Comparison

Coffee Journal vs GrillPilot

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

Head to head
About

Coffee Journal

Log your coffee brews, beans, and recipes in a digital journal. Track brewing details, tasting notes, and coffee bag aging. Discover new recipes and connect with the coffee community.

Highlights
  • Coffee journal for brews and café visits
  • Track beans, roast dates, and aging
  • Explore and save coffee recipes
  • Organize coffee gear
  • AI bag scanning for details
  • Coffee community feed
Read full description

BeanBook is a free coffee app for specialty coffee lovers. Keep a coffee journal, organize your beans with a coffee tracker, explore coffee recipes, and follow the coffee world in the Coffee Feed. Remember what made each cup great. Save your photos, tasting notes, grind settings and brewing details together, from your morning pour-over to a memorable café visit. YOUR COFFEE LIBRARY - Beans, Brews, Recipes and Gear live in one library, a swipe apart. - One + button adds a bag, brew, recipe or gear from any page. - View, sort and filter each page from one menu next to search. - Open My Coffee Wrapped, your coffee year, in one tap (Pro). THE COFFEE FEED - Read facts and real voices from the coffee community on new beans and gear, daily, each with its sources, quotes and key notes. - See what coffee people are arguing about in Hot takes, and vote in the Daily Poll. - Catch new coffee drops and deals from roasters in your region. - Save stories to read later. YOUR COFFEE JOURNAL - Record home brews and café visits with photos, notes and ratings. - Track dose, ratio, grind, water temperature and brew time. - Log the water and mineral drops you brewed with. - Send Brew Calculator's ratio, water and pours straight into a Brew Log. - Attach beans, Gear and recipes to each Brew Log. - Save a setup as a template (gear, recipe, numbers and steps) and start your next brews from it (Pro). - Customize sections and backgrounds to make the journal your own. - Changes save as you edit. - Revisit your cups in list or grid view, see every brew on a check-in calendar and every café on a map. YOUR COFFEE TRACKER - Scan coffee bags with AI to fill in the roaster, origin, process and tasting notes. - Track roast dates, resting time and how each bag is aging. - Pause the roast clock while a bag is frozen. - See how much coffee is left in each bag as you brew. - Match your beans to jars with numbered or custom container labels. - Remember your favorite coffees and keep a history of finished bags. EXPLORE COFFEE RECIPES - Discover brewing methods and save your own coffee recipes. - Keep dose, ratio, grind settings and temperature ready for your next brew. - Start a Brew Log from a saved recipe. - Calculate water amounts for two to five pours with Brew Calculator. - Follow your brew with the built-in timer. Find recipes for Hario V60, AeroPress, Hario Switch, OXO Rapid Brewer, V60 NEO, NextLevel Pulsar, Deep27, Origami, Orea, Chemex, French Press and Cezve. Explore recipes from coffee professionals including James Hoffmann, Tetsu Kasuya, Lance Hedrick, Scott Rao, The Coffee Chronicler, April Coffee Roasters and World Brewers Cup champions. YOUR COFFEE GEAR - Organize grinders, brewers, kettles and scales with photos, notes and ratings. - Save grinder settings for the coffees you brew. - Find related Brew Logs on bean and Gear pages. - Keep a wish list for your next setup. BEANBOOK AI - Scan bags to spend less time entering coffee details. - Ask about origins, processing, flavor notes and brewing techniques. - Get suggestions for grind size, temperature, resting time and extraction. FREE TO START BeanBook is a free coffee app with optional Pro features. Keep up to 10 fully unlocked Brew Logs on the free plan, plus unlimited basic logs with photos, notes, beans, locations and overall ratings. BeanBook Pro unlocks unlimited beans, recipes and Gear, plus advanced Brew Log features beyond the free allowance. Brew, taste, remember. Keep your coffee journey in BeanBook. Terms of Service: https://beanbook.app/terms-of-service Privacy Policy: https://beanbook.app/policy

About

GrillPilot

This AI-powered cooking coach provides expert guidance for grilling, smoking, and flat-top cooking. It offers live cook tracking, smart planning, and a searchable history of all your culinary creations.

Highlights
  • Live cook tracking with temperature logging
  • AI Chef for expert cooking advice
  • Smart cook plans with checklists
  • Save and generate recipes
  • Searchable cook history
  • Grill-agnostic compatibility
Features
Read full description

GrillPilot is your AI cook coach for the grill, the smoker, and the flat top. Plan a cook, track your pit as you cook, and get expert guidance from start to plate — whether you'''re chasing a perfect brisket or cranking out smashburgers. Built by a backyard pitmaster who got tired of guessing, GrillPilot pairs live cook tracking with a Claude-powered AI Chef that knows the difference between the stall, the slide, and the bend test. Every cook is saved, searchable, and ready to repeat. KEY FEATURES • Live cook tracking — Plot pit and meat temperatures as you log them. Targets, alerts, and stage progress all in one view. • AI Chef coach — Ask anything, anytime. Get answers grounded in what'''s actually happening in your cook. Pro users can send photos for visual feedback ("how'''s this bark?", "is this done?"). • Smart cook plans — Plug in a cut and weight, get a stage-by-stage plan with prep checklist, ingredient list, and time estimates. The AI Chef can adapt the plan to your specific grill. • Recipe library — Save every cook as a reusable recipe. Generate new recipes from a prompt. Scale up or down with one tap. • History that remembers — Every cook is archived with photos, notes, temps, and the full AI Chef conversation. Pull up last summer'''s brisket on your phone in seconds. GRILL-AGNOSTIC Big Green Egg. Kamado Joe. Traeger. Pit Boss. Weber Kettle. Offset stick burner. Blackstone griddle. GrillPilot works with any grill or smoker — set up your profile once and the AI Chef tunes its guidance to your equipment. PRO The Free tier gives you 20 AI Chef prompts a month, full live-cook tracking, manual temp logging, and the recipe library. Pro unlocks: • 500 AI Chef prompts a month • Photo analysis (send pictures to the AI Chef) • A smarter underlying model for tougher questions Pro is offered as an auto-renewing monthly or annual subscription. Subscriptions auto-renew until canceled. You can manage or cancel any time from Settings → Apple ID → Subscriptions on your device. PRIVACY GrillPilot stores your cooks, recipes, and AI Chef conversations on our servers so you can access them across devices. Your photos and content are never used to train AI models. Read the full privacy policy at https://grillpilot.ai/privacy. Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/. CONTACT Questions or feedback? Email scott@grillpilot.ai. GrillPilot is a solo project — every email gets a real reply.

Screenshots

Coffee Journal4 screens
GrillPilot4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is ratings volume: Coffee Journal at 30 against GrillPilot's 1. Coffee Journal also leads on iOS requirement (15.1 vs 18.0). 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. Coffee Journal sells 4 in-app purchases, starting at $7.90 per month and GrillPilot sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $19.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.9 for Coffee Journal against 5.0 for GrillPilot. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Coffee Journal has 30 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two.

Scorecard2 real differences · 8 level
Coffee Journal versus GrillPilot: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterCoffee JournalGrillPilot
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.9 (30 ratings)5.0 (1 ratings) — better
Positive reviews91.3% of reviews—
Number of ratings30 — better1
Update frequencyEvery 4 days—
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFreemiumFreemium
DevicesiPhone, iPod — betteriPhone
Requires iOS15.1 — better18.0
Further details — not scored
Size104 MB108 MB
Age rating4+12+
DeveloperBitleverScott Bedwell

In-app purchases

4 purchases

Coffee Journal

Subscriptions4
  • BeanBook Pro Monthly$7.901 Month
  • BeanBook Pro1 Month trial$35.901 Year
  • BeanBook Pro1 Month trial$49.901 Year
Show 1 more
  • BeanBook Pro1 Year trial$49.901 Year
2 purchases

GrillPilot

Subscriptions2
  • Pro Monthly$19.991 Month
  • Pro Yearly$149.991 Year

Questions

Is Coffee Journal free?
Coffee Journal is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is GrillPilot free?
GrillPilot is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Coffee Journal or GrillPilot?
GrillPilot is rated higher. Coffee Journal averages 4.9 out of 5 from 30 ratings, while GrillPilot averages 5.0 from 1 ratings.
Do Coffee Journal or GrillPilot have ads?
Neither Coffee Journal nor GrillPilot shows ads.

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