Awards › How we judge
Method
How we judge
The awards compare eleven food tracking apps on the same eight criteria, using what each company documents about its own product. This page sets out the field, the criteria and their weights, what each mark means, how winners are chosen and how the results are kept current.
The field
The 2027 field is eleven established food tracking apps available on the App Store and Google Play in the United States: PlateLens, Cronometer, MyFitnessPal, Lose It!, FatSecret, YAZIO, MacroFactor, Carb Manager, MyNetDiary, Lifesum and Noom. It runs from long-running diaries to newer specialists and one behaviour-change program, so that most of the choices a reader is likely to be weighing are judged side by side. The field is reviewed before each edition.
The evidence
Every mark rests on what the company itself publishes about its product:
- the company's own website, feature pages and pricing pages;
- its help, support and FAQ pages;
- its App Store and Google Play listings, including privacy labels;
- its terms and privacy policy where they describe data handling.
Where a figure appears, such as a database size or a nutrient count, it is the company's own and is attributed to it. We do not run laboratory tests and we do not publish measurements we did not make. Where a company's pages do not state something, the mark is Not confirmed, and in tables a dash means the same thing. Not confirmed is not the same as "no": it means the company does not document it where we looked.
Prices are shown in US dollars as each company publishes them, with the date they were checked where we have one. Several apps price by country or by plan length; for those we point you to the store listing instead of quoting a figure that may not apply where you live.
The eight criteria
| Criterion | What we look at | Weight (overall award) |
|---|---|---|
| Ways to log | How many fast, reliable ways in: photo, voice, barcode, typed search, saved meals and recipes. | 20% |
| Food data | Whether entries are verified or crowd-sourced, and how well the catalogue covers branded, restaurant and home foods. | 20% |
| Free plan | What you can do without paying, and whether the free plan expires. | 15% |
| Paid plan value | What the paid tier costs per year and what it adds. | 10% |
| Nutrient depth | How many nutrients each entry carries beyond calories and macros. | 10% |
| Goal tools | Targets, adaptive adjustments, fasting, meal planning and coaching. | 10% |
| Platforms | Phone, web and watch, and whether they share one diary. | 5% |
| Data control | Export, health-platform sync, deletion and privacy controls. | 10% |
Ways to log and food data carry the most weight because they decide whether a diary survives an ordinary busy week: the meal that is slow to log is the meal that gets skipped, and the entry you cannot trust is the one that makes the totals meaningless.
What the marks mean
| Criterion | Strong | Good | Basic |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ways to log | Photo, voice, barcode, typed search and saved meals all in one diary, with the fast methods available on the everyday plan | Three or more methods, with some of them on the paid tier | Typed search and barcode only |
| Food data | A verified or lab-analysed catalogue covering generic, branded and restaurant foods | A large or regionally strong catalogue, with limited verification | A small catalogue, or one with no documented source |
| Free plan | Never expires, needs no card, and includes barcode logging and a fast way to log mixed meals | Never expires and covers the everyday diary, with no core tool documented as paid | A limited diary, everyday tools such as barcode scanning on the paid tier, or the features the app is chosen for kept on the paid tier |
| Paid plan value | Under $40 a year, on top of a free plan that already covers the daily routine | $40 to $60 a year, or under $40 with key tools still paid | Over $60 a year |
| Nutrient depth | 80 or more nutrients per entry | Macros, fiber and sugar plus a documented set of vitamins and minerals | Calories and macros, with few micronutrients documented |
| Goal tools | Targets that adapt to your progress, plus coaching or planning tools | Clear targets plus one or two tools, such as plans, fasting, challenges or coaching | Fixed targets only |
| Platforms | Phone, web and watch, all sharing one diary | Phone and web | Phone apps only, or a web version we could not confirm |
| Data control | Full export at any time, two-way health-platform sync and documented deletion | Health-platform or device sync documented | Limited controls documented |
Two further marks apply to every criterion: Not offered, when the company says the product does not do it (for example, an app with a trial but no free plan), and Not confirmed, when the company's pages do not say.
How the standings are calculated
For the overall standings and the Food Tracking App of the Year, marks are converted to points (Strong 3, Good 2, Basic 1, Not offered and Not confirmed 0), multiplied by each criterion's weight and added up. The standings follow those totals. Ties are broken by the free-plan mark, because a free plan is where most people start.
A feature we cannot confirm scores nothing until the company documents it. That is deliberate: it rewards apps that say clearly what they do, and it means an app can move up the standings simply by publishing better documentation.
How category winners are chosen
Each category award names the criteria that decide it, shown on its page. The winner is the app that best serves that specific need, which is why specialists win categories while placing lower overall: Cronometer for micronutrients, MacroFactor for macro coaching, MyFitnessPal for restaurant and packaged coverage, Lose It! for beginners. A shortlist of up to four apps is published with every award, with their marks on the deciding criteria.
Two apps are commended without winning a category: an app is commended when it does one job notably well that no category covers.
How the awards stay current
- Monthly checks. Every finalist's pricing and feature pages are checked each month. A change that affects a mark, a price or a result is made on the site and recorded in the review log with the date.
- Mid-year changes. If an app changes enough to move in the standings, the standings change. Award results are revisited if a winner drops a feature the award depended on.
- Each edition. The field, the categories and the weights are reviewed before each new edition is announced.
- Corrections. Factual errors are fixed and listed on the corrections page.
Review by a registered dietitian
Every page on the site, from the awards and scorecards to the guides and this method, is reviewed before publication by Josh Robertson, RD, a registered dietitian. The review covers nutrition and health statements, the criteria and how they are applied, and the advice on who each app suits.
What the awards are not
They are not medical advice, and they are not a measurement of how accurately any app estimates the calories in a meal; we do not make that measurement. They are a structured comparison of what each app offers, how it is priced and how it handles your data, so you can choose quickly and with fewer surprises.
Advertising and links
The site carries no advertising and no affiliate links. Product names link to each company's own homepage. Our wider editorial rules are set out in the editorial standards.