10 Best Calorie Counting Apps of 2026

MyFitnessPal is the safest pick when the main worry is finding the food you just ate. Its US App Store listing cites 20.5M+ foods including restaurant dishes, second only to Lose It's 56+ million figure, which also counts recipes, and says users have created more than 100 billion food logs. The free tier covers calorie, macro and water tracking, workout logging and a meal planner, and it connects to 40+ trackers and health apps. The catch is that the fastest logging tools sit behind Premium: barcode scan, meal scan and voice logging are listed as Premium features, together with custom macro goals and ad-free logging. In the App Store, Premium is $19.99 per month or $79.99 per year, and a Premium Plus tier adds full meal plans, grocery delivery and 1500+ recipes. The newer AI Coach and GLP-1 dose logging round out a broad feature set. If you scan packaged foods all day and do not want to pay, Cronometer or Carb Manager include free barcode scanning.

Cronometer takes the opposite approach to MyFitnessPal: instead of the biggest possible catalog, it uses a curated database of more than 1.1 million verified foods, including analyzed entries, and reports 95+ vitamins and minerals alongside calories and macros. That makes it the strongest pick here for anyone checking iron, B12 or fiber rather than just calories. Barcode scanning is free, which is rare among the big apps, and the listing describes four ways to log: photo, voice, barcode and search. Photo and voice logging, the fasting tracker, the recipe importer and ad-free use come with Gold, priced at $10.99 per month or $59.99 per year in the US App Store. Device support is broad, with Apple Health, Apple Watch, Fitbit, Garmin, Oura and Whoop, and sleep data can be compared with caffeine and alcohol intake. The tradeoff is that restaurant and regional brand coverage is thinner than in a 20M-item database.

Lose It is built for people whose goal is weight loss first and macro detail second. After a short profile it calculates a daily calorie budget and a weight loss schedule, and the free tier covers calorie and exercise tracking, the weight loss plan and support groups. Its App Store listing cites a global food database of 56+ million items and recipes, the largest count published by any app in this list, although that figure includes recipes. Fast logging is a strength: you can say a meal out loud, take a photo or scan a barcode, but all three sit in Premium, alongside macro and micronutrient tracking, fasting and meal targets. The vendor says more than 57 million people have used it since 2008. We could not confirm a clear USD Premium price with its billing period from the vendor's own pages, so check the price inside the app before subscribing.

MacroFactor is the app for people who log every meal and care more about hitting protein and carb targets than about browsing a giant database. Its App Store listing names five ways to log: AI photo, a typed meal description, speech-to-text, a barcode scanner and a nutrition label scanner, which covers almost every situation from home cooking to packaged snacks. The verified database holds more than 1.36 million entries, smaller than MyFitnessPal but curated. The core idea is the weekly check-in: the app compares your intake with your weight trend, estimates what you really burn and adjusts calorie and macro targets for the next week. You can also switch to Manual mode and set different macros by day. There is no free tier. US prices are $11.99 per month, $47.99 per half year or $71.99 per year, which the listing notes equals $5.99 a month. For a serious macro tracker that is fair value, but casual users may prefer a free app.

Carb Manager is the best value pick if you eat keto, low-carb, paleo or carnivore. The free Basic account includes unlimited barcode scans, net carb tracking, food, exercise and weight logging and access to 360,000+ member recipes, and the food search covers 1M+ foods with net carbs and sugar alcohols. Premium costs $3.33 per month billed annually on the vendor's own pricing page, the lowest verified paid price in this list. It adds voice and natural language logging, full nutrient tracking, macros per meal, Smart Macros that adjust as you lose weight, blood glucose, ketone and insulin tracking, fasting tools and Fitbit and Garmin sync. People managing diabetes will find the carb and glucose logging especially relevant. The limitation is focus: if you are not counting carbs, the keto framing, recipes and reports are less useful, and a general calorie counter such as MyFitnessPal or FatSecret fits better.

FatSecret is the strongest free option in this list for people who do not want to pay for logging speed. The App Store listing describes an app customized for US foods and brands with camera recognition of foods, meals and products, a barcode scanner and auto-complete search, and it does not mark those as paid extras. You also get food, exercise and weight diaries, a diet calendar, reminders and a community feed. A useful extra is fatsecret Professional, which lets a dietitian or coach see your food, exercise and weight data for free. Premium adds dietitian meal plans in five styles, advanced meal planning, six extra meal headings and water tracking; the App Store shows a monthly subscription from $10.49, plus quarterly and annual options. The weak points are that FatSecret does not publish a database size, and its macro reporting is simpler than Cronometer or MacroFactor.

Yazio suits people who want calorie counting and intermittent fasting in the same app. The free calorie counter includes a food diary with custom calorie goals, macro analysis, a barcode scanner and a food database of 4 million+ searchable items, and you can start without creating an account. The fasting tracker supports plans such as 16:8 and 5:2 and ties into the food diary, and the recipe library holds 2,900+ recipes with low-carb, vegetarian and vegan filters plus a grocery list. Yazio Pro adds advanced calorie tools, in-depth food analysis, custom meal plans, Fitbit and Garmin sync, mood and body metrics and an ad-free experience. The US App Store lists several Pro prices, but not all of them show a billing period, so we have left the price as pending. Yazio is less suited to people who need micronutrient depth or adaptive macro coaching.

Lifesum is a good fit for people who want the app to hand them a plan rather than just a number. You share goals, preferences, restrictions and activity level, and it builds a nutrition plan, with lifestyles such as keto, paleo and high protein, meal plans with grocery lists and a large recipe library. Logging is flexible: the App Store listing names photo, voice, typed text, barcode scan and quick tracking. A weekly Life Score rates your eating, hydration and activity, and Apple Health sync works in both directions for food, water, weight and exercise. Lifesum says it has 65 million users. The free version is limited, and full features need a 1-month, 3-month or annual Premium subscription; we could not confirm a USD price with its billing period, so it is marked pending. It also does not publish a food database size, which matters if broad brand coverage is your priority.

Cal AI is the most photo-first app in this list. You answer a few lifestyle questions to build a plan, then snap a picture of your meal, and the app returns calories, protein, carbs and fat; the vendor says it uses the phone's depth sensor to estimate food volume. You can also scan a barcode or describe a meal in words, and add your own foods and recipes. That makes it quick for people who gave up on other apps because searching and weighing felt like a chore. The tradeoffs are clear in the App Store listing: food scanning results require a subscription, and the vendor's support page says tapping the + button to log food opens the paywall, so there is no usable free tier. Cal AI does not publish a food database size or detailed micronutrient reporting, and its App Store prices are listed without clear billing periods, so we left pricing as pending.

Noom is on this list because many people search for a calorie counter when what they want is a structured weight loss program. Its app includes AI food logging across 1M+ food items with protein and calorie tracking, but the core is daily lessons on habits and behavior change, community support, optional 1:1 coaching and 1,000+ fitness, stretching and meditation classes. Noom Med adds clinician access to GLP-1 medication for eligible members. The App Store listing says Noom Weight plans are as low as $17 a month, based on a web annual plan for $209, and Noom Med plans start at $39 a month before medication costs. That is more than most food trackers here, and there is no free plan. If your goal is a large database and fast macro logging, MyFitnessPal, MacroFactor or Cronometer do that job better for less; Noom is for people who need help with the habits behind eating.