Diet App Scorecard September 2026: Which Calorie Tracker Has the Best User Ratings?

Sergey Oreshko - Co-founder and CEO of MyNetDiary

A look at what users actually wrote about 9 calorie tracking apps in September 2026, drawn from 1,148 filtered US App Store reviews. Calo led for a second straight month at 4.74, a series high; MyNetDiary returned to 4.45; Foodvisor posted the largest gain, and Municorn the largest decline, to 1.93, the lowest score any app has posted since May.

Calo had the highest average rating in the Diet App Scorecard for September 2026, 4.74 out of 5, and became the first app since April to lead two months in a row. MyNetDiary followed at 4.45 and Foodvisor at 4.13. If you're comparing calorie tracking app reviews this month, that is the headline, and the rest of this installment is what sits behind it. As the CEO of MyNetDiary, I review user feedback across all major calorie tracking apps monthly to understand what users value and where the category falls short.

The month's two largest moves ran in opposite directions. Foodvisor gained 0.70 points on 63 reviews, with its gamified plant character and short nutrition lessons earning most of the five stars. Municorn fell 0.86 to 1.93 on 30 reviews, the lowest score any app has posted since MyFitnessPal's 1.82 in May; its reviewers most often objected to learning, after a long questionnaire, that the app requires a subscription. MyNetDiary returned to its pre-August range, and the exercise-logging complaints identified in August did not recur. MyFitnessPal improved to 2.88, its best score since the March redesign, although reviewers continued to report problems with the redesigned interface and with Premium features they pay for but could not open.

Accuracy feedback split sharply between the two photo-first apps: Cal AI drew 18 accuracy complaints in 108 reviews, while Calo drew 20 compliments and three complaints, with even the fans noting that portions sometimes need correcting. In total, the Diet App Scorecard analyzed 1,148 filtered reviews across the nine calorie tracking apps that ranked in the US App Store's top 100 Health & Fitness category on September 30, down from 1,772 across ten apps in August. Nearly all of that drop is Simple, which produced 605 reviews in August and had left the top 100 by September 30; across the other nine apps, volume was essentially flat. Cal AI climbed to #4 on the download chart, its highest position in the series, with the paywall still its leading complaint.

In August I said I'd watch three things. MyNetDiary's 4.19: the score returned to 4.45 and the exercise-logging reports stopped, which is consistent with a temporary dip, though the paywall and upgrade-prompt complaints that also rose in August are still present. MacroFactor's two consecutive declines: the slide ended at 3.36, on 28 reviews, three of which still object to layout changes shipped without warning. MyFitnessPal's reversal of its calorie arc: one reviewer thanked the team for changing the display back and another praised the new food log, but a dozen paying subscribers reported being told to "Go Premium" for features they had already bought.

September 2026 Ratings at a Glance

September 2026 ranking, highest to lowest: Calo 4.74, MyNetDiary 4.45, Foodvisor 4.13, Cronometer 3.87, Lose It! 3.56, MacroFactor 3.36, Cal AI 3.04, MyFitnessPal 2.88, Municorn 1.93. These are monthly review ratings recalculated after filtering, not the all-time star ratings the App Store displays.

As the CEO of MyNetDiary, I publish this scorecard with an obvious conflict: my company is part of the category being measured. The same published methodology is applied to every app, the nine app summaries below are AI-generated and presented unedited, and findings about MyNetDiary are reported as calculated, this month and last.

Apps are selected from the US App Store top 100 Health & Fitness category as of September 30, 2026, and listed in download ranking order, because the gap between download rank and review rating is itself a finding. Ratings are calculated from all of that month's written reviews, collected weekly through the month and filtered for duplicates and unrelated content. The App Store's all-time star rating, auto-generated Review Summary, and "Most Helpful" sorting can obscure what's happening right now: Municorn's store page shows 4.7 stars, and its September reviews average 1.93. No app is flagged this month; Calo carries a monitoring note. (To run the five-minute version of this check yourself, see How to Find the Best Calorie Tracker App.)

# = download ranking in the top 100 Health & Fitness category, US App Store, September 30, 2026. Source: US App Store reviews. vs Aug = change from the August 2026 rating. Ratings summarize written reviews posted during September, not all users' star ratings; review counts vary widely between apps, and one review moving from one star to five would shift a 28-review average by about 0.14. Weight-loss and accuracy statements are reviewer reports, not tests. Organic means the review-pattern screening found nothing that warrants caution; it does not authenticate individual reviews. *Calo: 35 of its 179 five-star reviews run 25 characters or fewer, about one in five, against a next-highest share of 11 percent among the nine apps; monitoring continues. Cronometer: 18 of its 99 reviews arrived on September 22, the day a search bug shipped and was fixed. Account age, where cited, is proxied by the reviewer's App Store account ID, which Apple assigns sequentially. See methodology here.

Scorecard Trends to Watch

Here's what stood out in September.

MyNetDiary's rating recovered, and August's exercise-logging complaints did not recur. MyNetDiary scored 4.45 in September, up 0.26 from August and back inside the 4.40 to 4.56 range it held from February through July. The eleven exercise-logging reports that clustered on August 7 through 10 do not appear once in September's 171 reviews. "Easy to use" was again the most frequent praise, appearing in 47 of 171 reviews, and 20 reviewers reported a weight figure, from 13 pounds to more than 75. The two largest complaint groups are about money rather than bugs: seven reviewers said a feature they expected to be free — photo scans, wearable sync, or the trial itself — turned out to be limited or paid, and five objected to the frequency of Premium upgrade prompts, while two others volunteered that the prompts are rarer than in other apps. Four reviewers objected to Autopilot adjusting their calorie budget without being asked; one called a 1,300-calorie suggestion unsafe for an athlete in training, which is a product note for my team. Volume was 171 reviews, down from 193, and the busiest day held 17 reviews across every star level, so there is no spike to disclose.

Cronometer broke on September 22 and fixed it the same day, and the reviews recorded both halves. Cronometer's 4.59.1 update shipped a search bug: typing "egg," "banana," or "chicken" returned nothing, and favorites and custom foods vanished from the diary. Eighteen reviews arrived on September 22, seven of them one star, the sharpest one-day cluster of the month for any app. Three reviewers then updated their reviews within days to say the problem was fixed, one raising a three-star review to five after support resolved it in a few hours; a shorter outage at the start of the month drew a developer reply that another reviewer cited as the reason for five stars. Cronometer finished at 3.87, down 0.08 from August. Its most frequent complaint did not change: 14 reviews mention ads, several describe a video ad that cannot be closed without force-quitting, and one paying subscriber reported seeing ads anyway. An earlier update that ranks packaged and branded products above whole foods in search also drew complaints from reviewers who log raw ingredients. Reviewers still credit nutrient depth, a database they trust, and a free tier that keeps barcode scanning.

GLP-1 feedback covered medication logging, symptom tracking, and unwanted promotions. Sixteen of September's 1,148 reviews mention a GLP-1 medication or peptide, across five of the nine apps: six at MyFitnessPal, five at Lose It!, two each at Calo and MyNetDiary, and one at Cal AI, where a reviewer credited the app alongside "peptides." Cronometer, MacroFactor, Foodvisor, and Municorn had none. At MyFitnessPal, one reviewer reported that the GLP-1 entry feature crashes the app until it is reinstalled, two asked to log oral GLP-1 pills rather than injections only, and three mentioned starting GLP-1 shots while using the app. At Lose It!, two praised having a place to log a GLP-1, one credited the app plus the medication for slow progress, and two complained about GLP-1 advertising inside the app, one asking for a one-time opt-out. Calo's two were a five-star mention of its GLP-1 macro option and a reviewer, 63, proud of losing 14 pounds with "no GLP1, no TRT." MyNetDiary's two were both five-star: a reviewer who added Mounjaro for food noise and asked for digestive-symptom tracking alongside the medication features, and one who listed GLP-1 plans among the diets included. Two further reviewers, at Lose It! and MyNetDiary, said they lost weight without medication but named no drug. The requests are concrete, a dose log that includes pills and symptom tracking, and the objection is specific: advertising for the medication inside an app the reviewer already pays for.

A subscription revealed after onboarding produced the month's lowest score. Calorie Counter & Food Tracker by Municorn averaged 1.93 on 30 reviews, its lowest in the series and the lowest score any app has posted since MyFitnessPal's 1.82 in May. Twenty of the thirty are one star, and sixteen make the same complaint in nearly the same words: the App Store lists the app as free to download, the app runs a long questionnaire (reviewers' estimates run from five to forty-five minutes), and then nothing works without a subscription quoted at $60 to $70 a year. The store page shows 4.7 stars. Cal AI drew the same whole-app complaint from 20 of its 108 reviewers, even as its rating rose for a fifth straight month, and MacroFactor from three of 28. The apps that do have a usable free tier drew a different complaint: four MyFitnessPal reviewers and seven MyNetDiary reviewers said a specific feature they expected to be included was limited or paid. What a reader needs to know is when the subscription requirement becomes clear — before the questionnaire, after it, or on first use of a particular feature. Refunds are the other half of the month's money complaints. Foodvisor's rating rose 0.70 to 4.13, its best in the series, and five of its seven one-star reviewers said they requested refunds within an advertised 14-day window and were unable to obtain them, describing denials from Apple and a support chatbot that could not help. Cal AI reviewers reported charges after cancelling a trial and refunds refused; Lose It! reviewers reported renewals without notice, a lifetime price listed at $49.99 in the App Store and $250 on the website, and an annual plan whose price doubled; Calo reviewers reported a trial they could not cancel and an AI assistant that quoted the wrong price. Only Cronometer's and Lose It!'s September reviews contain no refund complaint.

The other movers. MyFitnessPal's 0.60 gain to 2.88 is its largest one-month rise in the series and its best score since March; one-star reviews fell from nearly half of its August body to a third of September's 297, and five-star reviews are nearly another third. The complaints are the same ones — 56 reviews mention the update, layout, or interface, 14 the barcode paywall, 13 ads, and 14 streak pop-ups or gamification — and the Premium-access bug from August's final week continued, with a dozen paying subscribers reporting features locked behind a "Go Premium" prompt. MacroFactor's 0.57 rise to 3.36 ended a two-month slide, but the September figure rests on 28 reviews. Lose It! gave back most of July's gain, 3.56 on 147 reviews; reviewers named water tracking, step counting, the calorie budget, and exercise calories as features that used to be free, alongside the barcode scanner, and three paying subscribers reported ads or lifetime-plan pitches. Cal AI's fifth straight gain, to 3.04, came as it reached #4 on the download chart, its highest in the series; the climb has tracked a rising share of five-star weight-loss stories rather than fewer complaints. Calo, at 4.74, moved 0.04 and kept the top spot, with the monitoring note described in the table footnote retained; only 5 of its 179 five-star reviews come from account IDs in the newest five percent of September's reviewer pool, and its criticism is specific.

If you want to see how these trends developed, the July 2026 scorecard and August 2026 scorecard cover the earlier months.

What Users Said About Cal AI in September 2026

Average rating: 3.04 / 5 (August: 2.79) | Reviews analyzed: 108 | Filtered: 0 random/unrelated | Chart position: #4 | Review patterns: Organic

Reviews split sharply between one- and five-star ratings. The largest complaint group concerns access: a lengthy questionnaire ends at a mandatory trial or subscription, and many feel the app was presented as free. Accuracy comes next: photo estimates that undercount restaurant meals or inflate single items, barcode and label scans that need correction, and a Food Score that penalizes foods the app itself misread. Others report charges after cancelled trials, refused refunds, crashes, lost data, a $10 streak-restore fee, and unresponsive support. Five-star reviewers, about two in five, call photo logging simple and affordable and report losses of 20 to 80 pounds. Review patterns appear organic; both sides are specific, with no duplicate text or posting bursts.

What Users Said About MyFitnessPal in September 2026

Average rating: 2.88 / 5 (August: 2.28) | Reviews analyzed: 297 | Filtered: 2 random/unrelated | Chart position: #9 | Review patterns: Organic

Reviews are predominantly negative and center on the redesigned interface: more taps to log, macros and goal tiles buried, a food diary that resets to the top after each entry, and removed restaurant menus, with many long-time subscribers requesting a legacy layout. Paywalls follow: barcode scanning and custom macro and calorie goals now require Premium, and ads interrupt logging. A recurring technical complaint is Premium subscriptions the app fails to recognize, alongside freezes, logouts, lost entries, and iOS 27 launch failures; gamification pop-ups and streak prompts draw irritation. Five-star reviewers, about a third, cite the vast food database, accountability, and losses from 16 to well over 100 pounds, some after a decade of use. Review patterns appear organic.

What Users Said About Cronometer in September 2026

Average rating: 3.87 / 5 (August: 3.95) | Reviews analyzed: 99 | Filtered: 0 random/unrelated | Chart position: #15 | Review patterns: Organic

Most reviewers rate the app highly for accuracy, detailed micronutrient breakdowns, a free tier that keeps barcode scanning, and quick support; reported losses run 10 to 40 pounds, and some adopted it through nutrition courses. The month's defining event was an update that reordered search toward packaged products over whole foods, then on September 22 broke search and hid favorites and custom foods; eighteen reviews landed that day, and several reviewers later noted the fix arrived within hours. Other complaints cite intrusive, sometimes unclosable video ads in the free version, a cluttered interface needing many taps, Gold entitlement glitches, watch-widget refresh failures, and mandatory account creation. Review patterns appear organic; the one-day cluster tracks a documented bug rather than manipulation.

What Users Said About MyNetDiary in September 2026

Average rating: 4.45 / 5 (August: 4.19) | Reviews analyzed: 171 | Filtered: 3 random/unrelated | Chart position: #37 | Review patterns: Organic

Reviews are overwhelmingly positive. Users praise ease of use, fast barcode scanning, a broad food and restaurant database, and a free version most describe as fully functional; many report losses of 13 to over 75 pounds, several over years of use, and some cite the meal photo feature, widget, and nutrient charts. The leading complaint is frequent Premium upgrade pop-ups, which a few reviewers call ads. Others object that meal scans, wearable sync, or the trial feel paywalled, that Autopilot recalibrates calories without consent, that the app centers weight loss over general nutrition, or that support went unanswered; one reported an unrecognized subscription and another objected to location access. Review patterns appear organic, with volume spread across the month.

What Users Said About Municorn in September 2026

Average rating: 1.93 / 5 (August: 2.79) | Reviews analyzed: 30 | Filtered: 1 random/unrelated | Chart position: #52 | Review patterns: Organic

Reviews are predominantly one-star, and the dominant complaint is a single issue: the app is listed as free but demands a subscription immediately after a long questionnaire, which many describe as deceptive. Billing grievances follow: charges after cancellation, refused refunds, and prices quoted at $60 to $70 a year. Functional complaints cite clunky navigation, a recipe builder that imports random online recipes, no fiber or micronutrient display, curved barcodes that will not scan, a layout cut off on newer iPhones, and relentless pop-ups. The few positive reviewers call tracking effortless, praise barcode scanning with gram entry, and ask for manual macro editing and recipe saving. Review patterns appear organic; the one-star cluster reflects a shared grievance rather than coordination.

What Users Said About Lose It! in September 2026

Average rating: 3.56 / 5 (August: 3.79) | Reviews analyzed: 147 | Filtered: 0 random/unrelated | Chart position: #53 | Review patterns: Organic

Reviews lean positive but divide clearly. Long-term users, many with ten or more years of history, praise ease of use, customizable goals and macros, recipes, device syncing, friend sharing, and lifetime membership, and report losses from 17 to over 100 pounds. The leading complaint is features moving behind the paywall: barcode scanning, macro and nutrient breakdowns, water and step tracking, and the calorie budget. Next come ads and upgrade prompts, including GLP-1 promotions and lifetime-plan pitches shown to paying subscribers. Others report unannounced renewals and price increases, a lifetime price far above the listed one, chatbot-only support, freezing and lag, crowdsourced database errors, a recipe builder that duplicates entries, and exercise calories that barely register. Review patterns appear organic.

What Users Said About MacroFactor in September 2026

Average rating: 3.36 / 5 (August: 2.79) | Reviews analyzed: 28 | Filtered: 0 random/unrelated | Chart position: #57 | Review patterns: Organic

A small, divided sample. Positive reviewers describe low-friction logging, an AI estimate tool for foods missing from the database, strong recipe handling, a weight projection that landed within a tenth of a pound, a bug-free design, and responsive support; reported losses include 20 and 45 pounds, and several are multi-year users. Negatives split between access and usability: a long onboarding that ends at an $11 monthly paywall with no free use, a layout some find overcomplicated, and frequent unannounced UI changes. Others cite nutrition data that does not match package labels, weak micronutrient coverage, text search that fails, a conservative coaching algorithm that stalls a bulk, slow support, and a renewal charged without consent. Review patterns appear organic.

What Users Said About Calo in September 2026

Average rating: 4.74 / 5 (August: 4.70) | Reviews analyzed: 205 | Filtered: 0 random/unrelated | Chart position: #63 | Review patterns: Organic*

Reviews are overwhelmingly positive. Users praise photo scanning that needs little correction, voice and text logging, barcode and label scans, watch syncing, and low pricing, including a $20 annual plan; dozens report losses of 5 to 70 pounds, and several say it is the first tracker they have stuck with. The few negatives cite photo estimates that misjudge portions or drinks, poor search for restaurant foods, trials or renewals that could not be cancelled, an AI assistant that misquoted the price, watch sync failures, and cost disclosed after onboarding. Review patterns largely appear organic: one in five five-star reviews is a brief, generic phrase, but the remainder and the criticism are specific and reviewer accounts are predominantly long-standing; monitoring continues.

What Users Said About Foodvisor in September 2026

Average rating: 4.13 / 5 (August: 3.43) | Reviews analyzed: 63 | Filtered: 0 random/unrelated | Chart position: #89 | Review patterns: Organic

Reviews are mostly positive. Users enjoy the gamified character that grows with points, the colorful design, meal faces, short nutrition classes, next-meal suggestions, easy photo and barcode logging, and protein and fiber visibility; many report losses of 9 to 25 pounds. The negative share concentrates on refunds: several bought annual plans, requested refunds within the advertised 14-day window, and were refused by both Apple and chatbot-only support, with one describing a spin-the-wheel discount. Functional complaints cite calorie estimates and smart-add results that are often wrong, meals that cannot be edited after submission, a non-customizable paid meal plan, macros locked behind payment, confusing navigation, water tracking that resets, and coaching that praises eating well below goal. Review patterns appear organic.

Summary

In September 2026, the highest-rated app in the Diet App Scorecard was Calo at 4.74, a series high and its second straight month on top, followed by MyNetDiary at 4.45 and Foodvisor at 4.13. The lowest was Municorn at 1.93; MyFitnessPal, at 2.88, is off the bottom of the table for the first time since July.

Next month's scorecard will cover October 2026, and I'll be watching three things: whether Calo's share of brief five-star reviews keeps rising, whether MyFitnessPal's 2.88 holds now that its one-star wave has thinned, and whether Municorn's 1.93 prompts any change to a listing that says free. The complete methodology is published here.

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