What is a good alternative to Cronometer?

What does Cronometer do well?

The data, and the depth of it. Cronometer's App Store listing describes "more than 1.1 million verified foods" and "95+ vitamins and minerals", read on 15 September 2026, and the seller's own page says the free version tracks dozens of them. Cronometer presents its database as verified, where the complaint that comes back about the category is the crowd-sourced one: "Same food, ten results, ten calorie counts".

Its own users say the same, on its own forum, even in the thread where they look for a way out. One wrote in November 2022 that "Cronometer is leagues ahead in customization ability (like DRIs, for example)", that it "references multiple databases" and "tracks a full spectrum of micronutrients"; another, in the same thread, on the alternatives: "Most can't come close to what cronometer offers". A person tracking a mineral, a customised intake reference, or a fast alongside the food has a reason to be there.

That is the honest frame for the rest of this page. If what you need is the nutrient report, the alternatives below give it up, IZeat included. If what you leave over is the typing and the ads, read on.

What does Cronometer cost, and what is free?

The free plan is real and wide: logging, biometrics, notes and the nutrient tracking, on the seller's own page. Gold costs $10.99 a month or $59.99 a year, read on 15 September 2026, and Gold is where the conveniences live: photo logging, voice logging, the recipe importer, repeat items, custom charts, and an ad-free experience.

Two limits of the free plan are stated on the Gold page: charts stay "within a 7-day window", and the free version carries third-party ads, in the seller's own words on its blog: "Stay focused on the task at hand and get rid of the 3rd party advertisements. Gold Subscribers use Cronometer completely ad-free", 1 October 2021, read 15 September 2026. The forum records a third option in 2018, an ad-free app sold once for $2.99, which one user found "a little much for no extra features".

So the trade at Cronometer is unusual for the category: the data is free and the comfort is paid. At MyFitnessPal the macros are visible for free and setting them in grams is paid, with voice logging a tier higher; at MacroFactor there is no free plan at all, only a trial. The free-tier comparison has each seller's page, dated.

What do people say about Cronometer?

That the numbers are right and the app got in the way. On its own forum, the complaints are about two things, and neither is the database: full-page ads in the free version, and a 2022 redesign that its users say made the diary slower. The praise, in the same threads, is about the nutrient depth and the customisation.

"I just got a full screen ad that popped up right as I was entering the logging data screen. That was the most user unfriendly experience." A Cronometer user on the community forum, October 2023.

On the redesign, a user wrote in November 2022 that "it now takes longer to do things and things that used to be done in a single place now require navigating all over the place", and another that they needed "a tool for my health, not a phone app designed for a 2 year old". A third, in January 2023, on the contrast: "a sea of white with very weak grey". None of them doubted a figure. The App Store rating stood at 4.8 over 98,000 ratings on 15 September 2026.

Which alternatives, and what does each keep back?

Five, and each one trades something Cronometer gives away. If it is the depth of the data you are weighing against the price, MacroFactor and YAZIO are the two compared side by side here. The table says what each seller's own page states about its free plan, and what people leave each one over, from the reviews and forum threads we read, dated below. No figure here is ours, and no claim about a product comes from anywhere but its own page.

One row is missing on purpose: a plain chat with ChatGPT or Claude. It knows the foods and keeps no diary with a total behind it, so it is not a tracker; what it becomes with a record behind it is the last section.

If logging is what makes you leave, what would change?

IZeat is the calorie tracker inside ChatGPT, Claude or any other assistant. Tell the assistant you already use what you ate instead of searching for foods and entering them one by one. The search box, the ten entries and the form are not made cheaper; they are gone, which is designed to make the diary easier to keep while you work toward your goal. What follows is for someone leaving Cronometer over the typing and the ads, not over the data.

Wednesday evening: "Dinner was the chicken curry from the Indian place, about a plate, with rice." Following IZeat's protocol, the assistant asks what it was cooked in and about how much rice; you answer; IZeat records the items as an estimate that says so, and returns the day's total and what is left. Thursday at noon you ask what would fit tonight with what is in the fridge; the assistant reads the day from IZeat and proposes; you decide, and IZeat records what you actually ate. No ad appeared between the two, and no feature waited behind Gold.

• Nothing interrupts the diary. No ad between two meals and no locked feature in a reply, because the only person paying is you; voice and photo are not a tier: they are whatever your assistant's own app already does.
• You can see where each item's numbers came from. A weighed portion, a label's declared values read back to you for checking, a reference table, or an estimate; a plate gets a question on the portion and the cooking fat, then an estimate marked as one; each item carries its source.
• Your record is yours. Every meal with its grams and its source, exportable whole as CSV or JSON, deletable from the account page, never used for analytics.

The limit, said plainly: IZeat records calories and the three macronutrients, and does not store fibre, sugars, sodium or the vitamins. If Cronometer's nutrient report is why you count, IZeat is not your alternative, and this page will not pretend otherwise. If a sentence a meal is what would keep your diary going, it is.