Head to head · verified September 2026
Cronometer vs Lose It!
Which one is better, where they differ, what each costs, and whether a third app beats both. Every answer below comes from feature and pricing data we checked in September 2026.
Which is better, Cronometer or Lose It!?
It depends on how you log. Cronometer is ahead on micronutrient tracking, intermittent fasting; Lose It! is ahead on meal planning.
Is Cronometer or Lose It! cheaper?
Cronometer, at $59.99 a year against $79.99. Both offer a free tier, though what survives on it differs.
What is the difference between Cronometer and Lose It!?
On the features we verified for both, micronutrient tracking (Cronometer has it, Lose It! does not); intermittent fasting (Cronometer has it, Lose It! does not); meal planning (Lose It! has it, Cronometer does not). Everything else on the list, they both do.
How do I get my food log out of Cronometer or Lose It!?
Both let you export to CSV, though some gate it behind their paid tier. What moves to another app is narrower than people expect: weight and workouts carry over through Apple Health or Health Connect, but the food diary does not. No tracker in this category can import another's, Nutrify included. You can still read your own export: our export viewer parses it in your browser, with nothing uploaded, and shows your logging consistency, macro split and most-logged foods.
Open the export viewerIs there a better alternative to Cronometer and Lose It!?
Depends what is missing for you. Nutrify logs six ways (photo, barcode, nutrition label, voice, text, or in the aisle) and keeps fasting, water, supplements and measurements on one timeline, for $34.99 a year on a single tier. It is also younger than both, with far fewer reviews behind it.
Try the third option free
The short version
Cronometer is the cheaper of the two at $59.99 a year against $79.99.
Where Cronometer wins
- Micronutrient tracking - Cronometer has it, Lose It! does not
- Intermittent fasting - Cronometer has it, Lose It! does not
Where Lose It! wins
- Meal planning - Lose It! has it, Cronometer does not
Feature by feature
Nutrify is in the third column because this is our site and it would be odd to pretend otherwise. Judge it on the same rows.
| Feature | Cronometer | Lose It! | Nutrify |
|---|---|---|---|
| AI photo logging | Gold only | Premium only | |
| Voice logging | Gold only | Premium only | |
| Barcode scanner | Not verified | ||
| Micronutrient tracking | 37, opt-in (BETA) | ||
| Intermittent fasting | |||
| Water tracking | |||
| Meal planning | |||
| Recipes | |||
| Exercise tracking | |||
| Progress analytics | |||
| Apple Health sync | |||
| No ads | |||
| Price per year | $59.99 | $79.99 | $34.99 |
A dash means we have not verified that cell for that app rather than that the feature is missing. Checked September 2026.
The pitch and the reports
What each one claims, and what people say after living with it.
Cronometer
What Cronometer says
- Research-grade data from USDA and NCC rather than crowd-sourced entries
- Up to 80-odd nutrients per entry, more than any mainstream tracker
- Built for people who want precision over speed
What users praise
- The database quality is the single most cited reason people stay
- Micronutrient depth nothing else in the category matches
- Barcode scanner is reliable and auto-fills label data
What users complain about
- Slow app startup and sync problems
- No offline mode
- Photo Log and Voice Log both require Gold
What independent research found
The same study that found poor validity in MyFitnessPal found good reliability and validity in Cronometer across every nutrient except fibre, vitamin A and vitamin D. Agreement between two people entering the same records reached 0.966 for energy and 0.977 for carbohydrates. It is one study on 43 Canadian endurance athletes, so it does not settle the question, but it is the closest thing to independent measurement this category has.
Morello et al., Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics, October 2025Our read
Cronometer tracks far more nutrients than we do, against better-sourced data. If micronutrient precision is why you track at all, it is the right tool. Where it struggles is speed. It is built for someone weighing an ingredient at home, not someone photographing a plate in a restaurant.
Vendor claims from their own marketing; user themes from store reviews and community discussion, weighted to 2025–2026. Verified September 2026.
Lose It!
What Lose It! says
- Simple, friendly calorie counting aimed at weight loss rather than nutrition science
- Snap It photo logging
- Challenges and a large social community
What users praise
- Easiest of the big trackers to get started with
- The challenge community keeps people logging
What users complain about
- Premium went from $39.99 to $79.99 a year in 2026 and the monthly plan was withdrawn, so there is no cheap way back in
- The free tier was thinned at the same time, with macros, photo logging and Apple Watch moving to Premium
- Banner ads on free
Where the pitch and the reports pull apart
Lose It built its reputation on being the approachable, affordable one. In 2026 it costs the same as MyFitnessPal and has no monthly option.
Our read
Its community is bigger and warmer than ours, which is a real reason to stay. At $79.99 a year with no monthly plan, though, the affordability argument that made Lose It popular no longer holds.
Vendor claims from their own marketing; user themes from store reviews and community discussion, weighted to 2025–2026. Verified September 2026.
What each is actually like
Cronometer
Track Your Nutrition with Scientific Precision
Strengths
- • Most comprehensive micronutrient tracking
- • Highly accurate, verified nutrition data
- • Excellent for specific diets (keto, paleo, vegan)
- • Detailed biometric tracking
Trade-offs
- • Photo Log and Voice Log require Gold
- • Steep learning curve
- • Interface feels technical/clinical
- • Manual entry required
Lose It!
Simple Calorie Counting for Weight Loss
Strengths
- • Snap It photo recognition (premium)
- • User-friendly interface
- • Reasonable premium pricing
- • Strong community features
Trade-offs
- • Photo recognition only in premium
- • Limited micronutrient tracking
- • Some features feel dated
- • Exercise tracking less comprehensive
Leaving either one
How do you actually get your data out?
The question that keeps people on an app they have stopped liking is what happens to their history. Short version: your weight and workouts move with you through Apple Health or Health Connect, your food diary does not, and no tracker in this category can import another's. Nutrify included. You can still read your own export, though, and that is worth doing either way.
Leaving Cronometer
Use servings.csv. The richest export in the category: one row per food you logged, with the amount, the meal group, and up to eighty-odd nutrient columns per entry. Almost all of our 37-nutrient catalog maps straight across.
Leaving Lose It!
Lose It! gates export behind its paid tier. Use The food log CSV. Export is a Premium feature, and the exact columns have changed between versions. If the viewer flags unmapped columns, that list tells us what Lose It renamed. It still reads everything it recognises.
The export viewer runs entirely in your browser. Nothing is uploaded and no account is needed. It shows your logging consistency, macro split, weekday-versus-weekend pattern and most-logged foods, which is more than either app shows you about your own data.
A third option
If neither one is quite it
Nutrify logs a meal six ways (photo, barcode, nutrition label, voice, text, or Shop Mode in the aisle) and keeps fasting, water, supplements, a photo journal and body measurements on the same timeline. One subscription at $34.99 a year covers all of it, with nothing gated feature by feature. It is newer than both of these and has far fewer reviews, which is the honest trade.