Is citalopram or sertraline 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, citalopram or sertraline?

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

citalopram vs sertraline

Celexa and Zoloft, 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. For most same-class pairs, head-to-head efficacy differences are smaller than the rankings look — the largest network meta-analysis ever run (21 antidepressants, 522 trials) found every drug beat placebo and the gaps between drugs mostly modest and uncertain. 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 →

citalopram (Celexa)

SSRI antidepressant

FDA approval: 1998 · full approval journey →
Who takes it (US, 2024): 2,876,645 patients · 12,500,214 prescriptions (ClinCalc/MEPS)2014 → 2024: down 58% (29,737,921 → 12,500,214 prescriptions)
Who pays (2024): Medicare: 6,743,311 claims · 1,422,360 beneficiariesMedicaid: ≥2,096,752 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 →106,559 all-time reports; most-reported terms: fatigue, nausea, drug ineffective
Legal & safety record: the full litigation & recall record →

sertraline (Zoloft)

SSRI antidepressant

FDA approval: 1991 · full approval journey →
Who takes it (US, 2024): 10,233,568 patients · 44,634,055 prescriptions (ClinCalc/MEPS)2014 → 2024: up 18% (37,723,879 → 44,634,055 prescriptions)
Who pays (2024): Medicare: 16,155,695 claims · 3,200,756 beneficiariesMedicaid: ≥9,178,192 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 →218,320 all-time reports; most-reported terms: nausea, drug ineffective, fatigue
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/citalopram · /m/sertraline · or the whole library →