Comparison September 2026 · 6 min read

Updated September 2026. Prices are standard App Store prices and vary by region; Yazio prices in particular differ widely between the US and EU stores.

What Yazio is good at

Yazio is made by YAZIO GmbH in Erfurt, Germany — bootstrapped, 50 million downloads, 4.7 on Trustpilot. Three things make it stand out:

1. The European database. For German, Austrian, Swiss, Italian and French supermarket products, Yazio's barcode and search coverage is the best in the category. If you buy from Rewe, Lidl, Coop or Esselunga, it knows the product.
2. Intermittent fasting. A built-in fasting timer with guided programmes, in the same app as the food log. Nobody else does this as well.
3. Recipes. 2,000+ recipes with full nutrition, plus a recipe builder for repeat home meals.

The design is clean and the free tier is honest: basic calorie tracking, manual entry, water and weight logging with no time limit.

What Yazio is not

Yazio is not an AI app. Photo recognition was added and is Pro-only; independent reviewers consistently describe it as a search shortcut rather than real recognition, with errors around ±20% in testing. There is no voice input. There is no coaching layer — the app shows your numbers, and what you do with them is your business. Barcode scanning is also behind the Pro paywall, which surprises people who assume it is basic.

The comparison

Logging a meal

Yazio: search the name, pick the entry, choose a portion, confirm. For a barcode (Pro), scan and confirm. For a photo (Pro), take the picture and expect to correct it. The loop is tap, scan, log, and it lives or dies on whether the database has what you ate. For a Bratwurst from Lidl it does. For a plate of home-made curry it mostly does not.

CalMePlease: photo, video, voice or barcode. Say "two eggs, avocado toast" or point the camera at the curry; the AI names the components and fills in grams. No searching. All four inputs are on the free tier.

If most of your food has a barcode from a European supermarket, Yazio's database is a real advantage. If most of your food is on a plate, CalMePlease's recognition is faster and does not depend on a database entry existing.

What each app tracks

Yazio tracks around 28 nutrients — the macros plus a set of vitamins and minerals, which is more than most mainstream trackers. The data comes from the database entry you picked, so it is only as good as that entry.

CalMePlease tracks ten metrics per meal, with a specific emphasis: fiber, sugar, salt and water are first-class, tracked automatically on every meal, and shown against a daily limit. These are the numbers that explain the afternoon crash, the constant snacking and the morning puffiness — and the ones almost nobody tracks in a database app because it takes extra effort. Activity comes from Apple Health, and everything rolls into a single AI Score for the day.

Micronutrient nerds will prefer Yazio's breadth. People who want to understand how they feel will get more from CalMePlease's ten.

Coaching

Yazio has none. It has meal plans (Pro) and a fasting timer, which are structure, not advice.

CalMePlease's AI coach reads your day as you log it. Low protein by lunch — it tells you what to add at dinner. Sugar past the limit — it names where it came from. A long walk logged — the plan updates. It answers between meals rather than reporting at the end of the week, and you choose how it talks to you.

Price

Yazio Pro is one of the cheaper paid tiers among the big trackers: around €29.99 a year in the EU store, $39.99–$47.90 in the US, with promotions dropping it further. Monthly is about $6.99. The catch is that barcode and photo — features most people consider basic — are inside Pro, so the free tier is thinner than it looks.

CalMePlease starts at $2.99 a month, and photo, video, voice and barcode logging are all on the free tier.

Privacy

Yazio is a standard cloud-account app: your log lives on their servers. CalMePlease keeps meal history, weight and statistics on your device, builds weekly and monthly views locally, and does not sell or share data. For users in Germany and the rest of the EU this tends to matter more than in the US, and it is worth reading each app's App Store privacy label.

Who should choose which

Choose Yazio if:

• You practise intermittent fasting and want the timer and the food log in one place.
• You eat mostly packaged food from European supermarkets.
• You want a recipe library and meal plans.
• You are on Android or want a web app.

Choose CalMePlease if:

• You have stopped tracking because searching a database is a chore.
• You cook, eat out at independent places, or eat outside the EU where Yazio's database thins out.
• You want fiber, sugar, salt and water tracked without manual effort.
• You want a coach that tells you what to change, not just a chart.
• You want voice logging in German, French, Spanish, Italian, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Russian or English.

FAQ

Is CalMePlease a Yazio alternative? Yes for calorie and macro tracking, with better logging speed and an AI coach. No for intermittent fasting or recipes — CalMePlease does not offer those.

Does Yazio have AI photo logging? Yes, in Pro, but it is limited. Reviewers rate its accuracy around ±20% and describe it as a search shortcut.

Does Yazio have voice input? No.

Which is cheaper? CalMePlease monthly ($2.99) is cheaper than Yazio monthly (~$6.99). On annual plans Yazio Pro with a promotion can be competitive; check the current price in your regional store.

Can I use both? Some people do: Yazio for the fasting timer, CalMePlease for logging and coaching. It is not ideal, but nothing prevents it.

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CalMePlease is free on the App Store. Download it here — your first meal takes about three seconds.