatives pages from there.
See your own records the way KeptWell sees them
Upload one document (a lab report, a discharge summary, a photo of a paper record from the actual binder) and watch it come back understood. KeptWell is free today, with a one-click export if you decide it is not what you need.
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