Comparison

illy App vs ChefLab

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

Head to head
About

illy App

Discover a world of coffee tailored for enthusiasts. Earn rewards and unlock exclusive benefits through a loyalty program. Find your favorite products, locate nearby stores, and redeem your points for exciting experiences.

Highlights
  • Loyalty program access
  • Product shop
  • Store locator
  • Earn and redeem rewards
  • Tiered membership levels
Features
Read full description

If you love excellent coffee, the new illy App is perfect for you. Enter a world of taste dedicated to those who share your passion. Sign up for our illy Lovers loyalty program to access unique advantages. Find your favorite illy products and buy them directly from the Shop with a new, easy, and intuitive experience Discover the stores closest to you with our Store Locator. Transform your purchases online and at participating illy stores into hearts. Use your hearts balance to give yourself rewards and amazing experiences, choosing from a rich and frequently updated catalog. With the hearts you earn, you can move from Explorer level to Master, and then to Elite, accessing greater and greater special benefits. Download the free App and get started on your journey into taste.

About

ChefLab

Features
Read full description

ChefLab is a pocket atelier for people who weigh salt in grams. Six benches. You set the piece, the lab does the math. One coaching line, then the numbers. Kitchen guidance, not a health department. CURE LAB Dry cure, equilibrium brine, or a wet-gradient pull from the actual meat weight. Injection pickle and dry sausage too. Salt, nitrite, and the percentages that keep a coppa from becoming a story. EU nitrite salt (0.4–0.6%) or Prague #1/#2. THERMAL LAB Sous-vide and pasteurization holds from published charts: thickness in millimetres, core temperature, then the hold. Start from the fridge or a home freezer (−18 °C). Hardware-agnostic. EGG LAB A physics timer, not a 7-minute superstition. Weight, starting temperature, and kitchen height, then a countdown to the second. Live Activity so the phone can sit on the far side of the board. FROZEN LAB Gelato, ice cream, and sorbet. PAC and POD from the batch you weigh, then sucrose, dextrose, milk, and cream. Kitchen mix math, not a vitrine spec sheet. FERMENT LAB Sauerkraut salt on the cabbage, pickle salt in the brine, and a meat hold toward pH 5.3. Dextrose for the flora. Nitrite and drying salt stay in Cure Lab. Two clocks for salami: ferment, then dry. After kraut or pickle is ready, a fridge sentence: salt keeping the jar, not a use-by stamp. TEXTURE LAB Hydrocolloids without the dinner-party mystique: gelatin bloom, agar hysteresis, pectin windows, alginate, gellan, kappa, iota, locust bean, methylcellulose, xanthan. Grams of gel, not vibes of gel. Texture Lab Unlock is a one-time purchase. It also lifts the three-note notebook cap. ON THE DEVICE Calculations and batch notes stay on your phone. No account. No cloud. Metric first. Dutch and English. Educational, not HACCP. Calibrate the thermometer you actually own.

Screenshots

illy App4 screens
ChefLab4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: illy App at Free against ChefLab's $6.99. illy App also leads on in-app purchases (none vs 1) and iOS requirement (15.1 vs 17.0). ChefLab's advantage is update cadence (daily vs monthly). On ads 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

illy App is free to download; ChefLab costs $6.99 up front. ChefLab sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. illy App asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

illy App ships an update monthly, ChefLab daily. The most recent releases landed on October 12, 2026 and October 7, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard4 real differences · 6 level
illy App versus ChefLab: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
Parameterilly AppChefLab
PriceFree — better$6.99
Rating2.6 (14 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews13.9% of reviews—
Number of ratings14 — better—
Update frequencyMonthlyDaily — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationFree—
DevicesiPhone, iPodiPhone, iPad
Requires iOS15.1 — better17.0
Further details — not scored
Size68 MB3 MB
Age rating17+4+
DeveloperillyRomano Finetti

In-app purchases

None

illy App

No in-app purchases

1 purchases

ChefLab

One-time1
  • Texture Lab Unlock$6.99

Questions

Is illy App free?
illy App is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is ChefLab free?
ChefLab costs $6.99, and also offers in-app purchases.
Do illy App or ChefLab have ads?
Neither illy App nor ChefLab shows ads.
Which is updated more often, illy App or ChefLab?
illy App ships an update monthly, and ChefLab daily. Most recently, illy App was updated on October 12, 2026 and ChefLab on October 7, 2026.

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