Comparison

Honest Cooking Kitchen vs CookingBear

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

Head to head
About

Honest Cooking Kitchen

Discover over 5,000 tested recipes with beautiful photos. This app helps you find meals based on ingredients you have, your schedule, and preferences. It also offers smart tools for meal planning and creating shopping lists.

Highlights
  • 5,000+ tested recipes
  • Pantry search for ingredient-based meals
  • Personalized weekly meal planner
  • Automated shopping list generation
  • Cook mode with step-by-step guidance
  • Recipe collections and smart search filters
Features
Read full description

The only cooking app you'll ever need. Honest Cooking Kitchen is 10,000+ professionally developed recipes with beautiful photos, every one tested in a real kitchen, plus the tools to figure out what to actually make tonight. 10,000+ Recipes Worth Cooking Recipes created by the best food bloggers and writers in the world. Browse by cuisine, course, season, ingredient, or dietary preference. The library is deep enough that you'll keep finding things you haven't tried yet, while at the same time creating your perfect dinner rotation. 100 Classics The 100 legendary recipes that will take your home cooking to the next level. From Italian to Indian and very much in between, these are the ones you'll come back to again and again. Track your progress and become a legend. 100 Basics The foundation of every home kitchen: the techniques and recipes you need to know, from dressings and sauces to baking and simple egg dishes. Track and evolve. Pantry Search Type in what's in your fridge and get real recipes built around it. Add what you're cooking tonight and it steers the results. Useful for using up that half a cabbage before it goes bad. Weekly Meal Plan Curated weeks of dinners, ready to cook. Pick a plan (a week in Italy, thirty-minute dinners, a vegetarian week, and more) or build your own from the full library. Answer a few quick questions and we'll recommend one to start. Swap any night, mark the nights you're eating out, and pin the recipes you want on repeat. Every plan becomes a shopping list that already knows what's in your pantry. Shopping Lists Tap any recipe and get a shopping list. It knows what's already in your kitchen, sorts by aisle, and you check things off at the store. It works. Save and Rate Save recipes into collections and rate what you cook. Your saves, ratings, and collections follow you across the app and the web. Search Filter by cuisine, course, difficulty, time, protein, or dietary need, and dial in calories and macros if you're tracking. Fast, and it doesn't bury what you're looking for. Cook Mode Cook hands-free: one step at a time, with your full ingredient list and timers a tap away, and a step overview so you always know where you are. FREE vs PREMIUM Free: Browse the full library of 10,000+ recipes and collections, and use standard search. No account required to look around. Premium: Full recipes, Cook Mode, the Weekly Meal Planner, Pantry Search, nutrition search, 100 Basics and Classics progress, saved collections, and pantry-aware shopping lists. $4.99/month or $29.99/year. Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://honestcooking.com/privacypolicy

About

CookingBear

Features
Read full description

CookBook is a simple way to keep your kitchen organized—without spreadsheets or manual typing. ADD GROCERIES FAST • Scan your grocery receipt to extract items automatically • Confirm quantities and dates in one place • Keep your pantry/fridge list clean and up to date STAY AHEAD OF EXPIRY DATES • See what’s expiring soon at a glance • Track items by purchase date so you know what to use first • Reduce food waste with clearer visibility of what you already have SHOP SMARTER • Build a grocery list based on what you’re missing • Avoid buying duplicates when you already have the item at home • Keep household shopping organized COOK+ (OPTIONAL SUBSCRIPTION) Cook+ unlocks premium features such as enhanced receipt scanning and advanced grocery intelligence. Subscriptions renew automatically unless canceled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. You can manage or cancel your subscription in your App Store account settings. COOK+ FREE TRIAL & SUBSCRIPTION Start a 2‑week free trial on eligible plans. Unless you cancel at least 24 hours before the end of the free trial, you will be charged the price shown at purchase. Cook+ is an auto‑renewable subscription that renews automatically unless canceled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. Your account will be charged for renewal within 24 hours prior to the end of the current period. You can manage or cancel your subscription in your App Store account settings. Deleting the app does not cancel your subscription. You will continue to have access for the remainder of the current period after cancellation. TERMS OF USE CookBook uses Apple's standard End User License Agreement (EULA). By downloading this app, you agree to the terms outlined at:  https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

Screenshots

Honest Cooking Kitchen4 screens
CookingBear4 screens

Verdict

The call

Honest Cooking Kitchen and CookingBear are too close to call on the numbers: across 6 compared parameters — price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases among them — neither pulls far enough ahead to decide it. What separates them is feature set and interface, not measurable difference.

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. Honest Cooking Kitchen sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month and CookingBear sells 1 in-app purchase, starting at $6.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Honest Cooking Kitchen ships an update weekly, CookingBear every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on September 22, 2026 and September 29, 2026 respectively.

ScorecardNo meaningful differences
Honest Cooking Kitchen versus CookingBear: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterHonest Cooking KitchenCookingBear
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (1 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings1 — better—
Update frequencyWeekly — betterEvery 2 weeks
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFreemium—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPhone, iPod
Requires iOS15.0 — better15.1
Further details — not scored
Size55 MB232 MB
Age rating12+12+
DeveloperKalle BergmanMuhammad Fauzan Bin Mohamad Isa

In-app purchases

2 purchases

Honest Cooking Kitchen

Subscriptions2
  • Honest Cooking Premium7 Days trial$4.991 Month
  • Honest Cooking Premium (Annual)7 Days trial$29.991 Year
1 purchases

CookingBear

Subscriptions1
  • Cook+ Monthly14 Days trial$6.991 Month

Questions

Is Honest Cooking Kitchen free?
Honest Cooking Kitchen is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is CookingBear free?
CookingBear is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do Honest Cooking Kitchen or CookingBear have ads?
Neither Honest Cooking Kitchen nor CookingBear shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Honest Cooking Kitchen or CookingBear?
Honest Cooking Kitchen ships an update weekly, and CookingBear every 2 weeks. Most recently, Honest Cooking Kitchen was updated on September 22, 2026 and CookingBear on September 29, 2026.

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