Yes, entirely. There is no premium tier, no subscription, and no paywalled feature — barcode scanning, search, and the full diary are free for everyone, always.

Does Nibble require an account?

No. Nibble has no login, no sign-up, and no user database at all. Your diary is stored in your browser's local storage on your own device.

How is Nibble different from MyFitnessPal?

MyFitnessPal requires an account, shows ads on its free tier, and moved barcode scanning behind its paid Premium plan in 2024. Nibble requires no account, has no ads, and its barcode scanner is free. Nibble also has no cloud account database to breach, unlike MyFitnessPal's 2018 breach of about 150 million accounts. MyFitnessPal has a far larger, more mature feature set (recipes, coaching, community) that Nibble does not try to match.

Can I sync my Nibble diary between devices?

Not today, by design: Nibble keeps data local-only with no server-side account, which is what makes the privacy claim true. You can export your data as JSON from Settings and import it elsewhere, but there is no automatic cross-device sync.

A private MyFitnessPal alternative

Nibble is a free calorie and food diary that keeps every entry on your own device — no account, no ads, and no cloud database of users. It's a small, honest tradeoff against the bigger apps: less depth, more privacy.

Up front, honestly: Nibble is a young, single-purpose tool. It does food and exercise logging with MET-based burn estimates well, but it does not do recipe building, coaching, community feed, restaurant menus, or cross-device sync — the last one is a direct consequence of the privacy design, not an oversight. If you want a mature, full-featured tracker and don't mind an account, one of the apps below is the honest answer. If you want a fast, private, free way to log calories, read on.

Open Nibble Read the privacy policy

Where Nibble actually wins

No account, ever. Nibble has no login and no user database. MyFitnessPal, Cronometer, Lose It!, Lifesum, and Fitia all require creating an account.¹⁴⁵⁸⁹
No ads, on any tier, ever. There is only one tier. MyFitnessPal, Lose It!, Lifesum, and Fitia all show ads on their free plans; Cronometer's free tier includes personalizable in-app ads.²⁵⁴⁸⁹
Free barcode scanning. MyFitnessPal moved barcode scanning behind its paid Premium plan in 2024, and Lose It! did the same for new signups in 2026; Lifesum paywalls it outright. Nibble's scanner (built on the browser's native BarcodeDetector) is free for everyone.¹⁷⁸
Nothing to breach. Nibble stores no central database of users, so there is no account database that could ever be exposed. MyFitnessPal's 2018 breach exposed usernames, emails, and hashed passwords for an estimated 150 million accounts.³
Free forever, not "free with a paywall." Every competitor below gates real features (barcode scanning, ad removal, deeper nutrient tracking, custom recipes, coaching) behind a paid tier (roughly $13–20/mo range). Nibble has no paid tier.¹⁴⁵⁸⁹

Honest comparison

Feature	Nibble	MyFitnessPal	YAZIO	Cronometer	Lose It!	Lifesum	Fitia	MyNetDiary
Account required	None	Yes	Optional (basic use); account to sync/back up⁶	Yes (free tier too)⁴	Yes	Yes⁸	Yes (account/profile setup before logging)⁹	Optional (none for basic logging; account to sync)¹⁰
Price	Free, one tier	Free (ads) / Premium $19.99/mo/$79.99/yr / Premium+ $24.99/mo/$99.99/yr¹	Free (ads) / PRO $6.99/mo ($47.90/yr)⁶	Free (ads) / Gold $10.99/mo ($59.99/yr)⁴	Free (ads) / Premium $39.99/yr (~$3.33/mo)⁵⁷	Free (ads) / Premium ~$12.99/mo or $44.99–99.99/yr (regional/promo pricing varies)⁸	Free (ads) / Premium $19.99/mo or $59.99/yr; Family $89.99/yr (2–6 users)⁹	Free (no ads) / Premium $8.99/mo ($59.99/yr) / Premium Plus $14.99/mo¹⁰
Ads on free tier	No ads at all	Yes²	Yes (PRO removes ads)⁶	In-app ads (personalizable)⁴	Yes⁵	Yes, plus frequent upgrade prompts⁸	Yes⁹	No ads¹⁰
Where your diary lives	Your device only (local storage)	Cloud account (breached 2018, ~150M accounts)³	Device by default; YAZIO cloud once you sign in to sync⁶	Cloud account (states it doesn't sell data)⁴	Cloud account	Cloud account⁸	Cloud account⁹	Device by default; MyNetDiary cloud once you make an account¹⁰
Barcode scanning	Free	Premium only (since 2024)¹	PRO only⁶	Free (Basic tier)⁴	Premium only for new signups (since 2026)⁷	Premium only⁸	Free⁹	Free¹⁰
Food database	Open Food Facts (crowd-sourced, open)	Mostly user-submitted (duplicate/inconsistent entries)⁴	Large in-house + user database (strong EU/branded coverage)⁶	Curated (NCCDB/USDA/manufacturer-verified), 30/30 accurate in a cited test⁴	Large user-submitted database (~47M items)⁵	In-house database (not independently benchmarked)	In-house verified database (not independently benchmarked)⁹	Staff-verified, 2M+ foods, up to 108 nutrients¹⁰
Cross-device sync	No (export/import JSON only — by design)	Yes	Yes (with account)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes (with account)
Coaching / social features	None	Yes	Recipes, meal plans, intermittent fasting (PRO)⁶	Limited	Yes (friends, challenges)⁵	Diet plans, recipes (Premium)⁸	AI coach, meal plans, recipes (Premium)⁹	AI coach, meal suggestions, diet plans (Premium/Premium Plus)¹⁰

Comparison compiled 2026-07-04 (MyNetDiary column added 2026-07-05) from the sources listed below. Competitor pricing and features change; check the linked pages for the current details, and let us know if anything here has gone stale so we can correct it.

Who it's not for (yet)

If you want deep micronutrient tracking (Cronometer's 84+ tracked nutrients, or MyNetDiary's up-to-108), a coach-facing plan, a large social/community layer, or automatic sync across your phone and laptop, one of the apps above is the honest answer today. Nibble's local-only design is a deliberate privacy tradeoff, not a missing feature we forgot to build — cross-device sync would require a server that stores your diary, which is exactly what Nibble is built to avoid.

One fair note: not every app here is a paywall story. MyNetDiary, like Cronometer and FatSecret, has a genuinely ad-free free tier with free barcode scanning and no forced account for basic logging — it even beats Nibble on database depth. Against those apps the honest Nibble edge isn't "we're free and they aren't," it's narrower and specific: Nibble keeps everything on your device with no cloud account of any kind, runs in any browser with nothing to install, and has exactly one tier with nothing ever held back for a paid upgrade.¹⁰

Get it

Nibble runs in your browser — there's nothing to install and nothing to sign up for. Open Nibble and start logging. It's a free, open experiment; if it saves you time, you can support it on Ko-fi. Comparing more trackers? See our FatSecret alternative, Noom alternative, Cronometer alternative, MacroFactor alternative, Vora alternative, Foodnoms alternative, Cal AI alternative and Foodvisor alternative write-ups too.

Sources

MyFitnessPal 2026 pricing (Free with ads; Premium $19.99/mo or $79.99/yr; Premium+ $24.99/mo or $99.99/yr; barcode scanner moved behind Premium in 2024) — nutriscan.app, fitbudd.com, accessed 2026-07-04.
MyFitnessPal's Premium "Ad-Free" feature (confirming the free tier carries third-party ads) — official support article, support.myfitnesspal.com, accessed 2026-07-04.
MyFitnessPal's 2018 data breach, affecting an estimated 150 million accounts (usernames, email addresses, hashed passwords) — official notice, content.myfitnesspal.com, cnbc.com, accessed 2026-07-04.
Cronometer Gold pricing ($10.99/mo or $59.99/yr) — cronometer.com/gold; database-accuracy test (Cronometer 30/30 vs MyFitnessPal 11/30 within 5% of USDA reference values), and MyFitnessPal's mostly user-submitted database — promealplan.com; Cronometer's free "Basic" tier features and account requirement — cronometer.com/blog; Cronometer's privacy stance ("we do not license, rent, or sell personal information to advertisers or data brokers") and in-app ad personalization controls — cronometer.com/privacy, support.cronometer.com, accessed 2026-07-04.
Lose It! 2026 pricing (Free with ads; Premium $19.99/mo or $39.99/yr; Lifetime $299.99), free-tier ads, account requirement, and social features (friends, challenges) — nutriscan.app, accessed 2026-07-04.
YAZIO 2026 pricing (free tier with ads; PRO $6.99/mo or $47.90/yr — about $3.99/mo on the annual plan, 7-day trial), the features locked behind PRO (barcode scanning, intermittent fasting, recipes, AI photo logging) and that PRO removes ads, and that basic tracking works with no signup while syncing/back-up needs an account — nutriscan.app, yazio.com, accessed 2026-07-04.
Lose It! moved its barcode scanner ("Scan It") behind the Premium tier for new signups in 2026 (long-time free accounts may retain it, but the default for new users is paywalled); free tier keeps unlimited logging, macro tracking, and the food database; Premium is $39.99/yr (~$3.33/mo) — amyfoodjournal.com, nutriscan.app, accessed 2026-07-04.
Lifesum 2026: account required to use; free tier carries ads and frequent upgrade prompts, and paywalls barcode scanning and macro breakdowns behind Premium; Premium pricing varies by region/promo, roughly $12.99/mo or $44.99–$99.99/yr — nutrola.app, subger.com, accessed 2026-07-04.
Fitia 2026: requires account/profile setup before logging; free tier includes ads but keeps barcode scanning and text logging free; Premium (AI coach, meal planning, recipes, ad removal) is $19.99/mo or $59.99/yr, Family plan $89.99/yr for 2–6 users — fitia.app, mobileappdaily.com, accessed 2026-07-04.
MyNetDiary 2026: free tier is ad-free with a free barcode scanner, voice logging, and up to 108 nutrients per food from a staff-verified 2M+ food database; basic logging needs no account (an account is used to sync across devices via MyNetDiary's cloud, and a web app exists alongside the iOS/Android apps). Premium is $8.99/mo or $59.99/yr; Premium Plus is $14.99/mo and adds AI Coach, AI meal suggestions, AI restaurant-menu scan, and AI voice logging — nutriscan.app, mynetdiary.com, accessed 2026-07-05.