MyFitnessPal vs. Levels: Which is the Best Food Tracking App for You?
While MyFitnessPal is one of the original food loggers and sports an extensive database, it's still best at the basics, while Levels food logging adds comprehensive health insights and expert guidance.
When it comes to improving your health and hitting your nutritional and fitness goals, meal logging is one of the most powerful tools available. Tracking what you eat keeps you accountable, can make you more mindful, and helps you connect the dots between the meals you eat and how you feel.
One of the oldest and most popular food-tracking apps is MyFitnessPal, launched in 2005. One of the newest is Levels. While each app allows you to log meals, monitor daily progress, and track your food intake, they take fundamentally different approaches.
In short, MyFitnessPal focuses on calories and weight management, while Levels takes a comprehensive approach to health optimization, connecting your diet to biomarker data, providing expert guidance, and incorporating lifestyle factors like exercise and sleep.
Here's how the pros and cons of each food-tracking app stack up.
The pros of MyFitnessPal
Giant database
The MyFitnessPal app has a vast database of more than 13 million foods, so you'll likely find just about any food---especially packaged and chain-store goods. And if you can't find something, you can create and save it as a custom food. You can also save your go-to recipes.
Free tier
You can start using the basic meal logging and calorie-tracking features for free (with some notable downsides [below]).
Calorie, macro, and micro tracking
When you sign up, you'll input your weight, goal weight, and weekly weight target, whether that means losing, gaining, or maintaining your weight. MyFitnessPal then calculates a daily calorie budget for you.
The app shows you calories as well as macronutrients like carbs, fat, and protein. The in-app nutrition dashboard gives an overview of specific micronutrients---like vitamin A, calcium, and iron---in the foods you've eaten throughout the day. You can record how you feel after each meal in the app's basic built-in diary.
Large community
MyFitnessPal also has active community forums for fitness and exercise, recipes, specific weight goals, success stories, challenges, and more.
Built-in nutrition and movement plans: The app has diet and activity plans related to mindfulness, protein intake, gut health, and other topics. For instance, the "6,000 Steps a Day Plan" is a four-week program that gradually builds up a robust baseline walking habit. The "Ultimate High Protein Plan" provides resources outlining the importance of protein and how to get enough.
Built-in workouts: Although MyFitnessPal is first and foremost a calorie-counting app, it provides some simple built-in workout routines, from bodyweight circuits and stretching to HIIT and kettlebell workouts.
Fitness app integrations: MyFitnessPal integrates with dozens of other apps---including Apple Health, Fitbit, Strava, and MapMyFitness---to log steps and calories burned during workouts and physical activity.
The cons of MyFitnessPal
Confusing, overwhelming database
The downside of letting users add foods to MyFitnessPal's extensive food database is that it can be confusing. You'll encounter several similar or duplicate versions of the same food or meal.
Tedious logging
Logging a meal is also very manual. Even if you opt for the photo-logging feature, you still have to select suggested foods the app provides based on your picture and then input the amount you ate. The recognition capabilities can also miss: the app mistook a bag of mozzarella cheese for cooked white rice, for example.
Limited free tier
The free version of the app not only lacks features like macronutrient meal tracking, meal time stamps, and goal-setting but is also covered in annoying banner-style ads. The Premium version costs $79.99 a year.
No integration of other health data, like glucose or blood labs
MyFitnessPal is primarily food-focused and doesn't support other biomarkers, so it's more difficult to understand how diet impacts health.
Lacks meal scoring and insights into food or meal quality
MyFitnessPal doesn't really have an opinion about what you eat. Its primary focus is calories and weight, and even the macronutrient breakdown is generic. You don't really get customized scoring or insights that go beyond the numbers.
Plans are hard to choose from
Without a more nuanced, holistic view of how your body works and responds to certain foods and activities, it can be challenging to determine which workouts, calorie budgets, or macro ratios are optimal for you. As a result, you're faced with many decisions but little informed data to drive your choices.
Basic workouts
The in-app workouts are geared more toward beginners. If you train regularly or have a routine dialed in, the app's fitness resources will likely add little value to your existing regimen.
The pros of Levels
Because Levels focuses on comprehensive health optimization rather than just calorie counting, it takes a holistic, data-driven approach to nutrition that goes far beyond the "calories-in, calories-out" model. Its goal is to help users improve overall health by connecting diet to biomarkers and providing personalized guidance.
Comprehensive blood testing
What truly sets Levels apart is its comprehensive biomarker testing with licensed clinician review.
Members can choose between a 28-marker panel covering metabolic, cardiovascular, liver, kidney, and inflammatory health, or a 100+ marker panel for deeper insights into hormones, micronutrients, and advanced aging markers. This lets you see objectively how your dietary choices affect your actual health markers over time.
Expert support
Levels Core and Complete members get a licensed clinician review of their biomarker results, along with their lifestyle and glucose data, to learn exactly where they should focus for the most return on their health.
Glucose biosensor integration
In addition to blood testing, Levels integrates with glucose monitors, allowing you to see how meals impact your blood sugar, and monitoring blood sugar spikes, which can drive high biomarkers like insulin and HbA1c.
Super-fast AI-logging via voice memo or photo
Like MyFitnessPal, Levels allows you to easily log meals, but with more intelligent automation. You can describe what you ate in natural language ("omelet with peppers and ham"), take a photo that AI analyzes automatically, use barcode scanning, or save custom meals. The AI-powered logging is significantly faster and more accurate than traditional methods.
Personalized meal insights and recommendations
Levels analyzes each meal and provides personalized feedback on food quality, macro balance, and health impact. You'll get specific ingredient insights, healthy swap suggestions, and recipe recommendations based on your health goals and biomarker results. The system learns your patterns and provides increasingly relevant guidance over time.
Comprehensive habit tracking
Beyond food, Levels tracks daily habits across sleep, exercise, hydration, and stress. The app integrates with Apple Health and Google Fit to automatically import activity and sleep data, then connects these patterns to your biomarker results and food responses.
AI-powered insights across your complete health profile
Levels analyzes your complete data---biomarkers, food patterns, lifestyle habits---to surface meaningful insights like "Your late-night meals are correlating with elevated inflammatory markers" or "Your fiber intake improvements are supporting better cholesterol levels."
Evidence-based health education
Levels' in-app library features 600+ research-backed articles covering health optimization, member success stories, recipes, and scientific insights---all reviewed by medical experts and tailored to support your health journey.
The cons of Levels
No free tier
Levels requires an annual membership of $199, which includes all features---comprehensive blood testing, AI food logging, habit tracking, expert guidance, and optional CGM access. Additional comprehensive blood panels cost $299, and CGMs cost $199/month if you choose to use them.
Smaller food database
Levels' food database is smaller than MyFitnessPal's, though it continues to grow. Some less common foods may require manual entry or description through AI logging.
No built-in workouts or fitness plans
The Levels app primarily focuses on nutrition and health optimization. Although you can track your workouts and see how they affect your biomarkers, there are no in-app workout videos or fitness programs.
Learning curve
With comprehensive biomarker data and personalized insights, Levels provides more complex information than simple calorie counting. Some users may find the depth of data initially overwhelming compared to basic tracking apps.
Which food-tracking app is right for you?
Both MyFitnessPal and Levels can be effective tools for improving your diet and achieving personal goals, but they serve fundamentally different use cases.
Choose MyFitnessPal if:
- Your primary concern is weight management and calorie tracking
- You want a free or low-cost option for basic food logging
- You prefer a large community and social features
- You need built-in workout routines and fitness plans
- You're comfortable with generic nutrition guidance
Choose Levels if:
- You want to understand how your diet affects your actual health markers
- You're interested in comprehensive biomarker testing and tracking
- You want personalized insights based on your unique health profile
- You value expert guidance from registered dietitians
- You're focused on long-term health optimization rather than just weight management
- You want to see objective proof that your dietary changes are improving your health
Both apps serve their intended purposes well, but they target different needs and approaches to health. MyFitnessPal excels at basic food tracking and weight management, while Levels provides a comprehensive health optimization system that connects your diet to measurable health outcomes through biomarker testing, expert guidance, and personalized insights.
Your choice will depend on whether you want simple calorie counting or a complete system for understanding and optimizing your health through data-driven nutrition decisions.
Take control of your health with expert guidance
Levels pairs real-time glucose data and comprehensive lab testing with clinician analysis and personalized support—everything you need to turn insights into real health improvements. Click here to get started with Levels.
