Best Free Calorie Tracking Apps to Ditch the Diet Drama & Eat Smarter

MyFitnessPal is one of the best healthcare apps for managing your fitness and nutrition goals. Whether you're looking to lose weight, track your nutrition, or monitor fitness, MyFitnessPal has you covered. After exploring the app, what really caught my eye was how easily it combines calorie tracking with a detailed breakdown of macronutrients, helping users keep track of their carbs, fats, and proteins effortlessly.

What makes it even more attractive is its ability to sync with over 35 fitness apps and devices, so your activity levels and calories burned are automatically recorded. The Net Carbs Mode is forward-thinking for those who take their fitness seriously, particularly those following a low-carb diet. The best part? The app’s intuitive design makes it quite easy to navigate. From my experience, the meal planning and recipe management features were especially helpful, making it much easier to organize and prepare meals for the week.

When my team and I researched Yazio, we discovered it’s not just another calorie counter—it's a comprehensive health tool designed to help you reach your fitness goals faster. The app’s standout feature is the personalized plan it provides based on your specific goals, whether it's weight loss or muscle building. With a food database of over 4 million foods and searchable items, logging your meals is quick and accurate. We were particularly impressed by the nutrition tracker and food diary, which allows users to track calories, proteins, fats, and carbs seamlessly.

Yazio also integrates well with the Health App and other fitness trackers, syncing all your activity data effortlessly. During our testing, we found that the intermittent fasting feature, which supports different fasting plans, was incredibly user-friendly, especially with the countdown timer. For those serious about fine-tuning their health, the Yazio Pro subscription unlocks advanced features like body fat tracking, more recipe options, and detailed dietary analysis. In short, Yazio has everything you need to stay on top of your health journey, while its intuitive interface ensures a smooth, frustration-free experience.

Lose It! stands out as a top-tier calorie tracking app, simplifying your weight loss journey with its intuitive approach to calorie counting, food tracking, and diet management. Beyond just calories, it offers robust nutrition, macro, and carb tracking, along with intermittent fasting planning. The app uses proven principles like calorie deficit and diet tracking to help you succeed, calculating a personalized daily calorie budget based on your unique profile.

You can easily track food, weight, and activity to celebrate progress, while also gaining insights into your nutrition needs. Lose It! Basic provides essential meal and exercise tracking and community support, while the Premium Plan unlocks advanced features like a barcode scanner, comprehensive tracking for blood pressure, sleep cycles, and more.

It also offers personalized meal planning, custom diet plans, and seamless syncing with popular fitness trackers and devices like Fitbit, Garmin, and Google Fit. Featured in major publications, Lose It! has empowered over 57 million users to lose more than 150 million pounds. It's designed to help you find a weight loss solution that truly fits your needs, with results often seen in just three days of consistent tracking.

When I tried MyNetDiary, I was immediately impressed by its simplicity and precision. Unlike many other apps that overwhelm you with options, MyNetDiary focuses on what matters: tracking your calories and nutrients accurately. With a food database of over 1.7 million items, it was easy to log meals using the barcode scanner or its AI Meal Scan feature. This feature made tracking meals almost effortless, saving time and eliminating guesswork.

The verified food database was spot on with over 108 nutrients available for tracking, which I found particularly useful for my nutrition goals. The feature that stood out during my research was the privacy-first approach—you don’t even need to create an account to start tracking, which is a refreshing change. If you're looking for a simple tool to track your food or a full-featured diet assistant, MyNetDiary delivers, especially with its support for iOS Health and Apple Watch integration.

Beyond the free version, the premium plans are rich in content, offering special recipes, intermittent fasting plans, and macro cycling. Premium plans make for a great option for users who want detailed insights into their health. All in all, MyNetDiary stands out as one of the best nutrition apps due to its balance of simplicity and powerful features.

After trying out Cronometer in my research, it quickly became clear that this app isn’t just about counting calories. It’s a powerful health and fitness tool that digs deep into your nutrition. The app offers over 1.1 million verified foods in its database, making logging your meals incredibly accurate and reliable. What surprised me was how Cronometer provides a detailed breakdown of nutrients—from macronutrients like protein, carbs, and fats, to micronutrients like vitamins and minerals. This level of detail helps you get a clear picture of your nutrition.

Cronometer enables you to easily measure your progress and set customized fitness goals, whether your goal is to gain muscle, lose weight, or just improve your overall health. I was hooked by its integration with fitness devices like Apple Health and Fitbit, allowing you to sync your workouts and see how they affect your nutrition. Plus, the enhanced sleep tracking features let you understand how your sleep patterns might be influencing your health and nutrition.

For those who want even more control, Cronometer Gold offers additional features like a macro scheduler, recipe importer, and custom charts. While the free version is robust, the premium upgrade unlocks powerful tools for a more personalized experience.

I recently spent time testing out FatSecret, and what ignited my curiosity was its ability to combine simplicity with powerful features. It’s not just about logging calories—it’s about providing real-time insights into your eating habits and progress. The app makes it easy to track everything from generic grocery items to restaurant meals. Plus, the photo recognition feature lets you snap a picture of your meal and get an instant breakdown of its nutrition, saving time and effort.

What I really appreciated during my research was its seamless integration with the Health app and Fitbit, syncing your steps and calories burned directly. This allowed me to track my fitness and nutrition progress in one place, without the need to jump between apps. The supportive community is also a great plus, providing encouragement and advice when you need it most. No matter if you're following a keto plan or another diet, FatSecret helps you stay on track with ease, and its meal plans and recipes offer delicious ideas to keep things interesting.

For those who need even more support, the FatSecret Professional feature is a huge advantage, allowing you to share your progress with health professionals who can offer feedback and guidance. It's an app that truly adapts to your needs, making it one of the best keto diet apps on the market today.

When I tested Lifesum, I was struck by how it personalized my experience based on my goals and preferences. Lifesum provides a customized approach with meal plans that fit your lifestyle, whether it's Mediterranean, high-protein, or keto, if you've decided to reduce weight or improve your exercise performance. I loved the ability to track macros, calories, and hydration in one place. It even gives you a Life Score to evaluate your overall health based on your eating habits, activity levels, and hydration—helping you focus on long-term wellness instead of just short-term fixes.

The app’s multimodal tracking is a phenomenal aspect—whether it’s taking a photo of your meal for instant nutrition info or scanning a barcode for quick logging, it’s all about making meal tracking simple. Plus, Lifesum integrates seamlessly with popular fitness apps like Apple Health and Fitbit, giving you a comprehensive view of your health and progress. Though the app is available for free, you can upgrade to Lifesum Premium to unlock more advanced features.

Once I took a trial of Calory, and since then I can confidently say it’s the easiest, no-fuss app for calorie tracking that I’ve used. From the moment you open the app, it gets to work without requiring any sign-up or registration, which was a big plus for me. The app calculates your daily calorie goal based on your weight, height, and activity level, tailoring the recommendation to help you lose, gain, or maintain weight. The beauty of Calory is in its simplicity—quick value add lets you instantly log what you eat, and the reminder feature ensures you stay on top of your goals throughout the day.

What really stood out in my research was how well Calory integrates with the Apple Health app and Apple Watch. This means you can easily sync your progress and track everything from meals to weight loss, all from your wrist. If you’re someone who wants to make meal logging a part of your daily routine without complications, this app delivers exactly what you need.

For those who want even more, the premium version unlocks macro tracking, an AI food scanner, and a water tracker, taking the app to the next level. The dark mode and customizable themes were fun touches, giving it a personal feel. Calory proves itself as one of the top calorie tracker apps out there, if you're a fitness enthusiast or just want a quick and easy way to keep track of your food intake.

I was curious to try Nutritionix Track because I’ve heard so much about its seamless integration with food tracking. The app doesn’t just make logging food quick; it makes it smart with predictive search and natural language processing technology that accurately logs your meals with minimal effort. In fact, I found myself logging meals in under 60 seconds most of the time.

What caught my attention, though, was the unrivalled Nutritionix database, which includes 800K+ unique foods and even coverage of 95% of grocery items in the US and Canada. It was easy to track everything I ate and see the breakdown of calories, macros, and nutrients. The ability to create custom recipes and food items was also super handy for my meals that didn’t fit into pre-existing options. I also really appreciated the water intake tracker and how it seamlessly integrated with Apple Health.

It’s one of the best free apps for tracking macros because of how easily it adapts to your needs and lifestyle. However, for more advanced functionalities, you can upgrade to Track Pro. With the premium version, you can even share your logs with a “coach”, with your dietitian or your personal trainer. When planning to lose weight, gain muscle, or just stay on top of your diets, Nutritionix Track is a solid app that has earned a permanent spot in my health tracking routine.

Our team recently explored Argus, and we were truly impressed by its all-in-one capabilities. Argus offers a unique combination of AI-driven meal plans and advanced sleep tracking to keep you on top of your health goals. We were particularly drawn to the calorie counter, which has an extensive food database and an accurate tracking system, making it a great tool for anyone looking to maintain or lose weight. During our testing, we appreciated how easy it was to track all kinds of activities, from running and cycling to climbing and other fitness pursuits, thanks to the multi-activity GPS tracker.

What truly stood out to our team was the sleep tracker—it not only helps you track your sleep cycle but also helps you to wake up at just the right time. The step pedometer is another great feature, with its ultra-low battery usage, ensuring you can track your movement without draining your phone. We also loved the HD workout videos, ranging from Yoga and Pilates to strength training, making fitness even more accessible.

Plus, its ability to sync with HealthKit and support challenges makes it a fantastic tool for staying motivated with friends and family. The free version offers a wealth of features, though premium unlocks even more personalized insights and tracking. Argus is hands-down one of the most comprehensive free health and fitness apps available today.