Apps Like MyFitnessPal: How to Build One, Features, and Alternatives

With millions of people becoming more health-conscious, fitness tracking apps like MyFitnessPal have gained widespread popularity. If you're considering building a similar fitness and wellness app, this guide will walk you through everything you need to know, from must-have features and market competitors to how to actually build the app.

Let’s get into more details.

Why Apps Like MyFitnessPal Are So Popular

MyFitnessPal and similar health-tracking apps have gained massive popularity by offering an easy yet powerful way to monitor nutrition, exercise, and overall wellness. Their success stems from a combination of convenience, personalization, and growing health awareness among users.

Key Reasons for Their Popularity

• Simplified Health Tracking: These apps make it effortless to log meals, count calories, and track workouts, removing the guesswork from fitness and diet management.
• Personalized Goals: Users can set tailored targets for weight loss, muscle gain, or managing health conditions like diabetes, keeping them motivated.
• Growing Health Consciousness: Post-COVID, more people are prioritizing wellness, driving demand for digital fitness solutions.
• Integration with Wearables: Compatibility with devices like Fitbit and Apple Health enhances user experience by syncing real-time data.
• Community & Accountability: Many apps include social features, challenges, and coaching, fostering engagement and long-term commitment.

Market Potential & Growth

The fitness app industry is booming, with impressive stats (Business of Apps):

• $3.98 billion in revenue (an 11.1% increase from 2023)
• 345 million active users worldwide
• 850 million downloads, reflecting massive consumer interest

The broader fitness app market was valued at $10.59 billion in 2024, with a projected 13.88% CAGR growth through 2030, fueled by:

• Rising health awareness and disposable income
• Increased adoption of wearable technology
• Demand for customized meal and workout plans

According to Business of Apps, fitness apps saw 858 million downloads in 2023, highlighting their widespread appeal.

Opportunities for Businesses

For companies, this booming market presents lucrative opportunities, including:

• Subscription models (premium features, coaching)
• In-app purchases (meal plans, workout programs)
• Partnerships (with gyms, nutrition brands, wearables)

Major MyFitnessPal Alternatives in the Industry

Before building a MyFitnessPal-style app, it’s important to understand what else is out there, what features they offer, how they engage users, and where your app can stand out. Below is a breakdown of some of the top fitness and nutrition tracking apps that compete with MyFitnessPal.

1. Lose It!

• Focus: Calorie counting and social motivation
• Strengths: Photo-based food logging, group challenges and social sharing
• Weakness: Less comprehensive coaching or workout planning
• Opportunity: Blend accurate logging with expert support and insights.

2. Cronometer

• Focus: Advanced nutrition tracking
• Strengths: Great for health-conscious and medical users, Deep micronutrient tracking (e.g., magnesium, zinc, B12)
• Weakness: Not beginner-friendly
• Opportunity: Simplify complex nutrition info for everyday users.

3. Lifesum

• Focus: Healthy lifestyle through balanced eating
• Strengths: Diet-specific plans (Keto, Paleo, Mediterranean, etc.), visual meal scoring and habit tracking, beautiful, modern design
• Weakness: Premium locked features limit free usage
• Opportunity: Create flexible plans with better free-tier value or freemium coaching.

4. Yazio

• Focus: Meal planning and intermittent fasting
• Strengths: Offers pre-built meal plans and fasting timers, tracks calories, macros, and exercise, clean, motivational UI
• Weakness: Less personalized for advanced fitness users
• Opportunity: Combine fasting tools with wearable integration and custom workouts.

5. MacroFactor

• Focus: Data-driven macro tracking and coaching
• Strengths: Offers precise macro tracking using a sophisticated algorithm, real-time adjustments based on progress, backed by expert coaching
• Weakness: Higher learning curve for beginners, subscription required for full access
• Opportunity: Simplify data presentation and provide more beginner-friendly onboarding.

6. FatSecret

• Focus: Calorie counting and community support
• Strengths: Large food database, easy-to-use calorie and nutrition tracker, strong community forums and recipe sharing
• Weakness: UI is less modern and polished compared to competitors
• Opportunity: Modernize design and add AI-powered personalized insights.

7. Noom

• Focus: Psychology-based weight loss and habit change
• Strengths: Behavior change coaching + cognitive training, human + AI coaching, daily education to reframe habits
• Weakness: Subscription-heavy model, less real-time tracking or fitness feature depth
• Opportunity: Build a lighter version that balances coaching with functionality (e.g., nutrition + workout + mindfulness).

8. Fitbod

• Focus: Personalized strength training
• Strengths: AI-generated workout plans based on user progress, tracks muscle fatigue and recovery
• Weakness: Doesn’t offer food tracking
• Opportunity: Combine training + nutrition + recovery features.

9. HealthifyMe

• Focus: Indian food tracking + coaching
• Strengths: Large Indian food database, AI assistant (Ria) and access to real coaches
• Weakness: Targeted mostly at Indian users
• Opportunity: Expand similar features globally with localized food databases.

10. MyNetDiary

• Focus: Detailed tracking with fast logging
• Strengths: Intuitive food diary, barcode scanner, clean UI, strong premium feature set
• Weakness: Less community and coaching features
• Opportunity: Pair data tracking with personalized support for better retention.

Each of these apps tackles the health and wellness journey from a slightly different angle, whether it's psychology, AI personalization, diet plans, or social motivation. Understanding what’s out there helps you:

• Identify gaps in the market
• Choose a unique angle (e.g., AI food tracking, fitness + mental health, regional food support)
• Prioritize features for your MVP or full product

Core Features Your App Similar to MyFitnessPal Should Include

When developing a fitness and wellness app like MyFitnessPal, it’s important to focus on practical features that help users build healthy habits over time. Below is a breakdown of the essential features your app should offer:

1. User Profiles and Personal Goals

Your app should start with a smooth and simple onboarding experience.

Key components:

• Sign-up/login options: Email, social login (Google, Apple, Facebook), or mobile number.
• User profiles: Collect basic personal details like age, gender, weight, height, and fitness level.
• Goal setting: Let users define what they want - lose weight, gain muscle, maintain weight, or improve general health.
• Activity level input: Sedentary, lightly active, moderately active, or highly active.
• Baselines and targets: Use this info to calculate recommended calorie intake and fitness goals.

Personalization is what keeps users coming back. These details allow the app to tailor meal plans, daily calorie limits, and workout suggestions.

2. Food Diary and Calorie Tracking

This is the heart of a nutrition-focused app.

Must-have features:

• Barcode scanner: For quick logging of packaged foods.
• Nutritional database: Access a large, reliable food database with information on calories, macros (protein, carbs, fats), and micronutrients (vitamins, minerals).
• Manual food entry: For homemade meals or local foods.
• Voice-based input: Helpful for users on the go.
• Meal categories: Breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks.
• Custom recipes: Users can build and save meals they frequently eat.
• Daily nutritional breakdown: A dashboard showing calories consumed, remaining, and breakdown of nutrients.

Easy and quick food logging helps users stay accountable and build consistency.

3. Exercise and Activity Tracking

Your app should allow users to log workouts and track activity levels.

Key capabilities:

• Workout logging: Support for cardio, strength training, HIIT, yoga, and other popular workouts.
• Wearable syncing: Connect with devices like Fitbit, Apple Watch, Garmin, etc., to pull in workout and step data.
• Step tracking: Built-in pedometer integration or sync with mobile sensors.
• Calorie burn estimates: Based on activity type, user profile, and duration.

Tracking both input (calories consumed) and output (calories burned) helps users understand their energy balance.

4. Progress Monitoring and Analytics

Help users visualize their journey.

Features to include:

• Weight tracking: Users can log their weight and body measurements over time.
• Progress graphs: Visualize trends in weight loss/gain, macro intake, or exercise consistency.
• Goal tracking dashboard: Show how close they are to meeting their weekly/monthly goals.
• Macronutrient summaries: Daily and weekly protein, carb, and fat intake.
• Exportable reports: Useful for sharing progress with coaches or doctors.

Progress tracking provides motivation, celebrates small wins, and highlights areas for improvement.

5. Community and Social Features

People stay more motivated when they feel connected.

Ideas to consider:

• Challenges: 7-day water intake challenge, 30-day workout challenge, etc.
• Groups and forums: Users can join interest-based groups (e.g., keto followers, beginners, runners).
• Friend system: Users can add friends, share updates, and view each other's progress (with privacy controls).
• Progress sharing: Optional ability to post updates on social media or within the app community.

Community fosters accountability and long-term engagement.

6. Notifications and Smart Reminders

Gently nudge users to stay on track.

What to include:

• Meal time reminders: Custom alerts based on the user's schedule.
• Water intake reminders: Push notifications to encourage hydration.
• Inactivity nudges: Alerts when a user hasn’t logged meals or activity for the day.
• Goal-based alerts: Like "You’ve reached 75% of your daily step goal!"

Timely reminders help users build healthy habits and reduce drop-off.

7. Integrations

Modern users often use multiple apps and devices.

Key integrations:

• Apple Health and Google Fit: For pulling in fitness data from other sources.
• Wearable devices: Fitbit, Garmin, Apple Watch, etc.
• Smart scales: For automatic weight updates.
• Nutrition APIs: For up-to-date food database access.

Integration simplifies user effort by syncing data they’re already tracking elsewhere.

8. Subscriptions and Monetization Models

You can offer value through a free model while providing advanced tools via subscriptions.

Structure to consider:

• Free version: Core features like food logging, activity tracking, and basic analytics.
• Premium plan: Include advanced features like:
• Personalized meal plans
• AI-powered coaching
• Ad-free experience
• Detailed analytics and reports
• 1-on-1 expert support or chat-based coaching

Subscriptions allow you to generate steady revenue while delivering more value to serious users.

9. Optional (but Valuable) Add-Ons

If your budget and timeline allows, these features can set your app apart from competitors:

• AI-powered food recognition: Users snap a photo of a meal, and the app estimates calories and macros.
• Smart recipe suggestions: Suggest meals based on available ingredients or dietary preferences.
• Custom workout plans: AI or coach-created routines tailored to user goals.
• Mental wellness tools: Meditation, stress tracking, and mood journaling.

These extras create a more holistic wellness experience beyond just calories and workouts.

How to Build an App Like MyFitnessPal: A Step-by-Step Process

Building an app like MyFitnessPal is about understanding your users, planning the right features, and launching a product that’s both helpful and sustainable. Here’s a simplified roadmap of how the development process typically works for similar apps like myfitnesspal:

Step 1: Define the Scope

Before any development begins, you need clarity on what kind of app you're building.

Ask yourself:

• Who is this app for? Are you targeting everyday fitness enthusiasts, people with specific health goals (like weight loss or muscle gain), or individuals managing medical conditions?
• What’s the core focus? Will your app lean more toward nutrition tracking, workout planning, or a combination of both?
• Do you plan to offer extras? Like coaching, personalized recommendations, community support, or wearable device integration?

This step is all about defining your app’s purpose, audience, and unique value. Having a clear direction here saves time and cost later.

Step 2: Choose the Right Fitness App Development Partner

You don’t need to figure it all out alone. Partnering with an experienced development team can make the process smoother and faster.

Look for a team that:

• Is well-versed in building fitness and wellness apps.
• Understands how to design apps that users stick with long term.
• Can help you with feature planning, design, development, testing, and support.
• Focuses not just on coding, but on your business goals like retention, monetization, and user growth.

At our company, for example, we work closely with founders, startups, and brands to help shape and deliver high-quality digital products that people actually use.

Step 3: Design the User Experience (UX/UI)

A great app is more than just functional, it needs to feel good to use every day.

Key UX/UI principles for apps like MyFitnessPal:

• Simplicity: Avoid clutter. Keep actions like logging meals or workouts just a few taps away.
• Visual motivation: Use clean charts, progress visuals, and friendly reminders to keep users motivated.
• Personalization: Let users set preferences, choose goals, and tailor the experience to fit their lifestyle.

Your design should make healthy choices easier, not feel like a chore.

Step 4: Backend Development and Feature Implementation

This is the stage where the app takes shape behind the scenes. Here’s what goes into it:

• Database integration: Connect your app to a reliable food database for nutritional information. You can also allow custom food entry and barcode scanning.
• Activity tracking: Enable logging of workouts, steps, or connect with fitness trackers like Fitbit, Apple Health, or Google Fit.
• User accounts: Build secure user login systems with cloud-based data storage.
• Push notifications: Set up smart reminders for meals, workouts, water intake, etc.
• Analytics and reporting: Help users track their progress over time with charts, summaries, and insights.

The backend must be secure, reliable, and scalable, so it can support long-term growth as more users join. 

Step 5: Testing

Testing ensures your app works smoothly and provides a great experience across all devices.

We focus on:

• Functional testing: Making sure all features work as expected (logging, syncing, reminders, etc.)
• Cross-device testing: Ensuring compatibility on various screen sizes and operating systems (iOS and Android).
• User experience testing: Getting real feedback from early users to catch confusing elements or bugs.
• Security testing: Especially important if you’re handling personal health data.

A buggy or confusing app can quickly turn users away, even if the idea is solid, so testing isn’t a step to skip.

Step 6: Launch and Improve

When the app is stable and ready, it’s time to launch, but think of it as the beginning, not the end.

Start with a Minimum Viable Product (MVP), a version with just the core features. This lets you:

• Get real feedback from users
• See how people are using the app
• Learn what’s working and what’s not

From there:

• Continuously improve the app based on feedback and behavior
• Fix bugs, fine-tune features, and add new functionality in updates
• Explore partnerships, community building, and marketing opportunities

An app like MyFitnessPal grows over time, what matters is starting strong and improving with user insights.

Tech Stack Suggestions for Building a MyFitnessPal Alternative

1. Frontend (Mobile App Development)

Choose a cross-platform framework so your app works on both Android and iOS with a single codebase.

Recommended:

• React Native: Backed by Meta, ideal for building smooth and responsive apps.
• Flutter: Developed by Google, great for beautiful UI and fast performance.

Saves development time and cost while delivering native-like performance on both platforms.

2. Backend (Server-side Logic)

This handles user management, food logs, workout data, reminders, and integrations.

Recommended:

• Node.js: Great for handling real-time data and scalable applications.
• Python (Django/Flask): Excellent for rapid development, data handling, and AI integration.
• Ruby on Rails: Fast to build with and developer-friendly for startups and MVPs.

A solid backend keeps your app fast, reliable, and easy to scale as your user base grows.

3. Database (Data Storage & Management)

Choose a secure and scalable database to store user profiles, logs, settings, etc.

Recommended:

• MongoDB: A flexible NoSQL database, great for fast development and semi-structured data like food logs.
• PostgreSQL: A powerful relational database with strong data integrity and query capabilities.

Proper data management is key to performance, analytics, and user experience.

4. Third-Party APIs & Integrations

These bring in external data and expand functionality.

Useful APIs to integrate:

• USDA Food Database: For verified nutritional values.
• Google Fit & Apple HealthKit: To sync fitness and health data.
• Fitbit API, Garmin API, Withings API: For wearable integration.
• OpenAI (optional): For AI-powered food or workout suggestions.

Integrations help reduce manual effort for users and offer more accurate insights.

5. Cloud Hosting and Infrastructure

Choose a reliable cloud provider to host your app and scale easily as your user base grows.

Recommended:

• AWS (Amazon Web Services): Scalable, secure, and feature-rich.
• Firebase (by Google): A good choice for MVPs and real-time apps with built-in analytics, authentication, and crash reporting.

Reliable infrastructure ensures your app stays fast and available even during high traffic.

6. Security & Compliance

Handling personal health data requires strong security practices.

Best practices:

• HIPAA/GDPR compliance: Important if handling sensitive health data.
• Secure authentication: Use OAuth 2.0, multi-factor login, and token-based systems.
• Data encryption: Encrypt data in transit (SSL/TLS) and at rest.
• Users trust you with their personal health data, security must be a priority from day one.

Building a MyFitnessPal Alternative? Final Tips for App Development Success

The rise of health-conscious consumers and the booming fitness app market present a golden opportunity to create an app that doesn’t just track calories, but transforms lives. Whether you’re building a MyFitnessPal alternative with smarter AI nutrition tracking, a community-driven wellness platform, or a hybrid fitness-coaching app, the key lies in solving real user pain points better than the competition.

There's a strong demand for tools that help people take charge of their health. With the right idea, features, and development approach, you can build a fitness app that genuinely helps users, and builds a successful business at the same time.

If you're looking to create a fitness or wellness app, we're here to help. Let’s talk about how we can make your idea a success.