Mealie
Ranked 4 of 4 recipe apps by recommenders
Free recipe manager people use to store recipes and keep their data. Critics find imports fiddly and the interaction clunky.
Free recipe manager people use to store recipes and keep their data. Critics find imports fiddly and the interaction clunky.
8 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 6
- criticize it
- 2
- approval share
- 75%
Recommended in 5 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 6 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 3 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 5 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
Other recipe apps people recommend
The three most recommended other recipe apps, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| OnlyRecipe 2.0 | 24 | 16 | 60% | 1 | 3.9 yrs3 owners | — |
| Serious Eats | 8 | 1 | 89% | 5 | — | — |
| New York Times Cooking | 8 | 6 | 57% | 2 | — | — |
| MealieThis page | 6 | 2 | 75% | 5 | — | — |
What people said
8 of the 10 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“I found the interaction design to be so clunky”
“Shows up a lot of limitations about data captured, but as a starter for humans to tweak it's not bad.”
“The export option worked well enough to get into Mealie and I never looked back.”
“I'll be shopping for what I want to make and then see something is on sale”
“It has rarely if ever failed me.”
“It's great knowing my data won't be paywalled.”
“For storing receipes I like Mealie, and I didn't have to code it myself.”
“spent a whole day fighting imports and bloated setups”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.