Which is more accurate, MyFitnessPal or Cronometer?

Cronometer, clearly, on the data. It sources from USDA and NCCDB laboratory analyses and marks which entries are verified versus user-submitted. MyFitnessPal's database is larger because it accepts crowd-sourced entries at scale, which is also why two entries for the same food routinely disagree by 30 percent.

Is Cronometer's free version better than MyFitnessPal's?

Yes. Cronometer's free tier includes full macro and micronutrient logging with no paywall on the fundamentals. MyFitnessPal has progressively moved core features, including barcode scanning, behind Premium.

Which has the better barcode scanner?

MyFitnessPal, on coverage — it is the largest packaged-food barcode database in consumer tracking. Cronometer's scanner works and hits fewer items, particularly outside North America. This is the strongest single argument for MyFitnessPal.

Do either of them set an accurate calorie target?

Neither. Both predict maintenance from height, weight, age and a stated activity level, which carries roughly plus or minus 200 to 300 kcal per day of individual error and cannot respond to a training load that changes weekly. Accurate food data feeding a predicted target still leaves you with a wrong target.

Should I track micronutrients at all?

It matters if you have a restricted diet, a diagnosed deficiency, or high training volume with a narrow food rotation. Otherwise the accuracy required — weighing everything, choosing verified entries — usually exceeds the value of the answer. A short list of the nutrients athletes actually run short on covers most of it.

MyFitnessPal vs Cronometer: Size vs Accuracy

The real difference

Cronometer marks its sources. Entries from USDA and NCCDB laboratory analysis are distinguished from manufacturer-supplied and user-submitted ones. You can filter to verified data only.

MyFitnessPal does not. Its database is enormous because it accepts crowd-sourced entries at scale, and there is no visible difference between a lab-analysed chicken breast and one somebody typed in wrong three years ago. Search any common food and you will find five entries disagreeing by 30 percent.

For calorie counting, that noise partly averages out. For micronutrients it does not — a magnesium figure from an unverified entry is not a number, it is a guess wearing a decimal point.

Where MyFitnessPal genuinely wins

Barcode coverage. The largest packaged-food barcode database available, and the gap is real, especially outside North America. If your diet is heavily packaged, this is the strongest argument for it and it is not a small one.

Restaurant and branded entries. Chains, regional brands, prepared foods. Cronometer's coverage thins out here.

Recipe import and community features. More mature.

Familiarity. Most people's food history is already in it, and export-import between the two is imperfect.

Where Cronometer genuinely wins

Eighty-plus nutrients per food, tracked properly, with targets and honest gaps. Nothing else in consumer tracking is close.

The free tier. Full macro and micro logging, no paywall on fundamentals. MyFitnessPal has moved core features — barcode scanning among them — behind Premium.

Data honesty. When a food has no value coded for a nutrient, Cronometer shows the gap rather than treating it as zero. That distinction sounds pedantic and it is the difference between "you are short on iron" and "you have not logged enough iron-containing foods with iron data".

Fasting and biometric tracking, included.

The comparison

	MyFitnessPal	Cronometer
Database size	Largest	Medium
Verified vs user-submitted	Not distinguished	Explicit
Micronutrients	Yes, incomplete	80+, sourced
Missing data shown as	Often zero	An honest gap
Barcode coverage	Best	Adequate, weaker outside NA
Restaurant entries	Best	Thinner
Free tier	Limited, shrinking	Strong
Calorie target method	Predicted	Predicted
Adds exercise calories back	Yes	Yes
Recipe tools	Mature	Good

Both predict your calorie target rather than measuring it.

Height, weight, age, sex, an activity level chosen from a dropdown, a population formula. Individual maintenance sits roughly 200 to 300 kcal a day either side of that output, and the dropdown cannot represent a training week that changes. The arithmetic on why that fails.

Then both add estimated exercise calories back, which is the least reliable number either app produces. Phone and machine estimates routinely overstate energy cost by 20 to 30 percent, and eating that back is the most common reason a carefully built deficit produces nothing. What running actually costs.

So you can log food perfectly in either app and still be aiming at the wrong number. Precision on the input does not rescue an error in the target — it is the classic case of measuring one side of an equation carefully while guessing the other.

The alternative method is to derive maintenance from your own trend weight against your own logged intake. No formula, no dropdown, no exercise calories added back. Both MacroFactor and Base do this; neither app on this page does. Where that comparison lands.

Which to pick

Cronometer if you have a specific nutrient question, want data you can defend, or want the better free tier. It is the better product for most serious users.

MyFitnessPal if barcode coverage is your daily friction, your diet is heavily packaged or regional, or your history is already there and switching costs more than the accuracy gain.

Either, plus your own arithmetic on the target. Whichever you use, treat the calorie goal as a starting guess and adjust it from your own trend weight over two or three weeks. Run that calculation here.

Neither, if the reason your target keeps drifting is that your training volume moves. A food app cannot see the training, so it cannot tell you that this week is different from last week. That is a category boundary, not a missing feature. What both halves on one ledger looks like.

If you train seriously, two follow-ons matter more than nutrient breadth: your carbohydrate needs for the sessions you are actually doing, and what goes short at high training volume.