VerbaFit vs MyFitnessPal

MyFitnessPal has one of the largest consumer food databases, and years of community annotation mean branded portions are usually already there. The barcode scanner is fast. The free tier is genuinely useful, and Premium adds meal planning, custom macros, and an ad-free experience. For pure calorie counting with low entry friction, it is still the benchmark.

The social layer is functional, and the recipe importer accepts URLs from most major recipe publishers, which is a real time-saver for people who cook from blogs.

A food log that keeps 84 USDA nutrient fields per entry, not just the four macros, so you can see vitamin K and magnesium alongside protein. A body scan from three phone photos. A workout plan that switches to a mobility-only day when your symptom log says flare. VerbaFit reads HRV, resting heart rate, and sleep from Apple Health on iPhone and Health Connect on Android. Each metric is available only if your device or its companion app writes it to the system store and you grant permission. There are no direct device or account connections yet, and device-specific scores (such as WHOOP strain, Oura readiness, or Garmin Body Battery) do not come through unless the underlying metric is shared.

An AI coach grounded in what you actually logged, with voice input and spoken replies. And an ankylosing spondylitis program — BASDAI, BASMI, flare log, clinician PDF, biologics directory — that is free for anyone with the diagnosis. None of that exists in MyFitnessPal.

If all you want is a calorie counter with the deepest branded-food database, MyFitnessPal is hard to beat. If you want the log to feed a coach and a plan, or you have AS, VerbaFit is the better fit. Nothing stops you running both while you decide.