Good question. The short answer: Yes.
Using myself as an example, opiates are my weakness and have been since my first taste of percocet. Kratom has been a life saver in this sense because chances are I'd be dabbling in harder opiates more often, if not daily if it weren't for this godsend. When I first found percocet, I would fiendishly pop them like Skittles, and would stop at nothing to find more, good thing I didn't have a solid hook. I discovered poppy pods, and this got pretty bad for me as I got into a steadily increasing daily habit (which is extremely bad for pods) until I forced myself to quit CT. At this point, I still have very little restraint when I have opiates on hand, and now my tolerance is higher so I take a lot more at once, needless to say, I go through percocets like wildfire when I obtain some. Kratom is far more manageable than any other opioid.
Kratom seems to sit in this grey-area of drugs, meaning that it can have some intense and rather addicting effects while still having this ceiling that prevents you from throwing your whole life away on it. It just sort of stops working after a while and forces you to stop or taper down. I've gone through the withdrawals myself, and I'm convinced they are 90% psychological, however a psychological addiction can be harder to beat. When I have no kratom on hand, I'm extremely inclined to drink whiskey heavily, I smoke copious amounts of cannabis and if I happen to have opiates within reach, you bet your ass I'm eating all of them. It's mostly in my mind though, because the symptoms are only bad when I'm actively thinking about them. I've found myself to be plagued by RLS, insomnia, watery eyes, stuffy nose, back aches, cold sweats, all those classic W/D symptoms on some days without kratom, while on days that I'm properly distracted and not just sitting around, I experience almost none of this. After one simple day without kratom, I feel my tolerance decrease significantly and my next dose will be extremely satisfying no matter how my tolerance was 2 days ago. Not long ago, I was on a ~30g/day White Vein Maeng Da (strongest strain I've ever come across) and one day just stopped cold turkey for a week long trip to NY. The discomfort was minimal, distractions cured nearly everything, and within 2-3 days I forgot kratom existed. When I returned home, using kratom again was completely optional.
As far as comparison to a stim comedown, it's similar in some ways, probably not as intense in the anxiety sense, but can definitely manifest into bad thoughts/feelings. The fiending is there though, insomnia, depression, all that, but just doesn't last very long.
I would say kratom is still closer to coffee than pharm/street opiates, albeit definitely not the same as either one. It's in a class of it's own, and this becomes extremely apparent when you use an opiate and kratom in conjunction.
