Cronometer

cronometer.org · free + Gold

Lab-verified nutrition · since 2011

Count calories. Read every & nutrient.

Cronometer is the precision calorie tracker that goes 84 nutrients deep — vitamins, minerals, amino acids, fatty acids — sourced from a 1.1-million-food database with USDA-verified data and a free barcode scanner.

Get the app ↗ How it works

84 Nutrients tracked

1.1M Foods · USDA-verified

4.7★ 144K+ App Store reviews

7.5M+ Downloads worldwide

Three steps · zero math

Log a meal. Read your numbers. Adjust tomorrow.

Cronometer is designed around a simple loop — fast logging, deep insight, gradual change — built on the most-verified food database in consumer nutrition apps.

Log by barcode, photo, voice or search

Scan a barcode (free, no paywall), snap an AI Photo Log, ask Siri, or type. Exact weights are allowed — no preset portions forcing you to do extra math.

Method · Input

See 84 nutrients, not just calories

Each food unpacks into calories, macros, vitamins, minerals, amino acids and fatty acids. Targets are personalised — keto, vegan, athletic, clinical or DRI default.

Method · Analyse

III

Sync wearables and adjust

Cronometer reads Apple Health, Apple Watch, Fitbit, Oura, Garmin, Withings. Activity, weight, sleep, glucose and biometrics all roll into one report you actually read.

Method · Iterate

The thing no other app does as well

Eighty-four nutrients. Periodic-table precision.

Most calorie counters stop at protein, carbs, fat. Cronometer reads every macronutrient and micronutrient that nutrition science currently quantifies — and shows you where you are short, before a deficiency becomes a problem.

Vit A

μg

B₁

Thiamine

B₂

Riboflavin

B₃

Niacin

B₅

Pantothenic

B₆

Pyridoxine

B₉

Folate

μg

B₁₂

Cobalamin

μg

Asc. acid

Vit D

α-Tocoph.

Vit K

μg

Calcium

Iron

Magnesium

Phosph.

K⁺

Potassium

Sodium

Zinc

Copper

Manganese

Selenium

μg

Ω₃

Omega-3

Ω₆

Omega-6

Trp

Tryptophan

Lys

Lysine

Leu

Leucine

+57

all

This is why registered dietitians, endurance athletes and clinical users pick Cronometer over more popular alternatives — the precision is real, and the database that drives it is sourced from USDA SR Legacy and the NCCDB, not crowd-sourced guesses.

Audiences · who actually uses it

Built for people who want answers, not vibes.

Endurance athletes

Iron, sodium, carb periodisation — log a 4-hour ride and see exactly what to replenish, down to the milligram.

Keto · carnivore · vegan

Custom macro splits and full micronutrient tracking — catch B12, iron or calcium gaps before they show up in bloodwork.

Clinicians & RDs

The Pro/Practice tier is used by registered dietitians for client adequacy review and lab-grade nutrient summaries.

Biohackers & self-quantifiers

Sync Oura, Garmin, glucose monitors and weight scales. Correlate sleep and blood sugar with what you actually ate.

Features · the whole instrument panel

Everything the data tracker in you has been asking for.

Flagship · Free Tier

Barcode scanner — bundled in the free version

Unlike most calorie apps, Cronometer doesn't paywall the barcode reader. ~1.1M verified products are matched in under a second.

AI Photo Logging

Snap a plate, get a parsed log. Edit before saving.

∮

Voice

Siri & voice logs

"Hey Siri, log a banana." Done — hands-free in the kitchen.

∆

Sync

Wearables & Health Connect

Apple Health, Fitbit, Garmin, Oura, Withings, Health Connect.

∂

Recipes

Custom recipes & copy-paste meals

Build a recipe once, log it in two taps the next time.

Premium · Gold

Cronometer Gold — ad-free, custom charts, biometric tracking, recipe import, fasting timer

$10.99/mo or $59.99/year. Free version remains fully usable — Gold is a quality-of-life upgrade, not a feature wall.

Honest comparison · 2026

Cronometer is not the right app for everyone.

If you want a 30-second AI photo log and don't care about adequacy data, a newer AI-first app may suit you better. Here is where Cronometer wins and where it doesn't.

	Cronometer	MyFitnessPal	Cal AI	MacroFactor
Micronutrients tracked	84 (vit · mineral · amino · fatty)	~14	Macros only	~15
Database source	USDA · NCCDB · verified	User-submitted (large but variable)	AI estimation	Curated
Database size	~1.1M foods	20M+ entries	Smaller, AI-generated	Smaller, curated
Free barcode scanner	Yes	Paywalled (Premium)	Limited	Yes
AI photo log	Yes	Yes	Yes (flagship)	No
Wearable depth	Apple · Fitbit · Oura · Garmin · Withings	Apple · Fitbit · Garmin	Apple Health	Apple · Health Connect
Ads in free tier	Yes (can be aggressive)	Yes	No	No (paid only)
Learning curve	Steeper · data-dense	Simple	Very simple (photo)	Algorithm-led
Best for	Precision & adequacy	Casual logging	Quickest entry	Adaptive macros

Sources: App Store / Play Store listings, Cronometer official site, registered-dietitian app reviews (Fitia 2025-26, KCALM 2026), Cronometer Software Inc. company filings.

Real users · including the mixed reviews

What people actually say (the good and the rough).

★★★★★

"The barcode feature is a godsend and it has probably 95% of all the foods I eat already logged with full nutrition breakdowns. I feel guilty using this without paying — it's that good."

Marcus L.

App Store · long-time user

★★★★★

"The only app that really lets me look at micronutrients and easily toggle off and on what's tracked. We plot daily intake against recommended values, especially vitamins other apps don't check."

Jen R.

Play Store · RD in practice

★★★★☆

"Best calorie counter I've used — accurate, no preset portions, great for keto. Honest gripe: ads in the free tier got worse after the first week, and the app occasionally crashes when logging."

Sara T.

App Store · 4★ mixed review

Story · Cronometer Software Inc.

From a personal calorie spreadsheet to a clinical-grade app.

Cronometer started in 2005 as a personal project by Aaron Davidson, who wanted to track every nutrient — not just calories — while on a calorie-restricted diet. He released the original web tool free for anyone who wanted the same data depth, and a community of researchers, dietitians and self-quantifiers grew around it.

The mobile apps launched in 2011, and the company — Cronometer Software Inc., headquartered in Revelstoke, British Columbia — has been independent ever since. It is not VC-funded, not acquired, not pivoting. That stability is part of why clinicians trust it: the database curation method has been the same for over a decade, sourced from USDA SR Legacy, the NCCDB and verified manufacturer data.

Cronometer is also honest about its trade-offs. It is not the simplest app — the interface is data-dense, and new users sometimes find it overwhelming. The free tier shows ads, and several Play Store reviews from 2025-26 note they get more aggressive after the first week. The team has acknowledged this directly in developer responses on both stores.

What you get in return is the most-nutrient-aware calorie tracker on the consumer market — the one that flags an iron or B12 shortfall three weeks before bloodwork would. That is the trade: a little more friction at input, a lot more signal at output.

Answers · the common questions

What people ask before downloading.

Is Cronometer free, and what is paywalled?

Yes — Cronometer's free tier is genuinely usable, and uncommonly so. Barcode scanning, the full 84-nutrient analysis, macro targets, wearable sync and the food database are all included free. Cronometer Gold ($10.99/mo or $59.99/year) removes ads and unlocks recipe import, custom charts, fasting timer, deeper biometric tracking and ad-free use. Most users can run on the free tier indefinitely if they tolerate the ads.

How accurate is Cronometer's nutrition data compared with MyFitnessPal?

Cronometer pulls primarily from the USDA SR Legacy database and the NCCDB, plus verified manufacturer data, which makes its nutrition figures lab-grade for unprocessed foods and consistent for branded products. MyFitnessPal has a larger database (~20M entries) but a significant fraction is user-submitted and unverified — so the data you log into MFP is sometimes accurate to the gram, sometimes off by 30%. For micronutrient tracking specifically, Cronometer is materially more accurate.

Does Cronometer track micronutrients, not just calories and macros?

Yes — this is the app's defining feature. Cronometer tracks 84 nutrients including all the standard vitamins (A, B-complex, C, D, E, K), minerals (calcium, iron, magnesium, zinc, selenium and 10+ more), essential amino acids, and the major fatty acids including omega-3, omega-6 and trans fats. Every meal you log unpacks into the full nutrient profile, and you can set custom targets per nutrient.

Does the AI Photo Logging actually work, or is it gimmicky?

AI Photo Logging works well for simple, separated plates (a steak with broccoli, a bowl of cereal) and gets less reliable for mixed dishes (stews, casseroles, layered restaurant plates). It is a real time-saver but Cronometer treats it as an entry method that you confirm and edit, not as an authoritative log. Power users typically combine photo logs for snacks with barcode for packaged food and search for cooked recipes.

Does Cronometer integrate with Apple Health, Fitbit and Oura?

Yes. Cronometer syncs with Apple Health, Apple Watch, Health Connect on Android, Fitbit, Garmin, Oura Ring, Withings and several glucose monitors. Activity data flows in, your nutrient and calorie data can flow out to Apple Health/Health Connect, and biometric data (weight, body fat, sleep, glucose) lives next to your food log so you can spot correlations.

What are the honest downsides of Cronometer?

Three are worth knowing about before you download. (1) The free version shows ads, and Play Store reviews from 2025-26 consistently note they get more disruptive after the first week. (2) The interface is data-dense — it's not the kind of app you can fully understand in five minutes, especially compared with photo-first competitors. (3) Periodic crash and login issues have been reported, though support response time is good. None are dealbreakers for serious users, but if you want a calorie counter that is mostly invisible, Cronometer probably isn't it.

Is Cronometer good for keto, vegan or carnivore diets?

Particularly good. You can set custom macro splits (very high fat for keto, no animal products for vegan, near-zero carb for carnivore) and Cronometer flags micronutrient gaps that specific diets tend to produce — B12 and iron for vegans, sodium and potassium for keto, fibre and vitamin C for carnivore. This adequacy view is the main reason registered dietitians recommend it for restrictive diets.

Can I import or export my Cronometer data?

Yes. Cronometer Gold supports CSV export of all food, exercise and biometric data, recipe import (from URL or text), and PDF reports of weekly or monthly nutrient adequacy. The free tier supports basic CSV export. Practitioners on the Pro/Practice tier also get sharing tools with clients.

Where can I download Cronometer?

Cronometer is on the iOS App Store, Google Play, and there's also a full web app at cronometer.com that mirrors the mobile experience for desktop use. The download button on this page routes through our tracking link so we can see which channels are sending the most useful traffic.

Read every nutrient. Not just the easy ones.

Free version is fully functional — Gold is the quality-of-life upgrade. Either way you get all 84 nutrients.

Get the app ↗ Start tracking