The 2026 MyFitnessPal redesign added friction where users wanted simplicity. The six most common complaints are: more taps to log a meal, a food diary that no longer shows calories per meal at a glance, removed multi-select and copy-meal shortcuts, tiny macro numbers, a cluttered home view, and a navigation structure that splits what used to be one screen.
The best alternatives right now: PlateLens (four logging methods, a TDEE learned from your own logs, and an AI coach), Cronometer (micronutrient depth), Lose It! (forward meal planning), Nutracheck (UK product accuracy), and YAZIO (fasting + meal plans).
Truly free should mean the everyday logging stays free, and that is where free plans differ: most keep photo and voice logging for paying users, and MyFitnessPal itself now charges for its barcode scanner, Meal Scan and voice logging. Our picks: PlateLens as the best all-round free alternative, with photo, voice and barcode logging, an adaptive calorie target, an AI coach and a 3D body scan; Cronometer for vitamins and minerals; Lose It! for a calorie budget; YAZIO for fasting; Nutracheck for UK foods; FatSecret and MyNetDiary for plain diaries.
A free plan only replaces MyFitnessPal if the everyday logging stays free. MyFitnessPal’s own Premium page lists its barcode scanner, Meal Scan, voice logging and gram-based macro goals as Premium, at $19.99 a month or $79.99 a year after a 7-day trial, and the barcode scanner has been there since 1 October 2022. This is what the free plans people move to keep, and what they hold back, as each vendor publishes it today.
| App | Free plan keeps | Held back for the paid tier | Paid price (US) |
|---|---|---|---|
| PlateLens | Never expires, no card: calorie and macro tracking, barcode scanning, food search, the adaptive calorie target, meal planning (with the coach or in your diary) and a 3D body scan allowance; AI photo, voice and text logging and the AI coach within daily allowances | PRO raises the daily allowances and adds vitamin, mineral and free-sugar views and nutrition reports | $9.99/month or $34.99/year; 3-day trial for new users |
| Cronometer | Food, exercise and biometric logging, macro and micronutrient targets, a barcode scanner, charts for the last 7 days | Limited: Photo Log, Voice Log, the fasting timer, Crono Coach and charts over any time frame are Gold | Gold $10.99/month or $59.99/year |
| FatSecret | A food diary, a barcode scanner, calorie and macro goals, exercise and weight logs, the community | Limited: Smart Food Scan photo logging, Smart Assistant, dietitian meal plans and water tracking are Premium | Premium from $10.49/month (US App Store) |
| MyNetDiary | A food diary, a barcode scanner, voice logging, macros in grams or percentages | Limited: Meal Scan photo logging, adaptive targets and fasting are Premium; AI Coach and AI voice logging are Premium Plus | Premium $59.99/year; Premium Plus $99.99/year |
| Lose It! | A personalized daily calorie budget and its food database | Limited: barcode scanning, photo and voice logging and macro tracking are Premium | Premium $79.99/year; 7-day trial for new users |
| YAZIO | A food diary with calorie goals, macros, a barcode scanner, a water tracker, 16:8 and 5:2 fasting | Limited: AI photo tracking, the full recipe library, all fasting plans and ad removal are Pro | Pro $47.90 for 12 months (US App Store) |
| MyFitnessPal (for reference) | Food and exercise logging, macros, calorie and macro goals as percentages | Limited: barcode scan, Meal Scan, voice log, macros by gram, data export and its new Coach are Premium | Premium $19.99/month or $79.99/year; 7-day trial |
“Limited” marks a free plan that still runs a working diary while the features named sit in the paid tier. PlateLens is the only app in these tables with a 3D body scan: in its iPhone and Android apps it builds a model of your body from a guided turn in front of your phone and estimates measurements such as waist, chest and hips, so you can follow changes the scale misses. Prices are the US figures each vendor or store listed that day; Lose It! and YAZIO show discounted offers in their apps, so confirm the price at checkout.
MyFitnessPal shipped a major UI redesign that reorganized the food diary, home dashboard, and meal-logging flow; its support center describes a new look in which a Today tab replaces the previous dashboard, with updated navigation. The visible changes users report most often are:
None of these are individually catastrophic. Cumulatively, though, they break a core habit: the ability to log a day of meals in under a minute while checking totals at a glance. For a daily-use app, friction compounds.
We grouped hundreds of public complaints from r/MyFitnessPal, App Store reviews, and the MyFitnessPal support community into six recurring themes. The language below mirrors how real users describe the new app — paraphrased to avoid quoting individuals, but faithful to the pattern.
The dominant complaint. Users describe counting 6 to 10 taps to complete a workflow that used to take 2 or 3. Compound that across breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks, and the extra taps add up every day.
The food diary is the feature most MyFitnessPal users interact with multiple times per day. The redesign changed the diary view in ways that remove the at-a-glance summary users relied on, which they describe as breaking the app's main purpose.
Breakfast, lunch, and dinner totals used to be prominent. They are now smaller and sometimes require scrolling or a tab switch. For users who plan their macros across the day, this is the breaking change.
Copy a meal from yesterday. Multi-select five ingredients to delete. Move a logged item from breakfast to snack. These one-tap actions are the compounding workflow wins that made MyFitnessPal sticky. Users report they are now buried behind more steps — or gone entirely.
Users describe the new home view as a mix of cards, promotions, and nav elements that pushes the core data lower on the screen. For a tool that is opened several times a day, "overwhelming" is not an aesthetic complaint — it is a usability verdict.
Most users in this category have years of saved meals, favorite recipes, and connected devices in MyFitnessPal. The friction to switch is real. That is exactly why calm, honest migration information matters — which we cover below.
Good tracking apps are optimized for glance speed: in under two seconds, a daily-use app has to show you how much you have eaten, how much is left, and how close you are to your protein and carb targets. That is the 2-second test. Everything else is secondary.
The redesign sacrificed glance speed for two things: surface area for new monetization (Premium upsells, AI Meal Scan promotion) and visual modernization (larger whitespace, card-based layouts). Both are defensible individually. Together they push the core data that daily users care about further down the screen and behind more taps. The result is an app that looks cleaner in a screenshot but performs worse as a tool.
Switching is only worth it if you have tried the obvious mitigations. If you like everything else about MyFitnessPal, try these first:
If these workarounds do not get your logging time back under 90 seconds per day, you are past the switching threshold.
Switching is worth it when at least two of these are true for you:
If you are a light user who logs sporadically, the cost of migration outweighs the benefit. If you log daily and the redesign has made that a chore, the cost-benefit flips immediately.
PlateLens had the lowest calorie error of the six apps in the Dietary Assessment Initiative’s published validation study: ±1.1% across 180 weighed meals in photo mode, against 6.8% for Cronometer, 9.4% for Lose It! and 11.2% for MyFitnessPal. The open-source Foodvision Bench has also reproduced the result on a different set of 231 weighed meals on its public GitHub leaderboard. Both are aggregate calorie accuracy, not a per-meal or macro guarantee.
Good to know: the free plan never expires and needs no card; it includes calorie and macro tracking, barcode scanning, the dynamic expenditure and the 14-day target review, and AI photo, voice and text logging and coach messages within daily allowances. A restaurant or shared dish is one plain-words correction away from your portion (“half the rice”, “no dressing”), and How we calculate your expenditure walks through every expenditure setting.
PlateLens was built AI-first. You can log by photo, plain words, barcode, or search. The photo flow identifies foods, estimates portions, and returns calories and macros; its vitamin and mineral estimates are saved with each meal and shown in the detailed nutrient views of Premium. For the specific pain point MyFitnessPal users describe most — too many taps — it is the cleanest fix in this roundup.
Exercise calories have their own setting: let workouts raise your targets and choose whether the extra stays calories only, goes to carbs and fat, or follows your own protein, carb and fat percentages (activity-adjusted targets).
Under the photo layer, PlateLens pairs USDA FoodData Central for lab-verified nutrient data, Open Food Facts for barcode matches, and AI photo recognition into a triple-engine stack. On top of that, its adaptive energy expenditure algorithm learns your real expenditure every week from the meals you log and your weigh-ins, and every 14 days PlateLens checks your targets against it and, when your progress calls for it, suggests new ones, so your plan follows your progress. A personal AI nutrition coach provides guidance tailored to your goals. Meal planning comes with the free plan too: ask that coach to plan your meals, or put the plan together yourself directly in your diary.
PlateLens also offers a plugin in ChatGPT's Plugins directory: after you install it and approve access, ChatGPT can read your logged diary (read-only).
The 3D body scan is the part no other app in this roundup has. In the iPhone and Android apps you prop your phone against something steady and turn slowly in front of it; PlateLens builds an interactive 3D model of your body and estimates measurements such as chest, waist and hips, plus an estimated body-fat percentage when available. Compare two scans, follow one measurement over time and set a goal for it, and a preview illustrates that change on your model; the coach can read your results, and every plan, the free plan included, comes with a 3D body scan allowance.
On Apple Watch, the PlateLens companion lets you speak a meal, re-log a saved meal, track water and exercise and ask the coach, and any of your gauges can go on the watch face, so a meal reaches your diary without taking out your phone. Connect PlateLens on Apple Watch covers the setup.
The at-a-glance home dashboard is deliberately flat: calories consumed, calories remaining, macros, and today's meals — on one screen. See the full feature-by-feature breakdown in our PlateLens vs MyFitnessPal comparison.
Cronometer has the deepest, most strictly curated database in the category. If you care about iron, vitamin D, omega-3s and the rest of the vitamins and minerals, its curated, lab-analyzed entries make Cronometer the reference. It is the app that biohackers, athletes, and clinical users lean on.
The trade-off: Cronometer is unapologetically manual-first, and its photo and voice logging are Gold features ($10.99 a month or $59.99 a year), so on the free tier you search for each food or scan its barcode and enter the portion yourself. For users leaving MyFitnessPal specifically because of tap count, Cronometer will not fix that problem — it trades one kind of friction for another. See our PlateLens vs Cronometer comparison.
Lose It! kept its dashboard cleaner than MyFitnessPal through multiple redesigns. The main screen still shows calories, goals, and daily progress on one view without tab-switching. Its barcode scanner and photo and voice logging are Premium features, at $79.99 a year with a 7-day trial for new users.
If your complaint with MyFitnessPal is specifically the cluttered home screen, Lose It! is the closest manual-first alternative. See our PlateLens vs Lose It! comparison.
Nutracheck is built around the UK food market: Tesco, Sainsbury's, M&S, Asda, and regional brands are first-class citizens in its database. For British users frustrated with MyFitnessPal's global-but-shallow UK product data, Nutracheck is often a much better fit.
Outside the UK, the value proposition thins out. Database coverage of US, Latin American, and Asian markets is lighter than MyFitnessPal or PlateLens.
On the UK App Store (read 28 October 2026) its database lists more than 600,000 UK items; it starts with a 7-day free trial, then costs from £3.99 a month or £23.99 a year, or you can stay on a free Lite version with daily diary limits.
YAZIO's differentiator is structured support for intermittent fasting and pre-built meal plans. If you combine calorie tracking with 16:8 fasting, or you want a recipe-first experience, YAZIO is easier to live in than MyFitnessPal.
Its AI photo tracking is now part of YAZIO Pro ($47.90 for 12 months on the US App Store), along with the full recipe library and all fasting plans.
| App | Taps to log | At-a-glance diary | Photo logging | Copy meal | Multi-select | AI coach | Adaptive target | 3D body scan | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MyFitnessPal (current) | 6–10 | — | Premium | Hidden | Limited | Premium (iOS) | — | — | $79.99/yr · $19.99/mo |
| PlateLens | 1 photo | ✓ | Core flow | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ free allowance | Free · $34.99/yr |
| Cronometer | 4–6 | ✓ | Gold | ✓ | ✓ | Gold | — | — | $59.99/yr |
| Lose It! | 3–5 | ✓ | Premium | ✓ | Limited | Not verified | Not verified | — | $79.99/yr |
| Nutracheck | 4–5 | ✓ | — | ✓ | — | Not verified | Not verified | — | UK: from £3.99/mo |
| YAZIO | 4–6 | ✓ | Pro | ✓ | Limited | — | — | — | $47.90/yr |
Price check: PlateLens Premium is $34.99 a year, against $47.90 for YAZIO Pro, $59.99 for Cronometer Gold and $79.99 each for Lose It! Premium and MyFitnessPal Premium. Only PlateLens has a 3D body scan, with an allowance on every plan, the free plan included.
The good news: migrating is easier than it feels. Most people who log daily eat the same meals again and again, so logging your most frequent ones once in a new app covers much of a normal week, and its recent meals or photo logging handle the rest.
The psychological challenge of switching is bigger than the logistical one. A few practical notes:
PlateLens was built for users who want tracking to take seconds again, with an expenditure it learns from your own logs and new targets as you progress. Free plan, no credit card required to start.
Yes, if truly free means the quick ways to log stay free. Take a photo of your plate, say what you ate or scan a barcode, and PlateLens logs the calories and macros on a free plan that never expires and needs no card: of the free plans compared here it is the only one with photo logging, and it also keeps barcode scanning and macro goals in grams, which MyFitnessPal moved to Premium, plus an adaptive calorie target, meal planning with the coach or right in your diary, and a 3D body scan allowance, with AI logging and the coach within daily allowances. Cronometer’s curated entries are only as good as the one you pick and the portion you weigh, and its photo and voice logging are Gold. On the finished plate, the Dietary Assessment Initiative’s published validation study measured ±1.1% average calorie error for PlateLens on 180 weighed meals, against 6.8% for Cronometer and 11.2% for MyFitnessPal, and Foodvision Bench has also reproduced the result on its public GitHub leaderboard; both are averages, not a per-meal guarantee.
Several, each limited in a different place. Cronometer keeps Photo Log, Voice Log and Crono Coach for Gold; FatSecret keeps Smart Food Scan and Smart Assistant for Premium; MyNetDiary keeps Meal Scan and adaptive targets for Premium; Lose It! keeps barcode scanning, photo and voice logging and macro tracking for Premium; YAZIO moved AI photo tracking to Pro. PlateLens’s free plan includes barcode scanning, the adaptive calorie target, meal planning in your diary or with the coach, and a 3D body scan allowance, with AI photo, voice and text logging and the AI coach within daily allowances.
PlateLens, for most people who are leaving over the extra taps: a meal is one photo or a sentence such as “chicken burrito bowl, no sour cream”, corrected in plain words (“half the rice”), and the free plan never expires, with barcode scanning and calorie and macro tracking included and AI logging within daily allowances. Each food is matched against USDA FoodData Central and the NCCDB, the same reference data Cronometer uses, and PlateLens had the lowest average calorie error across 180 weighed meals in the Dietary Assessment Initiative’s six-app study. Cronometer fits better if vitamin and mineral detail matters more to you than speed.
For most people, PlateLens, followed by Cronometer for vitamins and minerals, Lose It! for a simple calorie budget, YAZIO for fasting and Nutracheck for UK supermarket products. PlateLens answers the complaints behind most switches: a meal is one photo, one sentence or one barcode, barcode scanning stays on a free plan that never expires, meal planning is free too (ask the coach or plan in your diary), its dynamic expenditure suggests new targets every 14 days, and it is the only app here with a 3D body scan; Premium is $34.99 a year against $79.99 for MyFitnessPal Premium. Its calorie estimates had the lowest average error across 180 weighed meals in the Dietary Assessment Initiative’s published six-app study, a result Foodvision Bench has also reproduced on its public GitHub leaderboard; it is an aggregate result, not a per-meal guarantee.
PlateLens, with the 3D body scan in its iPhone and Android apps: prop your phone against something steady, follow a guided turn, and it builds an interactive model of your body with estimated measurements such as chest, waist and hips, plus an estimated body-fat percentage when available. You can compare two scans, follow one measurement over time and set a goal for it, with a preview that illustrates that change on your model, and ask the AI coach about your results. Every plan, the free plan included, comes with a 3D body scan allowance; MyFitnessPal’s free plan logs measurements you take yourself.
PlateLens works it out from your own numbers rather than a formula: once you switch on dynamic expenditure, it checks the calories you logged against your weight trend every week and learns the daily expenditure that explains both, and Why it changed explains each update. Every 14 days it reviews your targets against that number and suggests new ones that you choose whether to apply. It is free on every plan, and a learned TDEE is only as good as the food log under it, which is why PlateLens having the lowest average calorie error in the Dietary Assessment Initiative’s study matters here.
Mostly cost and friction. The barcode scanner has been a Premium feature since October 2022, Meal Scan, voice logging and macro goals in grams are Premium too, and the new Coach is limited to Premium and Premium+ members on iOS. The 2026 update, which MyFitnessPal’s support center describes as a new look with a Today tab replacing the previous dashboard, also moved familiar screens, and users report more taps to log a meal.
Yes. PlateLens logs a typical meal from one photo, in about 2.1 seconds on average, and a spoken or typed description works the same way, with AI logging on the free plan within a daily allowance. MyFitnessPal’s own Meal Scan is a Premium feature, as are Cronometer’s Photo Log (Gold), FatSecret’s Smart Food Scan and Lose It!’s photo logging (Premium) and YAZIO’s AI photo tracking (Pro).
Data export is a Premium feature in MyFitnessPal: from my.fitnesspal.com, open Settings and choose Export Data to download a CSV. Keep it as your record of past meals and use it to list the 15 to 20 meals you eat most; logging those once in your new app covers most of a normal week.
Streaks do not transfer between apps. Export your diary as a CSV before you leave if you have Premium, keep MyFitnessPal installed until your first week of new logs is in, and expect to rebuild the streak in the new app.