Cronometer vs MyFitnessPal vs Nouri: Which Calorie Tracker Is Best in 2026?

Pick Cronometer if you need vitamins and minerals (up to 95 nutrients and compounds), MyFitnessPal if you want a free tier and a stated 20.5 million foods, and Nouri if you want the fastest logging plus a weekly Nouri Report, for $39.99/year on iPhone (iOS only). We make Nouri; every Cronometer and MyFitnessPal fact below is cited with the date checked.

At a glance

	Nouri	Cronometer	MyFitnessPal
Core logging	Type like a note, voice, photo, or Siri from the lock screen, all equal	Search a stated 1M+ verified-food database, barcode, AI photo, voice via the app or Siri	Database search, barcode scan (Premium), Meal Scan photo, Voice Log
AI estimates	Instant calories and macros with visible reasoning per item; photos shown back as an editable sentence	AI photo logging, listed on the Gold tier	Meal Scan recognizes what is on your plate; Voice Log takes what you say
Insight and tracking	Weekly Nouri Report: Health Score with "Why this score?", days on target, wins, slips, one focus	Up to 95 nutrients and compounds, plus exercise and biometrics	Calories, macros, micronutrients, water, steps, exercise, intermittent fasting, GLP-1 doses
Apple Health	Writes nutrition totals in; brings calories burned, workouts, and steps next to what you eat	Syncs with Apple Health plus a stated device list: Fitbit, Withings, Oura, Garmin, Whoop, Dexcom, and more	Syncs with Apple Health among a stated 40-plus apps and devices, including Fitbit and Garmin
Food database	None needed: describe any meal, including home cooking	A stated 1M+ verified foods with lab-analyzed nutrition data	A stated 20.5 million foods
Free tier	No, 3-day free trial	Yes, up to 84 nutrients	Yes, with ads and basic food search
Paid price	$9.99/month or $39.99/year	Gold $10.99/mo or $59.99/yr	$9.99/mo or $49.99/yr
Platforms	iPhone (iOS only)	iOS, Android, web	iOS, Android, web

Cronometer facts from cronometer.com and its Gold page, checked August 29, 2026. MyFitnessPal facts from myfitnesspal.com and its pricing page, checked September 26, 2026.

How each app approaches calorie tracking

Nouri: the fastest way in, and a verdict every Sunday

Nouri is built around one belief: the log that matters is the one that actually gets made. So there is no database to search. You type what you ate like a note ("salmon, roast potatoes, green beans, a glass of white wine"), say it, snap a photo, or ask Siri, and the AI returns calories, protein, carbs, and fat instantly, item by item, with its reasoning visible. If something looks off, add context like "large portion" or "cooked in butter" and recalculate. A photo is turned into a sentence first, so you can correct what Nouri saw before anything is counted, and photo logging is very accurate when the food is clearly laid out.

Siri is where the speed shows most, and we cover exactly how it works in the logging section below. Around the logging sit Apple Health in both directions, Nouri Coach for questions about your own eating, smart reminders, a Health Score on every meal, and a weekly Nouri Report. Most calorie apps give you numbers. Nouri gives you answers.

Cronometer: the precision micronutrient instrument

Cronometer is built for depth per entry. Its site describes a database of over one million verified foods with lab-analyzed nutrition data, barcode scanning, and nutrient tracking that goes far beyond macros: up to 84 nutrients on the free tier and up to 95 nutrients and compounds overall. It also tracks exercise and biometrics, from blood sugar to gut health, and syncs with a long stated list of devices, including Fitbit, Withings, Oura, Garmin, Whoop, Dexcom continuous glucose monitors, and Apple Health.

It has added conveniences too. Its homepage advertises AI photo logging and voice control via the app or Siri, and its Gold page lists photo and voice on the paid tier. It runs on iOS, Android, and the web, with a free tier and Gold at $10.99/month or $59.99/year. If you have ever wondered whether you get enough magnesium or B12, Cronometer is the app designed to answer that question.

MyFitnessPal: the database everything-tracker

MyFitnessPal is the classic database tracker and the biggest by its own numbers: a stated 20.5 million foods. You search for each food, choose an entry, and set a portion, or use the barcode scanner (listed as a Premium feature), Meal Scan, which recognizes what is on your plate, or Voice Log. Beyond calories and macros it tracks vitamins and micronutrients, water, steps, exercise, intermittent fasting, and GLP-1 doses.

It is also the broadest of the three. It runs on iOS, Android, and the web, syncs with a stated 40-plus apps and devices including Apple Health, Fitbit, and Garmin, and has a free ad-supported tier with basic food search plus weight, exercise, and water tracking. Premium is $9.99/month or $49.99/year with a 7-day free trial.

Logging speed: the factor that decides whether you stick with it

The most detailed tracker in the world tells you nothing about the meals you skipped. That is the uncomfortable truth behind every calorie app: people rarely quit because the numbers were wrong. They quit because logging felt like a chore on the fourth busy night in a row. A few missed dinners become a missed week, and a missed week usually becomes a deleted app. We make the full case in Calorie Counting 101.

So the useful question is not which app records the most data. It is how much work stands between finishing a meal and having it logged. Cronometer and MyFitnessPal are both built on databases, which means the core motion is search, select, and set a portion, with photo and voice as shortcuts layered on top. Nouri's core motion is a sentence, whether you type it, say it, or let a photo become one.

Take one ordinary weeknight dinner: salmon, roast potatoes, green beans, and a glass of white wine. Here is how each app handles it, based only on what each one documents.

In Nouri, you type or say one sentence: "salmon fillet, roast potatoes, green beans, a glass of white wine." The estimate comes back itemized, with calories and macros for each item and the reasoning behind them. If the potatoes were roasted in plenty of oil, add "potatoes roasted in olive oil" and recalculate. Prefer the camera? Photograph the plate, read the sentence Nouri wrote back, and add the wine in a few words.

In Cronometer, the precise route is the database: search for the salmon, the potatoes, the beans, and the wine, pick verified entries, and set each amount, ideally weighed. That is the workflow that makes its nutrient numbers so detailed. On Gold, AI photo logging and voice control are the shortcuts it advertises.

In MyFitnessPal, the database route is similar: search each component, choose among similar entries, and set each portion. Meal Scan and Voice Log are its advertised shortcuts, and on Premium the barcode scanner handles anything that came in a package.

Now change the situation. It is 10pm, the dishes are done, and you realize dinner never got logged. There is nothing left to photograph, and a database log still means one search per component. In Nouri, the sentence is identical whether you type it at the table or from the couch three hours later, so the forgotten meal costs no more effort than the one in front of you.

Siri deserves a fair word here, because both Cronometer and Nouri mention it. Cronometer's site lists voice control via the app or Siri, so Nouri is not the only tracker that talks to Siri. We still say Nouri has the best Siri logging of any calorie tracking app, and here is specifically why: from the lock screen, you say "Hey Siri, track food in Nouri," describe the whole meal in one sentence, and the calories and macros card appears right away with what you have left for the day, without opening the app. We have not tested Cronometer's Siri flow ourselves, so we are not claiming what it can or cannot do. We are describing exactly what Nouri does, and if hands-free logging is how you plan to track, try that same flow in both apps during your trials.

None of these apps makes logging impossible. The difference is how many decisions each meal costs. For a barcoded snack, MyFitnessPal Premium and Cronometer are quick, and Nouri needs a short description or a photo. For the meals that actually break streaks, home cooking, restaurant plates, and the dinner you forgot, one sentence is hard to beat. For eating out specifically, see How to Log Restaurant Meals.

Accuracy you can check

None of the three apps publishes a benchmarked accuracy figure, and we will not invent one or rank them. What we can compare is where each app says its numbers come from, and how easy it is for you to check them.

Cronometer makes the strongest database-quality claim of the three: over one million verified foods with lab-analyzed nutrition data. If you weigh your food and choose the right entry, you get that entry's detailed profile, down to individual vitamins and minerals. The tradeoff is that precision depends on the work: the right entry, the right weight, every time.

MyFitnessPal's strength is scale. A stated 20.5 million foods means the packaged and branded items you buy are very likely in there, and for those, the label is the source. With a catalog that large, the quality of your log depends on choosing well among similar entries and setting honest portions.

Nouri does not use a lookup database, so its answer is transparency. Every estimate is broken down item by item with its reasoning shown, so a wrong portion or a missing ingredient is visible at a glance. A photo is shown back as a sentence before anything is counted, so if Nouri misread the plate, you fix the words rather than the math. And because typing and voice are equal ways to log, you can always add what no database entry or camera captures on its own: "two tablespoons of olive oil," "extra sauce," "large portion," then recalculate.

Every method inherits some error from food labels, portions, and preparation, which we document in Why Calorie Tracking Apps Are Inaccurate. Our view is simple: a complete week of honest estimates you can audit tells you more than a precise log with gaps in it. If your goal is a specific micronutrient, though, precision per entry is the point, and that is Cronometer's territory.

Nouri Reports: numbers vs answers

Cronometer can show you a remarkably long list of nutrients. MyFitnessPal can show you a wide record of everything you track. A Nouri Report tells you what your week added up to and what to do about it.

When you get them: log on 3 days within your first week and Nouri builds your first personal report. After that, a fresh report arrives every Sunday evening for any week with 4 or more logged days.

What is inside:

• Health Score with "Why this score?", so you see exactly what drove it
• The numbers: average calories, protein, carbs, and fat against your targets, with progress bars
• Days on target, judged by your goal, whether that is losing, maintaining, or gaining, not by a generic number
• Wins, slips, and one clear focus for the week ahead
• Your MVP food of the week, protein equivalents, and a personality badge for your eating style
• Apple Health: calories burned against calories eaten, plus your workouts

Reports live under Progress, then Reports, as part of Nouri Premium.

To be fair to the other two: both collect far more data than Nouri. Cronometer tracks up to 95 nutrients and compounds plus biometrics like blood sugar, which is exactly what a clinical diet or a coach reading your numbers needs. MyFitnessPal tracks micronutrients, water, steps, fasting windows, and GLP-1 doses in one place. If you want a deep record to study, both deliver. Nouri's bet is different: on Sunday evening, did this week move me toward my goal, and what is the one thing I should change? Because each meal takes seconds to log, the week a report reads is a complete one.

Pricing breakdown: what you actually pay

	Nouri	Cronometer	MyFitnessPal
Free tier	No	Yes, up to 84 nutrients	Yes, with ads and basic food search
Monthly	$9.99/month	Gold $10.99/month	$9.99/month
Yearly	$39.99/year	Gold $59.99/year	$49.99/year
Trial	3-day free trial on the yearly plan	Free tier to start	7-day free trial

On annual plans, Nouri at $39.99/year costs less than both MyFitnessPal Premium at $49.99 and Cronometer Gold at $59.99. The free tiers are a real advantage for the other two. Cronometer's free tier is unusually generous for nutrient tracking, while its photo and voice conveniences sit on Gold. MyFitnessPal's free tier carries ads, and Barcode Scan is listed under Premium. Nouri has no free tier, but the 3-day free trial is enough to log a few real days, try every input, and see whether the speed sticks.

Apple Health and integrations

Nouri connects to Apple Health in both directions. It writes your nutrition totals in, and it brings calories burned, workouts, and steps in, so they sit next to what you eat. That burned-versus-eaten view also appears in every Nouri Report, so a heavy training week and a quiet one stop looking the same.

Cronometer has the most specialized device list of the three: its site names Fitbit, Withings, Oura, Garmin, Whoop, Dexcom continuous glucose monitors, and Apple Health, among others. If you wear a glucose monitor and want it next to your food log, that is a strong reason to choose Cronometer. MyFitnessPal has the broadest stated count, syncing with 40-plus apps and devices including Apple Health, Fitbit, and Garmin.

If you are on iPhone and Apple Health is already your hub, Nouri slots straight in. Writing nutrition totals back means your other health apps see your food without you logging anything twice, and pulling workouts in means your weekly report can put what you burned next to what you ate, instead of leaving you to compare two apps in your head.

Who should choose each app

Choose Nouri if...

• You are on iPhone and want every kind of meal logged in seconds, home-cooked, restaurant, or eaten hours ago
• You care about calories and macros, and a database workflow is what made you quit before
• You want hands-free logging with Siri from the lock screen
• You want to see the reasoning behind every estimate and fix it in words
• You want a weekly report that tells you what worked, what slipped, and what to focus on next

The honest tradeoffs: Nouri is iPhone only, has no barcode scanner, no micronutrient tracking, and no free tier, and its targets come from the published Mifflin-St Jeor formula at onboarding.

Choose Cronometer if...

• You need micronutrient data: clinical diets, keto verification, or a coach reading your numbers
• You want a verified, lab-analyzed database and are happy to weigh food
• You use biometric devices like a Dexcom glucose monitor, Oura, or Whoop
• You need Android or web, or want a strong free tier

For micronutrients, Cronometer is the clear pick here, and we will not pretend otherwise. We compare it to Nouri head to head in Nouri vs Cronometer.

Choose MyFitnessPal if...

• You want a free tier and do not mind ads
• You eat mostly packaged or branded foods and want the largest stated database
• You need Android or a web app
• You want one app tracking water, fasting, and GLP-1 doses alongside food
• You use Fitbit or Garmin and want them synced

For the two-way version, read Nouri vs MyFitnessPal, and for other options, Best MyFitnessPal Alternatives. If you are also weighing a photo-first app, see Cal AI vs MyFitnessPal vs Nouri.

Why I built Nouri the way I did

I should be upfront: I have not lived in Cronometer day to day the way I lived in MyFitnessPal, so I will not review how it feels after a month. What I can tell you is why Nouri deliberately does not chase 95 nutrients.

My first tracker was MyFitnessPal, and the data was never the issue. Dinner was. After a long day, logging a normal meal meant minutes of searching, scrolling past near-identical entries, and guessing grams. Some nights I just did not do it, and by week three I had stopped opening the app altogether. A detailed database is worth nothing on the nights you skip it, and a more detailed one asks for even more of your evening.

Then I tried AI photo apps. They were fast, but my weight was not moving. When I added up the ingredients myself, mixed dishes came in low: one plate the camera put at around 400 calories worked out closer to 700, because a lens cannot see the oil in the pan.

So I built Nouri around a sentence. A photo becomes words first, and you can edit the words. I photographed a breakfast plate and Nouri wrote back "Two poached eggs on avocado toast, bacon, scrambled eggs, and fresh fruit bowl," then split it into four items: 850 calories, 42g protein, 75g carbs, 42g fat. If it had missed the butter, three words and a recalculate would fix it.

The last piece came from a frustration I had even in good weeks: a full diary and no idea what it meant. Now on Sunday evening the report tells me my Health Score and why, how many days I hit my goal, the slip that cost me, and one thing to focus on next. If you need to audit your iron intake, use Cronometer. If you need to keep logging long enough to see results, that is who Nouri is for. The comment I hear most from people who try it is that it looks like the calorie app Apple would have made.

FAQ

Which is better, Cronometer, MyFitnessPal, or Nouri?

It depends on what you need. For micronutrients and biometric devices, Cronometer. For a free tier and the largest stated food database, MyFitnessPal. For iPhone users who want the fastest logging and a weekly report that tells them what to change, Nouri.

Is Cronometer better than MyFitnessPal?

For nutrient depth, Cronometer: it states a verified, lab-analyzed database and tracks up to 95 nutrients and compounds. MyFitnessPal is broader, with a stated 20.5 million foods, tracking for water, fasting, and GLP-1 doses, and 40-plus integrations. Both have free tiers and run on iOS, Android, and web.

What makes Nouri different from other calorie trackers?

Speed and answers. You log by typing, voice, photo, or Siri, all as equal options, and the AI shows its reasoning for every estimate with no database to search. Then Nouri Reports, Nouri Coach, and your Apple Health data turn those logs into what to change next week.

What is a Nouri Report?

A personal weekly report built from your logs: Health Score with "Why this score?", average calories and macros against your targets, days on target judged by your goal, wins, slips, one clear focus, your MVP food, and Apple Health calories burned against calories eaten. The first arrives after 3 logged days in your first week, then every Sunday evening when you log 4 or more days.

Is Nouri worth it?

If you want logging to take seconds and to learn something from it every week, yes. At $39.99/year it costs less per year than both Cronometer Gold and MyFitnessPal Premium, and the 3-day free trial is enough to try every way of logging.

How much do Cronometer, MyFitnessPal, and Nouri cost?

Cronometer Gold is $10.99/month or $59.99/year, with a free tier. MyFitnessPal Premium is $9.99/month or $49.99/year with a 7-day free trial, plus a free tier. Nouri is $9.99/month or $39.99/year with a 3-day free trial.

Is there a free version of Cronometer, MyFitnessPal, or Nouri?

Cronometer has a free tier that tracks up to 84 nutrients, with photo and voice logging listed on Gold. MyFitnessPal has a free ad-supported tier with basic food search and weight, water, and exercise tracking. Nouri has no free tier, only the 3-day free trial.

Which app is best for tracking micronutrients?

Cronometer, clearly. It states tracking for up to 95 nutrients and compounds, built on lab-analyzed data. MyFitnessPal also tracks vitamins and micronutrients, and Nouri does not track micronutrients at all.

Can I log food with Siri in Cronometer or Nouri?

Both mention Siri: Cronometer's site lists voice control via the app or Siri, on its Gold tier. In Nouri, you say "Hey Siri, track food in Nouri" from the lock screen, describe the meal in one sentence, and the calories and macros card appears right away with what you have left for the day, without opening the app. MyFitnessPal advertises Voice Log in its app.

Which calorie tracker works on Android?

Cronometer and MyFitnessPal both run on iOS, Android, and the web. Nouri is iPhone (iOS only), so Android users should choose between the other two.

Which app has a barcode scanner?

Cronometer lists barcode scanning, and MyFitnessPal has a barcode scanner listed as a Premium feature. Nouri has no barcode scanner: you describe packaged food, for example "the 190-calorie protein bar," or photograph it.

Can I switch from Cronometer or MyFitnessPal to Nouri?

There is no import, but Nouri needs no food history: your first sentence is a complete log. Set your target at onboarding, or check it first with our free TDEE calculator, then log on 3 days that first week to get your first Nouri Report.

Which is best for weight loss?

The one you keep using, because consistency decides results. If weighing food and reviewing nutrients keeps you engaged, Cronometer; if a free tier and a huge database do, MyFitnessPal. If one sentence, a photo, or Siri is what survives your busy weeks, Nouri, and the weekly report shows whether you are actually on target.

Bottom line

Cronometer is the best choice for micronutrient precision and biometric devices, and MyFitnessPal is the most complete database tracker, with a free tier and every platform. Nouri makes every meal effortless to log, shows its reasoning, and tells you what to change each week, at $39.99/year. Still deciding? Read Best Calorie Tracker App in 2026 and log everything for two weeks in whichever you pick.

Sources

• Cronometer features, database, and nutrient claims: cronometer.com (checked August 29, 2026)
• Cronometer pricing and free-tier details: cronometer.com/gold (checked August 29, 2026)
• MyFitnessPal features and database claims: myfitnesspal.com (checked September 26, 2026)
• MyFitnessPal pricing and trial: myfitnesspal.com/premium (checked September 26, 2026)
• Nouri pricing, platform, and features: nouriapp.co and the App Store listing