Comparison

How Often vs Gutbook

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

Head to head
About

How Often

Log events and discover hidden patterns in your life, family, or pets. Automatically identifies correlations and trends, presenting them in clear language and visual charts. Export data for sharing with professionals or personal records.

Highlights
  • Automatic pattern discovery
  • Cross-profile correlations
  • Frequency charts with overlays
  • Day/time heatmaps
  • Milestone and streak tracking
  • CSV data export
  • PDF summary reports
Features
Read full description

How Often helps you track how frequently things happen — to you, your family, your friends, and even your pets. Whether it's headaches, coughing, exercise, mood swings, or anything else, just log it and let the app find the patterns you can't see on your own. DISCOVER PATTERNS AUTOMATICALLY The insights engine analyzes your data and tells you what it finds — in plain language: "Your headaches tend to follow nights of poor sleep. Over the last 3 weeks, this happened 6 times." "There's a clear pattern — migraine happens most often on Mondays." "Your nausea has dropped from severity 3.8 to 2.1 over the past two weeks." FIND CONNECTIONS ACROSS PEOPLE Track events across family members and discover cross-profile correlations. The app can detect patterns like a cold spreading through the household and tell you about it. SEE YOUR DATA CLEARLY Frequency charts with duration and severity overlays Day-of-week × time-of-day heatmaps Sparklines on the main list for quick trend checks Milestone tracking and streak detection EXPORT AND SHARE Export your data as CSV for analysis or generate a professional PDF summary report with insights, patterns, and correlations — perfect for sharing with a doctor or keeping records. YOUR DATA STAYS ON YOUR DEVICE No accounts. No cloud storage. No data transmitted anywhere. Speech recognition runs entirely on-device. Your data belongs to you.

About

Gutbook

Track your gut symptoms, meals, medications, and lifestyle factors to identify patterns and potential triggers. This private notebook helps you understand your body's responses and provides educational resources for managing IBS and FODMAPs.

Highlights
  • Symptom logging with severity and duration
  • Meal logging with FODMAP tags and photos
  • Medication and water tracking
  • Insights and trigger analysis
  • Low-FODMAP guide and food reference
  • Apple Watch quick logging
  • PDF export and Apple Health sync
Features
Read full description

Living with IBS means paying attention. Which meal, how much, how long ago, how stressed you were, how you slept. Gutbook is a calm, private notebook for your gut — symptoms, meals, meds, and FODMAPs on iPhone and Apple Watch — built so you can stop guessing and start seeing patterns. You log a meal, a symptom, a medication, water, stress, or sleep in a few seconds. Over time the app builds a personal record of what your body is responding to. KEY FEATURES • Symptom logging with severity (1–10), Bristol stool scale type, and duration • Meal logging with photo, portion size, fiber, caffeine, and per-food FODMAP tags • Medication tracker with as-needed and scheduled doses • Daily water, stress, and sleep logs • Optional menstrual cycle tracking for people whose symptoms follow their cycle • Insights view: severity trendline, FODMAP breakdown of recent meals, and the foods most often followed by a symptom within a window you choose • Trigger analysis that accounts for lag — some FODMAP groups can show up many hours after a meal, others much sooner — so the time window between meal and symptom is part of the picture, not lost • Confidence labels on every finding so you know when there's enough data to share with your clinician • Apple Watch app for one-tap quick logs from the wrist: symptom, meal, medication, water • PDF export of meals, symptoms, and medication history for your next gastroenterology or dietitian visit • Apple Health sync: symptoms saved as native Health category samples (bloating, abdominal cramps, constipation, diarrhea, nausea, heartburn, fatigue) so they live alongside the rest of your health data • iCloud sync across iPhone, Apple Watch, and iPad LOW-FODMAP GUIDE A built-in three-phase guide walks through the low-FODMAP framework developed by researchers at Monash University: elimination, structured reintroduction of each FODMAP subgroup, and long-term personalization. Each phase covers what to eat, what to skip, and practical tips. A ~130-food reference list shows the FODMAP classification of common items. The guide is educational. It is meant to support a conversation with your clinician or dietitian — not replace one. The reintroduction phase in particular is best done with a registered dietitian experienced in FODMAPs. PRIVACY Your data stays in your private iCloud account. There is no analytics SDK, no advertising SDK, and no third-party tracking. We do not have a server that sees your entries. Your meals, symptoms, and notes never leave Apple's infrastructure. You can delete every entry from inside the app, or remove the app entirely to wipe local data; iCloud copies follow Apple's standard deletion timing. Apple Health integration is opt-in and runs through the iOS permission prompt. You choose what Gutbook can read and write at the data-type level. NOT MEDICAL ADVICE Gutbook is a tracking and education tool, not a medical device. It does not diagnose, treat, or cure any condition. The information it shows is intended to help you and your healthcare team make sense of patterns. Always work with a qualified clinician for diagnosis, treatment decisions, and changes to your medication or diet — especially before starting any restrictive eating plan. ATTRIBUTION The low-FODMAP framework, food classifications, and reintroduction approach in this app are based on research published by Monash University. Monash University is not affiliated with this app. For definitive, portion-specific FODMAP data, the official Monash FODMAP Diet app is the authoritative source. We hope Gutbook helps you feel more in control of your gut health. Thoughtful feedback is always welcome at the support email listed on this page.

Screenshots

How Often4 screens
Gutbook4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Gutbook at none against How Often's 3. Gutbook also leads on update cadence (daily vs every 2 months). How Often's advantage is ratings volume (3 vs 1). On price, rating, 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

Both are free to download. How Often sells 3 one-off in-app purchases. Gutbook asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for How Often against 5.0 for Gutbook. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 3 and 1 respectively.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

How Often ships an update every 2 months, Gutbook daily. The most recent releases landed on October 31, 2026 and November 9, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard4 real differences · 6 level
How Often versus Gutbook: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterHow OftenGutbook
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (3 ratings)5.0 (1 ratings)
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings3 — better1
Update frequencyEvery 2 monthsDaily — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree — better
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, Apple Watch — better
Requires iOS26.026.0
Further details — not scored
Size3 MB3 MB
Age rating9+12+
DeveloperSquare Remix IncAustin Storms

Customer experience

How Often

All ratings3 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews1 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Gutbook

All ratings1 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

3 purchases

How Often

One-time3
  • Add 1 Profile$1.99
  • Add 2 Profiles$2.99
  • Add Unlimited Profiles$6.99
None

Gutbook

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is How Often free?
How Often is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Gutbook free?
Gutbook is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, How Often or Gutbook?
How Often and Gutbook are both rated 5.0 out of 5 on the App Store, from 3 and 1 ratings respectively.
Do How Often or Gutbook have ads?
Neither How Often nor Gutbook shows ads.
Which is updated more often, How Often or Gutbook?
How Often ships an update every 2 months, and Gutbook daily. Most recently, How Often was updated on October 31, 2026 and Gutbook on November 9, 2026.

Other comparisons