Apps Like Cronometer: An Honest Look at Your Options

This is a tour of the five Cronometer alternatives we think are worth your time. For each one you'll get what it does well, what the catch is, and what it costs — every price verified against the vendor's own site, with the date we checked. And if Cronometer is already doing what you need, we'll tell you to keep it.

Cronometer does one thing better than everyone: micronutrient depth. It tracks 84 micronutrients against a verified database, on the free tier. If your doctor or dietitian reads your exports, nothing below replaces it. Keep it. That's the honest answer, and it's the one a sales page won't give you.

But most people searching for alternatives aren't leaving over data quality. They're leaving over friction. Weighing food to the gram is great instrumentation, and it's also homework. When logging costs too much effort, the diary develops gaps. A diary with gaps can't tell you anything.

So pick by the signal you actually monitor. Need vitamins and minerals? Stay put. Need calories and macros to show up as a trend line you'll still be feeding in March? That's what the list below is for.

1. MacroFactor — the data-first pick. Its whole thing is adaptive targets. Each week it recomputes your energy burn from your logs and weight trend, then adjusts your macros. The catch is the price — there is no free tier. It costs $71.99 a year (or $11.99 a month) after a 7-day trial. If you liked Cronometer's rigor and want an algorithm on top, this is the closest match — and if it's down to these two apps, we compared them head-to-head.

2. MyFitnessPal — the default. The biggest food database in the category, and the biggest install base. Two catches. The database is user-submitted, so entries disagree with the label more often than Cronometer users are used to. And the free tier carries ads and no barcode scanner — scanning moved behind Premium in 2022, which now runs $79.99 a year. Full feature-by-feature comparison here.

3. Lose It! — the simple one. Friendlier than Cronometer and easier to learn. Same barcode catch as MyFitnessPal, with a twist: older accounts scan free, while accounts created recently find the scanner in Premium ($79.99 a year). We tested that split with a fresh account if you want the details.

4. FatSecret — the budget pick. The most generous free tier of the big incumbents: barcode scanning, macros, and community features at $0, with ads. Premium is $59.99 a year. The interface shows its age, but the price is honest. Here's how it stacks up.

5. Macros.gg — ours. Free forever with no ads: logging, barcode scanning, streaks, and trends all stay on the $0 tier. You also get ten AI logs a week — type "chicken burrito, big" and adjust if it's off. The trade-off is scope. We track calories, protein, carbs, and fat. No micronutrients — if you need vitamin data, we're the wrong app, and we say so in our own comparison. Pro ($59.99 a year) adds more AI and longer history. It's optional, and everything free stays free.

There are more — MyNetDiary, Yazio, Carb Manager — but these five cover the decision space for most people leaving Cronometer.

List prices from each vendor's own site or App Store listing, checked on August 18, 2026. Prices drift — if the date above is old, re-check before you subscribe. For the feature-by-feature version — what each app locks, not just what it costs — see the full paywall map.

Your Cronometer history is yours. It's also the most valuable thing in the app — years of baseline data. Cronometer lets you export all of it as CSV files before you go. Here's the step-by-step export walkthrough, including which of the four files you actually need.

If you land on Macros.gg, those same files import directly — diary, weigh-ins, and custom foods, in about ten minutes, with an undo button. Your trend line keeps its history instead of starting from zero.