Hosted free plan or your own server
Recipe apps split into two camps. Hosted apps are ready in a minute and cap the free plan by recipe count or import count; self-hosted open source apps have no caps but need a server, usually a Docker container on a home machine or a small VPS.
| Kind | Examples | Free limit | What you give up |
|---|---|---|---|
| Self-hosted, open source | Mealie, Tandoor Recipes, Grocy, KitchenOwl, Nextcloud Cookbook | None; you run it | Setup, backups and updates are your job |
| Open source with a free hosted version | RecipeSage (free hosted, no ads, no paywall), Tandoor (hosted free plan with 10 recipes) | RecipeSage none stated; Tandoor 1 member, 10 recipes | Your recipes sit on the project's server |
| Hosted free plans | Saffron (25 recipes), Cookmate (60 recipes, ads), Pestle (15 recipes), ReciMe (5 imports a week), Samsung Food, Crouton, Eat This Much | Recipe or import caps, paid features | Caps hit after a few months of saving |
| Plain text | Cooklang | None; files in a folder | You write recipes in a markup syntax |
If you already run Nextcloud or a home server, Mealie and Tandoor are the usual choices: both import from recipe websites, plan meals and build shopping lists, and both publish Docker images (Mealie, Tandoor). RecipeSage is the easiest way to get the same features without a server: the project calls its hosted version free with no ads, no paywall and no tracking (recipesage.com).
What to check before you import 200 recipes
- Import source. Website import reads the structured recipe data most food blogs publish. Tandoor imports from "thousands of websites supporting ld+json or microdata", Nextcloud Cookbook warns that sites without schema.org Recipe data fail. Social video import (Instagram, TikTok) is a separate feature: Pestle and ReciMe name it, most others do not.
- The cap. Saffron's free plan stops at 25 recipes, Pestle at 15, Cookmate at 60, ReciMe at 5 imports a week. Decide whether you collect or cook: 25 recipes cover a month of dinners.
- Export. Look for an export before you depend on an app. RecipeSage imports from Paprika, Mela and Crouton files as well as JSON-LD and CSV, which makes it a good landing place when you leave another app.
- Meal plan to list. The useful part is the chain recipe, plan, list. Mealie groups the list by store section, KitchenOwl plans the week and splits the expenses afterwards, Eat This Much generates the plan from calorie and diet settings and keeps the automatic grocery list for Premium.
Scaling is the one thing every app does differently. Our recipe scaler rescales any ingredient list for a new number of servings, cups to grams and the cooking measurement converter handle imported US recipes, and the unit price calculator compares pack sizes on the shopping list.
Privacy and licenses
Self-hosted apps keep your recipes, meal plans and shopping habits on your machine. The licenses differ in one detail worth knowing: Mealie, KitchenOwl and Nextcloud Cookbook are AGPL-3.0, Grocy is MIT, Tandoor is AGPL v3 with a commons clause that restricts selling it, and RecipeSage is AGPL-3.0 for non-commercial use with commercial licensing on request. None of that affects a household install. Hosted apps store your data under your account; the Apple listings of Pestle, Crouton and Samsung Food show what each collects.
For a paper backup, our printable recipe cards, the meal planner, the grocery list and the pantry inventory are free PDFs. Grocy covers the pantry side digitally with stock tracking, and our garden and plant apps list continues the household theme.
Frequently asked questions
Which recipe manager is free without a recipe limit?
The self-hosted open source apps Mealie, Tandoor Recipes, Grocy, KitchenOwl and Nextcloud Cookbook have no caps because you run them. RecipeSage offers a free hosted version with no ads and no paywall. Among hosted apps, Samsung Food says it is free on iPhone, iPad and web, and Crouton's listing states no free recipe limit.
Which apps import recipes from websites?
Mealie imports from a URL, Tandoor from websites with ld+json or microdata, KitchenOwl stores recipes from the web, RecipeSage imports from links, photos and PDFs. Saffron, Cookmate (bookmarklet), Pestle, Crouton and Samsung Food import from websites too. ReciMe focuses on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Pinterest and YouTube.
What do I need to self-host Mealie or Tandoor?
Both publish Docker images; Tandoor also lists Unraid, Synology and Kubernetes, and Grocy needs PHP 8.5 with SQLite. Nextcloud Cookbook runs inside an existing Nextcloud, and its readme says it is not production ready yet. KitchenOwl's backend is a Flask app with Docker images on Docker Hub.
Which free app plans the week and writes the shopping list?
Mealie, Tandoor, KitchenOwl, RecipeSage, Grocy, Saffron, Cookmate, Samsung Food and Crouton all include a meal plan and a shopping list on their free tier. Pestle keeps meal plans for Pro, and Eat This Much generates daily plans for free but reserves the automatic grocery list and weekly plans for Premium.
Are there recipe managers for iPhone only?
Pestle is free forever on iPhone and iPad with 15 recipes, and Crouton runs on iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Apple Vision. Samsung Food, Saffron, Cookmate, ReciMe, KitchenOwl and RecipeSage have Android apps as well, and the self-hosted apps run in any browser.