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Is MyFitnessPal or Lose It better?

The two biggest calorie counters compared on what free covers, what Premium costs, and where the barcode scanner went. Plus the honest answer to "what is the number one calorie tracker".

Published by SnapNutrition AI · Last updated October 18, 2026

Short answer: MyFitnessPal if you want the largest claimed food database (20.5 million foods, restaurant dishes included), the broader ecosystem, or a Wear OS watch app, and you are willing to pay $79.99 a year for the scanner and photo logging. Lose It! if weight loss is the whole point, you want a daily budget and a plan, and you would rather pay $39.99 a year for roughly the same Premium features. Both apps now list the barcode scanner and photo logging under Premium, so their free tiers come down to the same thing: searching a database and typing. If you are on iPhone and want photo and barcode logging with no subscription at all, that is the gap SnapNutrition AI is built for, and we say so below with the tradeoffs.

This guide is published by the team behind SnapNutrition AI, a competitor to both apps, so read it as a checked comparison rather than an independent review. Every price, rating, and feature claim below comes from the two apps' own US App Store listings and websites as they read on October 18, 2026, linked in the sources. Prices differ by country and change often; the listing is the thing to check before you pay.

Is MyFitnessPal or Lose It better?

Neither is better for everyone, and the honest comparison is shorter than the marketing suggests, because the two apps have converged. Both are free to install, both are built around a daily calorie budget, both log food by searching a database, both keep the barcode scanner and photo logging for paying members, and both sync with Apple Health. The differences that still matter:

So: pick MyFitnessPal for the bigger claimed database, the broader ecosystem, or a Wear OS watch; pick Lose It! for the budget-first design and the cheaper Premium. If neither reason applies to you, the choice is mostly about which interface you will open every day, and both offer a free trial to find out.

What is the #1 calorie tracker?

By size, MyFitnessPal. Its US App Store listing carried about 2.4 million ratings on October 18, 2026, three times Lose It!'s 781,000, and its description calls it "the #1 nutrition, macro and calorie tracking app in the U.S.", a claim about popularity, not accuracy. By average rating it is not first. The table shows the five largest calorie counters in the US App Store search for "calorie counter" on that date, rounded to one decimal.

AppUS App Store ratingRatingsFree photo loggingFree barcode scanner
MyFitnessPal4.72.4MNo, PremiumNo, Premium
Lose It!4.8781KNo, PremiumNo, Premium
Cal AI4.8371KNo, subscriptionNo, subscription
MyNetDiary4.8169KListed; tier not statedYes
Cronometer4.8100KNo, GoldYes

Two things to read into that table. Ratings counts measure how long an app has been big, not how good it is now: MyFitnessPal launched in 2005. And a gap of 4.7 against 4.8 is small enough that review prompts and store policy may matter as much as product quality. SnapNutrition AI is not in the table because it has a tiny fraction of those ratings; it is in this guide because we make it.

Which is the best calorie tracker?

There is no single best calorie tracker, because the apps are built for different logging habits, and the habit you will keep is what decides whether the diary works. Three questions sort it out:

  1. How will you log? If you weigh ingredients and look them up, a database app wins: MyFitnessPal for breadth, Cronometer for verified entries and micronutrients. If you want a budget and a plan to follow, Lose It!. If you know from experience that you will only ever photograph the plate, a photo-first app: Cal AI, SnapCalorie, or SnapNutrition AI.
  2. What does free cover for that habit? In October 2026 the free tiers of MyFitnessPal and Lose It! both cover search and typing but not scanning. Cronometer's and MyNetDiary's free tiers include the scanner. Cal AI's core scan needs a subscription. SnapNutrition AI's photo and barcode logging run on your own AI key with no subscription. The free AI calorie tracker guide goes app by app.
  3. Where does the diary live? MyFitnessPal and Lose It! both need an account, and the diary lives on their servers. If that matters to you, the privacy-first guide explains what to check.

Whatever you pick, remember what any of them measures. A logged calorie is an estimate of intake, never a measurement of your deficit, and photo apps add their own error on top: in a 2026 NIH test, four popular photo-based apps undercounted weighed meals by about a third. The accuracy guide covers what that means in practice.

Price and what free covers, side by side

Lose It! Premium costs about half of MyFitnessPal's, and neither free tier scans barcodes or photos. The rest of the picture, from the two listings and MyFitnessPal's Premium page:

MyFitnessPalLose It!
Premium price, US App Store, Oct 18, 2026$19.99 a month or $79.99 a year$39.99 a year; monthly and lifetime options also listed
Free tier, per the app's own pagesNutrition and weight tracking, exercise tracking, with adsCalorie tracking, weight-loss plan, community support
Barcode scannerPremium (moved from free in late 2022)Premium, per its App Store description
Photo loggingMeal Scan, PremiumPhoto meal logging, Premium
Voice loggingPremiumAI voice, Premium
Custom macro goalsPremiumPremium
Intermittent fasting trackerPremiumPremium
Exercise loggingFreeFree; third-party device syncs listed under Premium
Food databaseClaims 20.5M+ foodsNo size claim in its listing
PlatformsiPhone, Android, web, Apple Watch, Wear OSiPhone, Android, web, Apple Watch
Account requiredYesYes

Prices are the US App Store in-app purchase list on October 18, 2026. Both apps show different prices in other countries, run promotions, and list several price points at once (MyFitnessPal's listing also carries $9.99 monthly and $49.99 yearly entries, Lose It!'s a $59.99 lifetime entry), so the figure you see in the app may differ. Feature placement comes from MyFitnessPal's Premium page and Lose It!'s App Store description on the same date.

Where the barcode scanner went

The question people ask after "which is better" is "which one still scans for free", and in October 2026 the answer is neither. MyFitnessPal moved its barcode scanner into Premium in late 2022, the change that sent many long-time users looking for a MyFitnessPal alternative. Lose It!'s own App Store description now lists "Barcode Scanner" under Premium plan features too, alongside photo and voice logging. Its website still advertises the scanner without saying which tier it belongs to, which is why the listing is the better source.

If a free scanner is the deciding factor, three apps in this guide have one: Cronometer and MyNetDiary, whose listings both say the scanner is free, and SnapNutrition AI, where barcode, photo, voice, and text entry all work on your own AI key. Photo logging is the same story: in both big apps it is a paid feature, and even then it is an estimate. Check the accuracy guide before you treat any photo app's number as a measurement.

Where SnapNutrition AI fits, and where it does not

SnapNutrition AI is the app we make, so here is the plain version. It is for iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch only. It logs by photo, barcode, voice, text, or manual entry, and every scanned component is editable. It needs no account; the diary stays on your device, syncing through your own iCloud if you turn that on. In BYOK mode it runs on a personal Gemini, OpenAI, Anthropic, or OpenRouter key, with no subscription from us and no cap on scans from us, and an optional Auto Mode at $2.99 a month or $29.99 a year for people who would rather not manage a key.

What it does not do, and both big apps do: there is no Android version, no community, no exercise logging, no body-weight tracking, and no meal plans. The daily goal comes from the Mifflin-St Jeor equation and an activity band, and the app does not add workout calories back. If you want one app for food, workouts, and weight, MyFitnessPal or Lose It! will serve you better. If you want photo logging on your own terms on an iPhone, the BYOK guide explains the setup and the cost.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is MyFitnessPal or Lose It better?

Neither is better for everyone. MyFitnessPal claims the larger food database (20.5 million foods; Lose It! publishes no figure), has the broader ecosystem, and offers a Wear OS app; Lose It! is built around a weight-loss budget and its Premium costs about half as much. Both now list the barcode scanner and photo logging as Premium features, so the free tiers are closer than they used to be: manual search and logging in both.

What is the #1 calorie tracker?

By size, MyFitnessPal: its US App Store listing carried about 2.4 million ratings on October 18, 2026, three times Lose It!'s 781,000, and its own description calls it the number one calorie tracking app in the US. By average rating it is not first: it showed 4.7 stars, while Lose It!, Cal AI, MyNetDiary, and Cronometer all showed 4.8. Number one by ratings count is not the same as best for your way of logging.

Which is the best calorie tracker?

There is no single best one. Choose by how you will actually log every day (searching a database, scanning barcodes, or photographing the plate), by what the free tier covers for that habit, and by where your diary is stored. Database apps such as MyFitnessPal and Cronometer suit people who weigh and look things up; Lose It! suits people who want a weight-loss budget and a plan; photo-first apps such as Cal AI and SnapNutrition AI suit people who will not keep a diary any other way.

Is MyFitnessPal free?

The basic app is free with ads: manual food search and logging, exercise logging, and weight tracking. Its own Premium page lists barcode scanning, Meal Scan, voice logging, custom macro goals, and ad-free logging under Premium, which the App Store listed at $19.99 a month or $79.99 a year on October 18, 2026.

Is Lose It free?

The basic app is free: its App Store description lists calorie tracking, a weight-loss plan, and community support as free features. The same description lists photo meal logging, AI voice logging, the barcode scanner, macro and nutrient tracking, intermittent fasting, meal planning, and fitness-device syncs under Premium, which the listing priced at $39.99 a year on October 18, 2026.

Does Lose It have a free barcode scanner?

Not according to its own App Store description on October 18, 2026, which lists the barcode scanner under Premium plan features. MyFitnessPal moved its scanner behind Premium in late 2022. If a free scanner matters, Cronometer, MyNetDiary, and SnapNutrition AI all include one without a subscription.

Sources

Want photo and barcode logging with no subscription and no account? SnapNutrition AI runs on your own provider key or an optional subscription.

Download SnapNutrition AI on the App Store

Related reading

MyFitnessPal is a trademark of MyFitnessPal, Inc. Lose It! is a trademark of FitNow, Inc. SnapNutrition AI is not affiliated with either. This guide is for general information about food logging and is not medical advice.