MealCam vs Intuitive Eating Buddy
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
MealCam
Log your meals with photos to gain insights into your eating habits. This app focuses on visual logging rather than calorie counting, helping you understand patterns related to color, water content, and digestion timing. It's designed for improved accountability and a more holistic approach to health.
- Photo-based meal logging
- Intermittent fasting support
- Visual pattern analysis (color, water content)
- Digestion timing insights
- Meal history recall
- Shareable meal summaries
- Private iCloud syncing
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MealCam is where you save pictures of everything that you eat. It is great for intermittent fasters to observe their feeding window lengths without starting timers. You can shortcut from the Lock Screen or Control Center to capture Meals very conveniently. The UI is focused on images instead of calories. Instead of obsessing over numbers, you can look more holistically at what and when you eat to measure things like: -How many colors did I eat? -How many ingredients did I eat that had water in them? (i.e. fruit/veg vs processed food) -How much time did I give my body to digest before I ate again? While it may seem simple. When you use it consistently it becomes immensely powerful. It may be the catalyst to a skinnier, healthier you because of the insights you gain... ...or simply because of the improved accountability you gain by simply taking a picture of every meal! (You might ask yourself, "should I really be eating this?" as you reach for MealCam) ...it could also uncover a food allergy you never knew you had but was responsible for your bloating and discomfort. --- Focusing on calorie counting can often be misleading because to meet a goal you may eat processed food that has an artificially-engineered low/no calorie number... ...when what your body really wanted was a hydrating piece of fresh fruit! (Colorful fresh produce isn't usually sold with nutrition labels... and yet isn't it the healthiest food for us?) So by focusing instead on things like colors and water content you'll get a more holistic view of what you eat. ...and it's easier! (It only takes seconds to take a picture of a meal) --- With photos of your meals you'll have a broader perspective of what you eat where you can observe patterns you would otherwise be unaware of. You can ask questions that get to the root of problems: - What made my digestion like this? - Why am I bloated? - Did I eat something yesterday that caused me to break out? - Why did I gain weight this month? MealCam allows you to recall what you were eating days, weeks, or months ago. (Unlike our memory which often can only recall the past few meals) ...and the very act of taking a picture of every meal makes you more conscious of what you eat. You can also create a 1 day or 7 day summary of your meals to share with your doctor, personal trainer, or nutrition coach. --- MealCam uses of all the greatest new features in iOS: -It uses iCloud to privately sync your meals between devices. -It has a useful Widget. -It supports multitasking on iPad and works in all orientations. ~Private iCloud Syncing~ Meals can be stored in your private iCloud database where they sync with all your devices. Since MealCam uses iCloud's private database, I as the developer do not have access to them. They're for your eyes only. You also have the choice to store them locally on your device without syncing. ~Widget~ A common thing you may ask yourself is, especially if you are intermittent fasting is: what time was my last meal? The widget is the perfect place to quickly answer this question. It shows a timeline of today's meals. Or if you haven't eaten today, how long it's been since your last meal. You can quickly reference what time your last meal was without opening the app and decide if you're ready to eat again. You can also put an accessory widget with this info on the Lock Screen. ~Multitasking~ MealCam works in all sizes and orientations so you can use it for multitasking on the iPad. You can use MealCam side by side with other apps. For example, when you are looking for recipes online you can use MealCam to see what you've eaten the past couple nights. --- I hope you enjoy MealCam as much as I do! - Kevin (the developer)
Intuitive Eating Buddy
This app guides you toward a more natural way of eating by building awareness of your body's signals. Log meals, hunger, and fullness, and track factors like mood and sleep to understand your eating patterns. It offers supportive challenges to help you make small, sustainable changes for a healthier relationship with food.
- Log meals, hunger, and fullness
- Track mood, workouts, and sleep
- Add notes and tags for context
- Identify patterns over time
- Choose supportive challenges
- Build a better relationship with food
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Did you know that only 2 in 10 people who diet or count calories manage to keep the weight off? And, at the same time, more than 3 in 10 people end up gaining more weight than before they started. So chances are, dieting or counting calories will leave you worse off overall. Eating Buddy offers a different approach Your body is designed to regulate weight naturally. But highly processed foods, dieting, and chronic stress can override its signals to a point where eating feels out of control. That’s where Eating Buddy steps in. It helps you return to a more natural, intuitive way of eating through awareness. How it works Log meals and body cues in seconds: Quickly log meals, hunger, and fullness to build awareness. Track what affects your eating: Note mood, workouts, sleep, and drinks to see what influences how you eat. Reflect and organize: Use notes or tags to add context and categorize meals. See Patterns over time: Eating Buddy helps surface patterns so connections become easier to notice. Choose challenges that fit you: Based on your patterns, pick supportive challenges to focus on one small, meaningful change at a time. If you are tired of starting over with dieting and want a calmer, more sustainable way to relate to food, download Eating Buddy now to get started. -------------------------- We offer monthly and yearly subscription plans for our optional challenges system. Both plans include a one-week free trial. Subscriptions will automatically renew unless canceled within 24 hours before the end of the current period. You can cancel anytime with your iTunes account settings. Any unused portion of a free trial will be forfeited if you purchase a subscription. For more information, see our terms of use at https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula and our privacy policy at https://www.eatingbuddy.app/privacy-policy .
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: Intuitive Eating Buddy at every 4 days against MealCam's every 2 months. Intuitive Eating Buddy also leads on iOS requirement (16.2 vs 18.0). On price, rating, review sentiment and ratings volume 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. MealCam sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and Intuitive Eating Buddy sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $5.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.7 for MealCam against 4.8 for Intuitive Eating Buddy. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 234 and 194 respectively. Written reviews are what separate them: 97% of MealCam's written reviews are positive against 89% of Intuitive Eating Buddy's.
MealCam ships an update every 2 months, Intuitive Eating Buddy every 4 days. The most recent releases landed on October 22, 2026 and November 3, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | MealCam | Intuitive Eating Buddy |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.7 (234 ratings) | 4.8 (194 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 97.0% of reviews — better | 89.3% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 234 — better | 194 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months | Every 4 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, Apple Watch |
| Requires iOS | 18.0 | 16.2 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 28 MB | 70 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Kevin Healy | Sagital SRL |
Customer experience
MealCam
Intuitive Eating Buddy
User reviews
MealCam
From 234 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Simple and easy to use
- 💡 Visual food tracking
- 🚀 Quick logging
- ✨ Fun and playful aesthetic
- ✅ No calorie counting pressure
Room to improve
- 🐛 Moving photos can be disorienting
- 🐛 Camera zoom limitations
- 🤔 Unclear payment model (subscription vs. one-time)
- 🐛 Tiny preview of past days
- 🐛 Need to navigate to see order of photos
Intuitive Eating Buddy
From 194 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Easy to use and understand
- 💡 Focuses on awareness, not calorie counting
- 💡 Non-judgmental approach to eating
- 💡 Helps track potential problem foods
- 💡 Provides structure for intuitive eating
Room to improve
- 🐛 App crashes after logging meals (recent update)
- 🐛 App is useless if 'log meal' button doesn't work
- 🐛 Intro message can be off-putting (e.g., 'don't eat processed food')
- 🐛 Feels like diet culture to some users
- 🐛 Basic reports with no analysis
Bugs and requests
MealCam
Reported bugs
6 issues- Widget not working on homepages
- Bubbles fly around and are hard to make sense of
- App tells users to buy paid version without clear pricing
- Camera does not zoom
- Pictures move and get out of order
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- Tiny preview of past days on a separate screen
Requested features
14 requests- Lock moving bubbles/photos
- Indicator for photos on calendar days
- Dark mode
- See text notes over photos on main page
- Option for static, non-moving photos (gallery view)
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- Notes per day feature to track effects of food
- Widget on homepages
- Ability to repost a meal
- Ability to like/favorite posts
- Make notes easier to view (on the same page as photo)
- Ability to enter a text post without a photo
- Reminder to take pictures
- Background options for aesthetic customization
- Indefinite storage of pictures
Intuitive Eating Buddy
Reported bugs
4 issues- App kicks user out after logging a meal (recent update)
- Nothing happens when clicking 'log meal' button
- Notes and tags not displayed in timeline (initially)
- Dates in timeline are a day behind
Requested features
25 requests- Add 'bites' as a unit of measure
- Allow soft drinks to be added to total drinks
- Discourage eating when 'ravenous'
- Allow selection of multiple hunger levels for prompts
- More articles within the app
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- Community feature for users to connect
- Ability to add movement not tied to Apple Watch (manual add)
- Sync data between devices
- More analysis and recommendations in reports
- Make it a one-time payment ($24.99) instead of subscription
- Add a button for medication/vitamins and water logging
- Create a separate app for medication, vitamins, and water
- Log hydration
- Change 'Satisfied' to 'Slightly full' or 'Satiated' on fullness scale
- Option to choose how you're feeling *after* eating
- Ability to adjust the time of logged food
- More options for describing food amounts (cup, tablespoon)
- Option to take a picture of the meal and add to log
- Change timeline order so most recent meal is at the bottom
- Expand serving/after meal dropdown on 3D Touch or long press
- Option to select how you're feeling without logging meals
- More options for reasons for eating when not hungry
- Integrate with Apple Health for hydration and workout data
- Set reminders for regular check-ins
- Display notes and tags in the timeline
In-app purchases
MealCam
- Upgrade to Paid$6.99
Intuitive Eating Buddy
- Monthly Challenges Plan7 Days trial$5.991 Month
- Yearly Challenges Plan7 Days trial$19.991 Year
Questions
Is MealCam free?
Is Intuitive Eating Buddy free?
Which has better reviews, MealCam or Intuitive Eating Buddy?
Do MealCam or Intuitive Eating Buddy have ads?
Which is updated more often, MealCam or Intuitive Eating Buddy?
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