A MyFitnessPal alternative for nights out.

Why people look

Why people search for a MyFitnessPal alternative.

Autocomplete tells the story: “myfitnesspal alternative free”, “…with barcode scanner free”, “…reddit”, “cheaper myfitnesspal alternatives”. Under those searches sit a few honest reasons:

• The barcode scanner moved to Premium. MyFitnessPal’s own Premium page lists Barcode Scan and Meal Scan as Premium features.
• Restaurant dishes are a guessing game. Unless it’s a chain, you scroll entries other people added and pick the one that looks closest.
• It asks a lot per meal. Search, pick, set the serving, repeat for every item on a shared table.
• An account for your food. Some people just don’t want their meals tied to an email address.

One night, two apps

The same dinner in each app.

Saturday at a Sichuan place in Manchester with Tom and Priya: mapo tofu, dan dan noodles, dry-fried green beans, a smashed cucumber salad and a pot of jasmine tea.

In a database app you search for each dish, choose between entries that disagree by hundreds of calories, guess at a restaurant portion and then do the maths for your share. Most people give up by the noodles.

In PlateDiary you take one photo when the food lands. The four dishes and the tea become five saves. With Calories on, tap Read and each dish gets one rough number; the moment shows a line like “About 2,350 kcal across 4 saves”. You ate a third of the tofu? Tap Edit and type your share.

Side by side

MyFitnessPal and PlateDiary, honestly.

Be honest

Who should stay with MyFitnessPal.

PlateDiary is not a full calorie tracker: there is no barcode scanner, no food database to search, no exercise and no weight. We make PlateDiary, so weigh that in.

• You cook most meals and like to weigh ingredients.
• You scan a lot of packaged food.
• You want steps, workouts and weight next to your food.
• You want your numbers on the web and on more than one device.
• A coach or dietitian asked you to share a full food diary.

Try it

Five minutes with PlateDiary at your next dinner.

1. Turn Calories onSettings → PlateDiary AI → Calories. They are off unless you turn them on.
2. Snap the tableWhen the food arrives, take one photo. Every dish and drink is cut out on your phone, in about a second.
3. Read itTap Read. Small pictures of the cut-out dishes go up, with the place’s name as a hint — never the table photo, faces or your location. Everyone gets 10 free AI tries.
4. Accept or editEach dish shows one rough “~” number. Accept it, or type your own; PlateDiary remembers your fix for that dish at that place.
5. Open the Calories pageSee what your saved meals add up to, by day, by dish and by place.

Or keep both

Plenty of people use one at home and one out.

There is no shame in a two-app setup: MyFitnessPal for the oats and the protein bars, PlateDiary for Thursday tacos and the birthday dinner. The numbers don’t move between them, and PlateDiary doesn’t pretend to replace the home side. What it adds is the part MyFitnessPal never kept — where you were, what the table looked like, and who you shared it with. More on that in the restaurant journal.

In PlateDiary

A rough number for the dishes you save — only if you want one.

Sources

Where the facts come from