Kidney Pal: Renal Diet Tracker appears to be a legitimate app. The AppsHunter Legitimacy Score for Kidney Pal is 90 out of 100 points across 7 verification signals from App Store and developer data.

Kidney Pal User Reviews

Name: Kidney Pal: Renal Diet Tracker
Rating: 4.55704 (1271 reviews)

Kidney Pal: Renal Diet Tracker

Prestige Worldwide Apps LLC

💪 Health & Fitness

🏥 Medical

Customer Experience

Positive experience47.8% of reviews

Neutral15.2% of reviews

Negative experience37.0% of reviews

~ Based on 46 written reviews from the US App Store.

Is Kidney Pal Safe?

Kidney Pal: Renal Diet Tracker appears safe based on user ratings. AppsHunter Safety Score for Kidney Pal is 91/100.

This assessment is based on 1,271 user ratings, with an App Store average of 4.6/5.

Safety Analysis

88.8% of ratings point to a safe experience

6.0% of ratings suggest some concerns

5.2% of ratings point to a risky experience

~ Based on 1,271 App Store ratings for Kidney Pal.

Is Kidney Pal Legit?

Kidney Pal: Renal Diet Tracker appears to be a legitimate app. AppsHunter Legitimacy Score for Kidney Pal is 90/100.

Based on 90 of 100 points across 7 verification signals from App Store and developer data.

Top reviews

Most Recent Highest Rated Lowest Rated

Way too inaccurate

The ap consistently misidentifies food. It will recognize pineapple as a fish filet. Rainbow trout as a pork chop. Cauliflower as Mac and cheese. It consistently overestimates salt and other problems in home cooked food and seems to have no way of correcting the misconceptions. Someone with CKD is trying to manage those, constantly checking labels, choosing alternatives to minimize sodium, phosphates etc, but the ap does not consider this. I thought at least it might help with eating out, but the ap only works with a live internet connection unavailable in restaurants. You cannot even take a photo to be analyzed when you get home. This is so inaccurate I do not want to use it. And they charge you a fee to use it.

Balisinger

5 days ago

Needs one more thing

I'm grateful for this app, because my dyscalculian brain shuts down just looking at the sort of complicated calculations to find out if a food is safe or not. I appreciate the nutrient breakdown, the green/yellow/ red system to denote whether the food is kidney-friendly or something to avoid. I also like that if you've eaten something high in potassium, for example, you get the tip "next time, switch the banana for an apple", etc.

Can't help but wonder, though--why aren't calories included? I hate having to pay for yet another subscription or go back and forth finding the calories on google. I mean, would it be that much more trouble to include calories in the breakdown? This would be especially helpful for diebetics.

Trixterchick

7 days ago

Fast food options

Noticed some Taco Bell foods are kidney safe vs others! Would like to see safer fast food alternatives for specific fast food restaurants. I am a nephrology nurse practitioner. Significant portion of the population I deal with rely on fast food occasionally due to cost/energy constraints

sofisksksks

18 days ago

Response from developer

Thank you — hearing this from a nephrology NP means a lot. Great news: fast food already works well with the photo scan and the "Say or Type" quick log (e.g. type "Taco Bell bean burrito" and it scores it against the user's kidney profile). Even better: we're currently testing a menu-scanning mode — photograph a restaurant menu or menu board and get a ranked list of the kidney-safest options for that person's stage. Your point about cost/energy constraints is exactly who we're building it for. We'd genuinely value clinician input — please reach out at support@kidneypal.app

Frustrated

I just downloaded this app 3 days ago. It seems very useful and enjoyed the 3 days of usage. I keep getting a message to try PRO for free for “x” number of days. I am trying to enter food for lunch but I’m stuck in a loop. I do not want to try PRO for free. Maybe I’m doing something wrong but you should be able to decline trying PRO for free. I have since deleted the app.

Joeber3

21 days ago

Response from developer

We're sorry that experience isn't what we intended, and your feedback is helping us fix it. To explain what happened: the free plan includes 5 AI food analyses per day (they reset at midnight). Once they're used up, the photo/describe buttons show the upgrade screen — but you never have to accept the trial. You can close it with the X, and you can always log food for free using Manual entry, Saved foods, or Recipes from the + button. We agree the app should say this clearly instead of just showing the upgrade screen, and we're improving that in an upcoming update. We'd love for you to give it another try — support@kidneypal.app if we can help

Make serving sizes adjustable on recipes?

Computers and apps can do anything they are programmed to do. Why haven’t you programmed your app to allow users to select number of servings on your recipes so that the app will automatically adjust amounts for each ingredient? Many recipe apps provide this.

I am only one person. Right now I have to get out my calculator and split ingredients to make one serving. Or figure out what to do with a second (or third and fourth) serving of the recipe, some of which don’t reheat well. I really don’t want to eat 4 servings of something.

RaEmhetep

21 days ago

Response from developer

Thank you for the thoughtful suggestion! You're right — today the "Servings to Eat" adjuster on a recipe scales the nutrition numbers, but the ingredient list stays fixed at the full-recipe amounts. Automatically scaling ingredient quantities (so a 4-serving recipe shows amounts for 1) is a great idea and it's now on our roadmap — the way we store recipes makes this very doable. Keep an eye on upcoming updates, and if you have more ideas we'd love to hear them at support@kidneypal.app

78 yr old. CKD stage 4

If I had had this app five years ago, I probably would not have chronic kidney disease. Fantastic app.. helps clean your nails and keep you in guidelines to. slow down kitty disease and hopefully improve your lab numbers. I highly recommend this app..

MAGA One for Trump

25 days ago

Response from developer

Thank you so much for the kind words — reviews like yours are exactly why we built KidneyPal. We're glad it's helping you stay within your guidelines, and we hope your next labs show it. Wishing you the very best with your health, and if you ever need anything, we're at support@kidneypal.app

Works Well

I bought this app and have been using it. It had some minor issues but the developer responded right away and fixed them. How nice is that. I highly recommend this app. 5 stars.

20932120123

a month ago

Response from developer

Thank you for updating your review and for the detailed feedback! You were right about that streak alert — it was a real bug where the 8:30 PM reminder fired even on days you'd already logged. The version you're on now (4.21) fixes it: logging anything silences that day's reminder automatically, so it's safe to turn notifications back on. If it ever misfires again, email us at support@kidneypal.app and we'll jump on it. And your suggestions are good ones — categories for saved foods and showing the quantity field above the nutrient labels are both on our list. Thanks for helping make KidneyPal better!

don't believe everything you see

I really wanted to like this app because there are very few tools specifically designed for people with chronic kidney disease, and I appreciated the focus on phosphorus, potassium, sodium, and protein.

To evaluate the app, I intentionally created a hypothetical day built around foods that are generally considered kidney-conscious choices, including scallops, rice, asparagus, green leaf salad, fruit, cream of wheat, and small amounts of cheese.

The results were discouraging and didn’t seem practical. The app reported that I was already over or very close to my phosphorus limit while simultaneously showing that I was nowhere near my protein goal. In my case, I was still less than halfway to the protein target despite using most of my phosphorus budget.

That left me with a basic question the app could not answer: How am I supposed to reach the recommended protein goal without exceeding the phosphorus goal?

I also found another review reporting that the kidney burden scoring had become overly aggressive. The developer responded and acknowledged that a recent update had made the scoring algorithm too strict. Based on my experience, the issue may still not be fully resolved.

The nutrient tracking may still be useful, but the overall scoring and recommendations did not feel realistic for someone actually trying to build a sustainable kidney-friendly diet. Instead of helping me make better food choices, the app left me feeling that almost every reasonable meal was a problem.

The concept is excellent, but the recommendations need to be more practical and transparent, especially when balancing phosphorus restrictions against protein requirements.

chasingveronica

a month ago

Response from developer

Thank you for such a thoughtful review — you've hit on the hardest real tension in renal nutrition, and you deserve a real answer. The squeeze you describe isn't a calculation error: nearly all protein foods carry phosphorus, and some "kidney-conscious" picks are deceptively costly — scallops run ~15mg of phosphorus per gram of protein (plus high natural sodium), and cheese ~20+. Renal dietitians resolve this with the phosphorus-to-protein ratio: egg whites (~1.5), chicken breast or cod (~6), and turkey (~7) reach your protein goal with roughly half the phosphorus. Additive phosphorus ("PHOS" on ingredient lists) effectively counts double — it's ~100% absorbed vs ~50% for natural sources. You were right that the app should have taught you this, so we've just shipped that: meal analysis and chat now explain the ratio and suggest protein swaps that preserve your protein target instead of just flagging phosphorus. Scoring is also fully deterministic now — each score shows which nutrient drove it against your personal daily limits. We'd genuinely value your take if you try it again: support@kidneypal.app

Editing

I’m a detailed person. I’d like to be able to edit an ingredient exact name. I take a picture of the meal. The analysis is pretty accurate. Where do you get the phosphorus numbers Magnesium numbers and vitamin K numbers? They are never shown on the nutrition labels. I’ve been using your app every single day for 50 days. I’m getting a banner notification at 7pm CST saying my streak is at risk, when I’ve already logged all meals and snacks.

Trapshooter1963

2 months ago

Response from developer

Thanks for 50 days of logging—that's commitment! To answer your questions: phosphorus, magnesium, and vitamin K estimates come from our AI, which draws on nutritional research since these often aren't on labels. You can edit identified foods by tapping on them after analysis. As for the streak notification, this is a notification bug we are working to resolve. Please email us at support@kidneypal.app with any other issues or feedback you have

Concerned

After filling in a few meals i had eaten , it made me relax a little and believe that i can do this!!! Recently diagnosed with Stage 3a CKD at 58

Mel Neighbor

2 months ago

Response from developer

This is exactly why we built KidneyPal—to help people feel like they can do this. A new diagnosis is overwhelming, but you've got this. Thank you for sharing.

Not a good experience

I wanted to like this app. I love the user interface and the feature set is exactly what I was looking for. However, the dictation is hit or miss, although there are multiple ways to enter food, only a few of them result in a clear count of the macro nutrients. All of this would be fine if there was actually user documentation or guidance in someway, but there is not support gets you to an email so you have question and then wait for a response you can’t just get it done right then and there. I just think it’s not ready for primetime.

katileigh

2 months ago

Response from developer

Thank you for the honest feedback — the interface compliment means a lot, and your criticisms were fair. A lot has shipped since your review. There's now a Help chat inside the app (Settings → Help) that answers "how do I…" questions instantly, right when you need it — no email round-trip — plus a full written guide at kidneypal.app/guide. On nutrient counts: only the Manual option asks you to type nutrients in yourself, and it's now clearly labeled that way — Scan (photo), Quick Log (voice or text), barcode, and label scanning all calculate the complete breakdown for you automatically, and you can review and edit anything before it's logged. Voice logging has also had accuracy improvements in recent updates. If you're willing to update the app and give it another look, we'd love to hear how it goes — support@kidneypal.app reaches the team directly.

Great all

Best app I have on phone.

Seppy412

2 months ago

Response from developer

Thank you so much for the feedback and we are glad you find KidneyPal useful

Not “the” app

Tried to manually log Salmon, which has phosphorous. The nutrients failed to populate. So disappointed.

whozethere

2 months ago

Response from developer

Sounds like you might have accidentally used the manual entry, which is for manually entering every nutrient yourself in the rare cases that might needed. If you want automatic estimates for your log entries you should use the main top two log choices of photo scan and text/speech logging.

Great scanner: accurate and I love this app!

I used to use myfitnesspal and then another kidney app. But the scanner never worked well. This is so good. It also gives ideas for swapping. The only problem I had was after transplant, I had to raise my phos and pot and mag and the app could not adjust. That was difficult.

jules verne 2

2 months ago

Wonderful App!

I’m 43 and have stage 4 CKD. This app is really helping me managing my diet. It’s very user friendly. Calculates daily Electrolytes and Phosphate intake. Great recipes. Every food I’ve entered has come back with results, including restaurant and brand name foods.

Lillyannlou

2 months ago

Response from developer

Thank you so much for the feedback! If you have any issues you can write us at support@kidneypal.app

Kept being asked to sign up

Seems like a good idea but it directed me to the onboarding wizard about 4 times before I gave up. I had started the free trial, i was signed up but it allowed me to add in ame before going round the onboarding wizard again and again. Very frustrating. Subscription cancelled

MrGally

2 months ago

Response from developer

Hi this sounds like a bug we have since fixed, please email us at support@kidneypal.app and we will help you get set up

Calorie

This needs a calorie counter as well to help loose weight if needed for kidney health

Mrs L Mck

2 months ago

Response from developer

Hi there, There is a calorie counter inside the app, you can enable it in the settings screen.

Personalization

I don’t feel like this app gives enough personalization options. Based on my labs I do not need to limit my phosphorus or my potassium. It doesn’t give me an option to add that info.

BobbyswifeNicksmom

2 months ago

Response from developer

That's a great point—not everyone with CKD needs to limit the same nutrients. We're looking into adding more customization so you can adjust or turn off specific limits based on your labs. Thanks for the feedback!