ResX vs Smackerel
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
ResX
Easily exchange last-minute restaurant reservations. Give away reservations you can't make or grab spontaneous dining opportunities at popular spots. Enjoy the city's best dining experiences without the hassle of advance planning.
- Exchange last-minute reservations
- Give away unwanted reservations
- Grab spontaneous dining opportunities
- Access in-demand restaurants
- Simplify dining plans
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ResX is a free, peer-to-peer exchange to give and take last-minute restaurant reservations at the most in-demand restaurants in New York and London. No resale, no bots - just diners helping diners. How it works: • Claim - Get the best tables in town without the weeks of planning. • Share - Have a reservation you can't make? Post it on ResX for free and avoid any cancellation fee • Earn - Earn tokens with every booking. Redeem them for exclusive rewards. The city's best plans, without the planning. For terms of use and more details on ResX Premium, visit: https://bit.ly/ResX_TC
Smackerel
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Smackerel is a personal food journal built for one person: you. Snap a photo of what you're eating, give it a name, and a couple of hours later rate it — right from your lock screen. Do that a few times and something quietly remarkable happens: Smackerel starts to know your palate. Not a star average. Not a crowd score. Your taste fingerprint — the smoky, the charred, the spicy, the things you reach for and the things you quietly push aside. BUILD YOUR TASTE FINGERPRINT The Palate tab is the heart of Smackerel. As you log meals and jot a line about each one, an on-device model reads your notes and sketches your taste over time: • Three dials — Spice, Salt, Richness — tuned to how you actually eat • "You gravitate to" and "you steer clear of" word lists, drawn from your own words • A running feed of small discoveries: "You go for smoky and charred edges," "Numbing-tingly heat agrees with you" It gets sharper every time you log. The magic is silent — there's no chatbot, no "Ask AI" button. Your palate just grows with you. ONE TAP TO LOG Logging a meal is featherweight. Snap, name it, save. The thoughtful part — the rating and the note — comes later, when a gentle reminder lands on your lock screen: "How was the koji-aged ribeye?" Tap Love, Good, Mid, Meh, or No without even opening the app. Already have a camera roll full of meals? Import them in a batch; Smackerel reads the date and location and suggests the restaurant for you. PRIVATE BY DESIGN • No accounts. No login. Ever. • No ads, no feed, no social, no noise. • Your photos stay in your own Apple Photos library — Smackerel never deletes them. • Your palate is built on-device with Apple Intelligence. Nothing leaves your phone unless you choose to turn on the optional frontier-model boost. A LITTLE HISTORY Years ago, just before Instagram, I built a small app called dish-on-it: photograph your food, rate it, and find the best version of the dish you were craving. People used it for two things — keeping a private journal of what they ate, and quietly sharing what was good with the people they trusted. Then Instagram arrived and we moved on. Years later, backpacking around the world, a friend asked: "Do you have a list of restaurants you love?" They knew my taste. I wished I still had that little app. So I built it again — this time completely private, just for the joy of remembering what you ate and discovering who you are at the table. Today, Smackerel is a smart journal. Tomorrow it may become more. This is a project I built for friends and family, and you're welcome to use it. If you like it, help me make it better. If you don't… well, delete it then. Hello, Smackerel. Available on iPhone (iOS 26 or later). Uses on-device Apple Intelligence, with optional escalation to frontier models (Anthropic). Some mackerel were sustainably harmed and enjoyed as sushi in the making of this app.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Smackerel at none against ResX's 8. Smackerel also leads on ads (none vs shown). ResX's advantage is chart position (#14 vs unranked) and iOS requirement (15.1 vs 26.0). On price and device support 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
Both are free to download. ResX sells 8 in-app purchases, starting at $14.99 per month. Smackerel asks for nothing beyond the download.
| Parameter | ResX | Smackerel |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.8 (749 ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 73.4% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 749 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks | — |
| Ads | Yes | No — better |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | — |
| Best chart rank | #14 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPod — better | iPhone |
| Requires iOS | 15.1 — better | 26.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 130 MB | 6 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | ResX | Nikhil Hasija |
Bugs and requests
ResX
Reported bugs
7 issues- App crashes when trying to grab reservations
- Reservation alerts open to the wrong page
- Cannot click button to see available reservations
- Verification texts never arrive
- App crashes when trying to submit a reservation
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- App crashes on iOS 17
- App crashes when offering a reservation
Requested features
8 requests- More reservation options in NYC
- Clearer policy on cancellation fees
- Notification for reservation pickups after 5 minutes
- Ability to filter alerts by time, day, and party size
- Direct link to reservation screen from notification
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- Add a 'favorites' list for restaurants with notifications
- Set notifications for party size, time frame, specific restaurants/neighborhoods
- Ability to access menu and more photos from the app
Smackerel
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
ResX
- ResX Premium$14.991 Month
- ResX Premium1 Month trial$14.991 Month
- ResX Premium6 Months trial$14.991 Month
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- ResX Premium3 Months trial$14.991 Month
- ResX Annual$119.991 Year
- 3-month subscription$37.99
- 6-month subscription$69.99
- 12-month subscription$119.99
Smackerel
No in-app purchases







