Is bupropion or escitalopram better?

No honest page can answer that in one line. Head-to-head differences between comparable psychiatric medications are usually smaller than rankings suggest, and which fits you depends on your history, other medications, and side-effect trade-offs. What CAN be compared is the public record — usage, payers, label warnings, approval history, litigation — which is what this page does, with sources.

Which is prescribed more, bupropion or escitalopram?

The page shows the latest federal survey estimates (ClinCalc DrugStats from MEPS) for both — patients and prescriptions per year, with the ten-year trend. Prescription volume reflects habits, prices, and marketing as much as evidence, so it is context, not a verdict.

the public record, side by side

bupropion vs escitalopram

Wellbutrin and Lexapro, compared on what the public record actually supports: who takes each one, who pays, what the labels warn, and what the litigation record holds. Sources on every number.

What this page will not do is rank them. These drugs are in different classes and were tested for partly different things, so a single-axis ranking would be a category error. Which one fits you turns on your history, your other medications, and side-effect trade-offs — a prescriber conversation. This page arms that conversation; here are the questions worth taking into it →

bupropion (Wellbutrin)

atypical antidepressant (NDRI)

FDA approval: 1985 — immediate-release; marketed from 1989 after a seizure signal, Wellbutrin SR followed in 1996 · full approval journey →
Who takes it (US, 2024): 8,042,017 patients · 34,895,515 prescriptions (ClinCalc/MEPS)2014 → 2024: up 39% (25,051,660 → 34,895,515 prescriptions)
Who pays (2024): Medicare: 9,811,789 claims · 2,224,023 beneficiariesMedicaid: ≥6,860,093 prescriptionsCommercial claims: not published in any public dataset — a real absence, not a zero.
Boxed warning: Yes — on the current FDA label. read it in context →
Adverse-event reports (FAERS): Caveat first: FAERS counts unverified REPORTS, not patients or rates — no denominator, and attention inflates reporting. Never compare these counts head-to-head; a longer-marketed, more-prescribed drug accumulates more reports by exposure alone. how to read FAERS →152,137 all-time reports; most-reported terms: drug ineffective, nausea, fatigue
Legal & safety record: the full litigation & recall record →

escitalopram (Lexapro)

SSRI antidepressant

FDA approval: 2002 · full approval journey →
Who takes it (US, 2024): 9,451,175 patients · 41,773,078 prescriptions (ClinCalc/MEPS)2014 → 2024: up 113% (19,639,202 → 41,773,078 prescriptions)
Who pays (2024): Medicare: 12,700,559 claims · 2,728,707 beneficiariesMedicaid: ≥6,618,277 prescriptionsCommercial claims: not published in any public dataset — a real absence, not a zero.
Boxed warning: Yes — on the current FDA label. read it in context →
Adverse-event reports (FAERS): Caveat first: FAERS counts unverified REPORTS, not patients or rates — no denominator, and attention inflates reporting. Never compare these counts head-to-head; a longer-marketed, more-prescribed drug accumulates more reports by exposure alone. how to read FAERS →139,512 all-time reports; most-reported terms: fatigue, nausea, drug ineffective
Legal & safety record: the full litigation & recall record →

Where these numbers come from

Patients and prescriptions: ClinCalc DrugStats (federal MEPS survey), latest published year — counts of people filling prescriptions, not outcomes.
Medicare/Medicaid: CMS public datasets; commercial insurance publishes no per-drug series, so it renders as an absence, never a synthesized number.
Label facts: the drugs' current FDA labels via DailyMed — quoted in context on each drug's approval-journey page.
FAERS: openFDA — reports, never rates; the caveat travels above every count.
Litigation: court records and regulator documents only, on the linked record pages; settled is never adjudicated.

Explore both drugs in depth: /m/bupropion · /m/escitalopram · or the whole library →