Calorie Counter by fatsecret reviews
What users love and hate · 500 reviews analyzed · ★ 4.4
A free calorie counter with a huge food database and barcode scanner for people losing weight — its core tension is that a recent database "clean-up" wiped out familiar products, breaking the very thing loyal users loved it for.
What users love
Rich database and barcode scanner — the main reason people stay
When the database works, it covers almost every local brand — from Australia and New Zealand to South Africa and India. Barcode scanning and search make logging fast and aren't locked behind a paywall.
free, functional, and a thorough database.
Their database is amazing for AU users. I have found almost all the known Aussie brands I frequently purchase.
It features a massive database
The free tier genuinely does the job — no ads, no paywall torture
Users compare it to MyFitnessPal and Noom and stay precisely because calorie, weight and macro tracking — even custom recipes — are free, with no intrusive ads.
This is the only free app I've found that allows users to track daily calorie intake, weight loss progress, and physical activities without requiring a subscription.
Barcode scanning included in the free version.
this app is easier to use than Noom, and has all of their features. And the best part is that it's free!
Drives real weight loss and builds food awareness
Concrete kilo- and pound-level results recur across reviews: people see what they eat, hold a deficit, and lose weight over weeks and months. The daily logging itself reshapes habits.
Lost 30kg over 2 years mostly by following a routine of entering my meals each day
I have improved my health, lost over 40 lbs, lowered my BP, (off BP meds.).
tracking has helped me to lose 10lbs. in 3 weeks.
What users hate
Database clean-up wiped familiar products — breaking what people loved it for
Search stopped finding products that used to be logged daily — even Coca-Cola and 2.5% milk. Support calls it a "clean-up to increase quality," but for users it means hand-entering macros or switching apps.
Many food items have just disappeared. Without any explanation. It's almost impossible find anything now.
Now it won't even find 2.5% milk!!!
the app can't even find Coca-Cola, even though it used to be good
No quick calorie entry — forced to break a meal into ingredients
Logging homemade food or quickly adding "100 calories" forces you to build a whole recipe and enter every ingredient. For family cooking and non-store dishes it becomes math at every single meal.
No ability to simply add calorie intake without jumping through a million hoops adding every single ingredient and amount used.
If you want a custom entry, you have to create a whole recipe.
should just be able to add 100 cal without having to tie it to some food for quick on the go entries
Forced account and onboarding quiz drive people off at the door
You can't start without registering and answering a long profile quiz. Some people delete the app before ever using it, unwilling to hand over data just for a simple calorie counter.
requires you to create an account, does not allow you to opt out of data collection
You have to answer a barrage of useless questions to setup an unnecessary profile before you can start using the app.
all i want is a calorie counter, not to have to answer quiz after quiz about my life
Premium disappoints — paying adds almost nothing over free
Premium buyers complain photo recognition and text input don't work, that you can't save favorites, and that "buy premium" pop-ups keep appearing even after they've paid.
stick with the free version. Not worth payed version. Can't save favorites.
Photo recognition and text input do not work at all.
I paid for premium. the app still launches popups asking me to buy premium.
Portion system forces manual math for simple foods
You can't pick how many units you ate — you must change "servings" where 1 serving = 3 cookies. Many products come only in grams or per 100g with no convenient serving size, turning tracking into a calculator exercise.
the portion system makes you do math for simple foods like cookies. Tracking food shouldn’t require a calculator.
You CAN'T PICK HOW MANY UNITS YOU ATE INDIVIDUALLY, YOU NEED TO CHANGE THE SERVINGS.
Almost every product from my region has no convenient serving size, only values per 100g.
Barcode scanner and recognition return wrong data
The scanner often shows the wrong flavor or wrong calories, and user corrections tied to a barcode don't get saved — rescanning brings back the same error. Calorie discrepancies pile up over a day.
my tortillas said 190 scanned it the app said 150 huge difference
corrections to nutrition tables for items don't get saved
I scan the barcode, and it comes up the wrong flavor or wrong nutrition info
Post-update slowdowns, freezes and broken layout
After updates the app starts lagging, freezing on the loading screen during search, and its layout breaks — buttons shift, the add-food screen overlaps. What used to take seconds now takes minutes.
now it's riddled with bug where it become slow and randomly become loading screen when searching and adding meal
app layout went crazy (buttons higher than they used to)
What used to take seconds now takes minutes.
Entries vanish — diary and a paid year can disappear
People return to past records and find the history wiped though they never uninstalled. One user paid for a year, logged a couple of days of food, and it was all gone by evening.
all the previous records were gone, however i did not uninstalled the app
everything was gone.. nothing for the past two days. I've been ripped off and I paid for a year's subscription.
It's too easy to delete entry with accidental swipe
Russian and local entries hidden — logging local food turned painful
After an update products stopped being found in Russian (English still works), and local dishes and food from local restaurants vanished from the base. Even plain chicken fillet has to be entered by hand.
Еда в последнем обновлении перестала находиться на русском, на английском находит.
Скрыли практически все русскоязычные записи без объявления, теперь чтобы затрекать даже обычное куриное филе нужно вручную вписывать бжу.
most of local poducts, food from the local restraunts have been wiped out
Everything geared to weight loss — no room for maintaining or gaining
The app assumes the goal is weight loss and makes no allowance for people who want to maintain or gain. Several add that its recommended calorie target is simply wrong for their goals.
This was one of those apps that makes no allowances for individuals who just want to maintain or gain weight. Everything is geared towards weight loss.
their RDI for maximum weight loss is literally my maintenance calories
Apps that are centered around weight loss are really a red flag to me.