Comparison

MacroFactor vs Meridian

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

MacroFactor

This app helps you achieve your diet goals through personalized calorie and macro targets, adapting to your progress. It offers efficient food logging and detailed insights into your nutrition and weight trends for sustainable results.

Highlights
  • Adaptive nutrition coaching
  • Best-in-class TDEE estimation
  • Fast AI food logging
  • Verified food database
  • Weight trend visualization
  • Flexible diet plans
  • Period and habit tracking
Features
Read full description

MacroFactor is a macro tracker, calorie counter, and nutrition coach app that helps you reach your diet goals to lose weight, gain muscle, or maintain with empowering, sustainable results, by combining innovative coaching algorithms with proven nutrition and behavioral science. KEY CAPABILITIES • Adaptive nutrition coach: smart algorithms personalize your calorie and macro intake targets, just like a nutrition coach would, and weekly check-ins keep you on track • Best-in-class expenditure estimate (TDEE): calculates how many calories you actually burn from your own logs and weight data, so your plan fits your body instead of a generic formula • Fastest macro tracker on the market: log food by AI photo, meal description, speech-to-text, barcode scanner, or nutrition label scanner, so logging takes seconds • Verified food database: more than 1.36 million entries, so you can trust the calorie and macro information of the food you log • Food and meal tracker: covers macros and micronutrients with detailed breakdowns for every meal and day, so you see exactly what you eat • Weight Trend: cuts through the noise of daily weight fluctuations, so you see your real progress • Flexible plans: choose Coached, Collaborative, or Manual mode with balanced, low-carb, keto, or carb-focused diets and different macros on different days, so your plan fits your health and fitness goal • Extra tools in one app: period tracker, habit tracker, data insights and visualization, integrations, and dark mode. HOW IT WORKS 1. Set your goal (lose, maintain, or gain) and choose your rate of weight change to set your calorie deficit or surplus. 2. Log your meals in the food log and weigh in with the weight tracker as usual. 3. Each week, MacroFactor compares your calorie and macro intake with your weight trend to calculate your true energy expenditure (TDEE) and detect changes in your metabolism. 4. It then adjusts your calorie, protein, and macro targets for the week ahead, so your diet plan keeps working and you avoid a plateau. FAQ • How does MacroFactor set my calorie target? It estimates your energy expenditure from your food logs and weight trend, then adjusts your targets at each weekly check-in. • What if I go over my targets or skip logging? Nothing breaks. The algorithm is adherence neutral, so your check-in and calorie adjustment still work, with no warnings or red numbers. • Can I set my own macros instead of following the coach? Yes. Choose Manual mode, and set different macros for different days. • How can I log food quickly? Snap a photo with AI food logging, describe your meal, speak it, or scan a barcode or nutrition label. NOTICES Contains information from Open Food Facts, which is made available here under the Open Database License (ODbL). Open Food Facts: https://openfoodfacts.org/ ODbL: https://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/1-0/ SUBSCRIPTION PRICING & TERMS MacroFactor is a premium macro tracker app that offers three auto-renewing subscription options: $11.99 / month $47.99 / half year $71.99 / year (equal to $5.99 a month) MacroFactor has a free trial, but does not offer a free subscription tier. These prices are for US customers. Pricing in other countries may vary. Payment will be charged to your Apple account at confirmation of purchase. Your subscription to MacroFactor will automatically renew, unless you cancel at least 24 hours before the current period ends. You can cancel or manage your subscription from your Apple account settings. Terms & Conditions: https://terms.macrofactorapp.com/ Privacy Policy: https://privacy.macrofactorapp.com/ MacroFactor is a macro counter, calorie tracker, and AI food tracker with a nutrition coach that adapts your calorie and macro targets every week, helping you lose weight, maintain, or build muscle without stress.

About

Meridian

This app transforms your journal entries into a personal galaxy, with each thought creating stars and constellations. It offers multiple input methods, powerful search, and optional app locking to encourage consistent writing. Share entries privately with friends on your terms.

Highlights
  • Personalized galaxy creation from journal entries
  • Constellation pages for people, places, and goals
  • Voice, typing, and handwriting input
  • Optional app locking for distraction management
  • Private sharing with friends and circles
  • Web access for journal entries
Features
Read full description

Every journal entry you write becomes a star. Meridian is a journaling app built around one idea: your life deserves to be remembered. Each time you write, your entry lights up stars for the people, places, plans and goals in it, and your personal galaxy grows with you. Your Personal Galaxy Every person, place, thread and goal you write about becomes its own constellation. Open one to see what it is and its story so far, told in your own words and with the dates: who someone is to you, how a project started, where you were when it changed. Add a note of your own and it's woven in. Meridian only asks when someone or somewhere is new. Your Story See your week read back to you in a sentence, the people and places who turned up, what's still open and what went quiet. Pick up your goals right where you left them. Write It Your Way Talk, type or snap a page of handwriting. Voice is transcribed on your device, and you can pause any time to fix a word. Add photos, a place or a scanned page to any entry, then watch it light up as Meridian reads it. Ask Your Journal Anything Ask what happened, when, and how something changed. Answers come from your own entries, with the dates. Optional Accountability with Screen Time Want real stakes? Meridian can lock your most distracting apps (Instagram, TikTok, YouTube) until you write. Using Apple's Screen Time API, your chosen apps stay shielded at your chosen wind-down time. The only key is your journal. Need a little more time? Spend Stardust, earned through consistent writing, to snooze the lock for 10 minutes. Friends, On Your Terms Friends and circles live in one inbox. Streaks and the feed only ever show that you showed up, never what you wrote. When you choose to share an entry, it's locked to the people you send it to before it leaves your phone, so not even Meridian can read it. Send a friend a question to write about, or comment on what they share with you. Why Journaling Works Research on expressive writing links it to lower stress, better sleep and greater resilience. Meridian is built to make writing a habit you'll actually return to, because you can see yourself building something real. Features - A living galaxy: every entry lights up stars - Constellation pages for the people, places, threads and goals in your life - Story: your week, your people and places, and your goals in one place - Ask: answers from your own journal, with the dates - Voice, typing and handwriting, with photos, places and scans - Optional app locking via iOS Screen Time - Friends and circles, with entries shared only by your choice - Stardust, milestones and a Shop of skies and star palettes - Folders, search and photo journaling - Your journal on the web at app.journalmeridian.com Meridian is free. Meridian Pro adds more personalized AI writing prompts each day, plus every star palette, constellation style and sky. Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

Screenshots

MacroFactor4 screens
Meridian4 screens

Verdict

The call

MacroFactor and Meridian both sit at 4.8 stars, but that hides the real split: 100% of Meridian's written reviews are positive against 71% of MacroFactor's. Meridian also leads on update cadence (every 4 days vs every 9 days). MacroFactor's advantage is ratings volume (24K vs 30) and chart position (#12 vs unranked). On price, rating, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. MacroFactor sells 10 in-app purchases, starting at $9.99 per month and Meridian sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Meridian holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.8. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: MacroFactor has 24K ratings behind it against 30, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 71% of MacroFactor's written reviews are positive against 100% of Meridian's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

MacroFactor ships an update every 9 days, Meridian every 4 days. Both last shipped on November 13, 2026.

Scorecard6 real differences · 5 level
MacroFactor versus Meridian: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterMacroFactorMeridian
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.8 (24K ratings)5.0 (30 ratings) — better
Positive reviews70.6% of reviews100.0% of reviews — better
Number of ratings24K — better30
Update frequencyEvery 9 daysEvery 4 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFreemium
Best chart rank#12 — better—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple Watch — betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS15.6 — better17.0
Further details — not scored
Size238 MB23 MB
Age rating9+4+
DeveloperStronger By Science Technologies LLCMalek Aloulou

Customer experience

MacroFactor

All ratings23,965 ratings
Positive96.2%
Neutral1.3%
Negative2.5%
Written reviews1,595 reviews
Positive70.6%
Neutral9.5%
Negative19.9%

Meridian

All ratings29 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews11 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Bugs and requests

MacroFactor

Reported bugs

2 issues
  • Disappearing food entries
  • Inconsistent syncing with Apple Health

Requested features

5 requests
  • Apple Watch integration
  • Micronutrient tracking
  • Ability to edit database entries
  • Improved barcode scanning for international users
  • Customizable dashboard and widgets

Meridian

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

10 purchases

MacroFactor

Subscriptions10
  • Monthly Subscription14 Days trial$9.991 Month
  • Monthly Subscription7 Days trial$11.991 Month
  • Monthly Subscription$11.991 Month
Show 7 more
  • Monthly Subscription14 Days trial$11.991 Month
  • Semiannual Subscription7 Days trial$47.996 Months
  • Semiannual Subscription14 Days trial$47.996 Months
  • Annual Subscription14 Days trial$59.991 Year
  • Annual Subscription7 Days trial$71.991 Year
  • Annual Subscription14 Days trial$71.991 Year
  • Annual Subscription Bundle$89.991 Year
2 purchases

Meridian

Subscriptions2
  • Pro Monthly7 Days trial$2.991 Month
  • Pro Annual$19.991 Year

Questions

Is MacroFactor free?
MacroFactor is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Meridian free?
Meridian is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, MacroFactor or Meridian?
Meridian is rated higher. MacroFactor averages 4.8 out of 5 from 24K ratings, while Meridian averages 5.0 from 30 ratings.
Do MacroFactor or Meridian have ads?
Neither MacroFactor nor Meridian shows ads.
Which is updated more often, MacroFactor or Meridian?
MacroFactor ships an update every 9 days, and Meridian every 4 days. Most recently, MacroFactor was updated on November 13, 2026 and Meridian on November 13, 2026.

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