Lose It! is a fine little tracker. Cheap, friendly, easy to start. People usually go looking for something else for one of three reasons: the database is crowd-sourced and messy, micronutrients barely register, or the price has crept up while the good features sit behind the paywall. Each of those has a better answer. Our pick is Joules, for fast photo logging and a daily health score with no ads. Cronometer is the accuracy upgrade, MyFitnessPal has the database no one else matches, MacroFactor coaches your targets week to week, YAZIO adds fasting, and FatSecret is the strongest free option. Six apps, one of them probably fixes the exact thing that annoyed you. Let us match them up.
Why people leave Lose It!
Credit first: Lose It! is easy to start and cheap to keep, with Premium at $39.99 a year and gentle gamification that genuinely helps beginners stay consistent. The reasons people move on are specific. Its database leans on user-submitted entries, so the same food can appear with different numbers. Micronutrient detail is shallow. And Snap It photo logging plus the fasting timer sit behind the paywall. If those are your sticking points, the alternatives below target them directly. For the full picture, see our Lose It! review.
All six alternatives at a glance
| App | Best for | Standout | Ads |
|---|---|---|---|
| Joules (our pick) | Fast photo logging | Daily health score, macro rings | None |
| Cronometer | Verified data and micronutrients | 80+ nutrients, free barcode | Gold removes |
| MyFitnessPal | Biggest food database | 20M+ entries | Free tier |
| MacroFactor | Adaptive macro coaching | Weekly target updates | None |
| YAZIO | Calories plus fasting | Fasting programs | PRO removes |
| FatSecret | Most complete free tier | Free barcode and recipes | Free tier |
Joules (our pick, and yes, our app)
Why choose it: straight up, we make Joules, so weigh that as you like. Here is why it tops the list anyway. When Lose It! lets people down, it is usually the crowd-sourced database or the photo logging locked behind Premium, and Joules answers both. You photograph the plate, the AI reads it, and you confirm or fix the estimate in a tap, about a second of work. Then you get one daily health score that explains itself, macro rings, an intermittent fasting timer, habit streaks, and Apple Health and Google Fit sync, on a calm screen with no ads.
Ideal for: people who liked how simple Lose It! was but wanted the logging faster and the numbers cleaner. What Joules will not do is out-database MyFitnessPal, and it is not trying to. See the download page, and the free calculators here work right now.
Cronometer
Why choose it: Cronometer answers the data-quality complaint head on. Its entries are lab-verified rather than crowd-sourced, so you stop seeing conflicting numbers for the same food, and it tracks more than 80 nutrients per item. Barcode scanning is free, and Gold, at about $50 a year, adds a fasting timer and custom reports.
Ideal for: anyone who left Lose It! over messy entries or wanted real micronutrient tracking. Full details in our Cronometer review.
MyFitnessPal
Why choose it: if Lose It! kept failing to find your food, MyFitnessPal has the largest database in the category, with more than 20 million claimed entries and strong restaurant coverage. Premium costs $19.99 a month or $79.99 a year, and barcode scanning has been a paid feature since October 2022.
Ideal for: people who eat out often or want the best odds any packaged food is already listed.
MacroFactor
Why choose it: Lose It! gives you a fixed calorie budget; MacroFactor recalculates yours every week from your weight trend and intake, so your targets adapt as results come in. It costs $11.99 a month or $71.99 a year, with a 7-day trial and no free tier.
Ideal for: lifters and anyone running a deliberate cut or bulk. See our MacroFactor review for the algorithm in detail.
YAZIO
Why choose it: YAZIO folds intermittent fasting into the tracker, so a 16:8 window and a calorie target share one screen. PRO runs about $48 a year. Note the free tier shows calories only, without the macro breakdown.
Ideal for: fasters who want one app for both jobs. More in our YAZIO review.
FatSecret
Why choose it: FatSecret gives away the most for free: barcode scanning, macro tracking, a large database, and a recipe builder, all without payment. A premium tier exists but is optional rather than where the core features live.
Ideal for: anyone whose main goal is to pay nothing while keeping the full logging workflow.
How to pick a replacement
- Want fast, ad-free logging with a daily score: Joules.
- Left over messy entries: Cronometer.
- Need the biggest database: MyFitnessPal.
- Want targets that adapt: MacroFactor.
- Fast and count calories: YAZIO.
- Want to pay nothing: FatSecret or Cronometer.
Before you commit, set your target once with the free calorie calculator so the number travels with you. For the wider field, see the best calorie tracking apps roundup and our MyFitnessPal alternatives page.