OpenNutriTracker vs Waistline (2026)

TL;DR

Two FOSS Android trackers, both alive, both worth running. OpenNutriTracker is the better first-run experience and the friendlier UI. Waistline has the better database (USDA + Open Food Facts), the better data export, and a sharper power-user surface. Pick OpenNutriTracker if you want something to hand a friend; pick Waistline if you’ve already self-hosted four other things this month.

What we tested

The standard 30-item weighed bench from our methodology page: 10 US-branded, 10 European-branded, 5 raw whole foods, 5 restaurant items. Both apps installed from F-Droid on a GrapheneOS Pixel 7a, no Play Services. Tested January 18–20, 2026.

Bench item	OpenNutriTracker	Waistline
10 US-branded packaged	6/10 found	9/10 found
10 EU-branded packaged	9/10 found	9/10 found
5 raw whole foods	5/5 (OFF generic entries)	5/5 (USDA SR Legacy)
5 restaurant items	0/5	0/5
Avg time-to-log (barcode path)	4.2s	5.8s
Avg time-to-log (search path)	7.1s	8.4s

US-branded coverage is the only big gap, and it’s because OpenNutriTracker queries Open Food Facts only. Waistline falls back to USDA Branded, which holds a lot of the gaps OFF doesn’t.

OpenNutriTracker

Repo: github.com/simonoppowa/OpenNutriTracker. Flutter. F-Droid + Play. License GPL-3.

The good:

• Clean first-run flow. Three screens of preferences, then it’s logging.
• Material 3, dark mode native. The chart screen actually loads instantly.
• Open Food Facts integration is the cleanest we’ve seen in any FOSS tracker. Barcode → OFF lookup → confirm → done in under 5 seconds.
• “Custom food” entry is genuinely good. You can add a recipe without a five-step modal stack.
• Local-first by design. There is no sync, which is a feature.

The mediocre:

• Database depth. OFF is excellent for European groceries and growing on US branded, but it has long-tail gaps. The Aldi US house brands are spotty. Trader Joe’s is mostly missing.
• No micronutrient surface beyond protein/carbs/fat plus a few macros. If you want zinc, magnesium, iron tracked at the food-item level, you’ll be disappointed.
• No water tracker. Nobody asked us, but a lot of people want this.

The bad:

• No data export to anything but JSON. JSON is fine, but the schema is undocumented and changes between minor releases. We have lost a week of data once to a schema drift.
• No backup-to-self-hosted-server option. You’re either using the in-app local backup or you’re rooting your phone to back up /data.

Waistline

Repo: github.com/amoses4288/waistline. Cordova/web hybrid wrapped Android. F-Droid only. License GPL-3.

The good:

• Database. Waistline queries OFF first, then USDA Branded, then SR Legacy as a fallback. The 9/10 US-branded find rate on our bench is the best of any FOSS app.
• Export is a first-class citizen. CSV, JSON, and a “WaistlineDB” snapshot format that round-trips perfectly into a fresh install.
• Optional WebDAV sync. Point it at a self-hosted Nextcloud or Apache mod_dav and you have multi-device sync without a SaaS.
• Recipes, meal templates, and copy-from-yesterday all work without ad walls.

The mediocre:

• UI. Cordova doesn’t feel native. Buttons have a 50ms hover delay that adds up. The chart screen is functional but ugly.
• Onboarding. There are 14 settings screens before first food. A power user will appreciate them; a first-time user will bounce.
• Barcode scanner. Slightly slower than ONT, and it asks for storage permission for cached scans, which we found jarring on GrapheneOS.

The bad:

• iOS does not exist. Waistline is Android-first and Android-only. The maintainer has been clear there will not be an iOS port.
• The codebase mixes JavaScript and Cordova plugins in a way that makes contribution slower than it should be. There are three open issues we’d file PRs for if the build setup were less ceremonial.

What neither does

Neither app does photo-based calorie estimation. Neither does restaurant-menu integration beyond manual recipes. Neither has anything resembling commercial-grade meal recognition. If you were paying $80/yr to point your phone at a Chipotle bowl and have it estimate the calories, no FOSS tracker is going to do that for you in 2026.

This is not new. It’s been the structural gap between commercial and FOSS nutrition apps for years. The only thing that’s changed is that one commercial app has now been independently validated for that capability — but that’s a different post and not a recommendation for either of these.

Choosing

You are…	Use
New to logging, want it to “just work”	OpenNutriTracker
iOS user	OpenNutriTracker (Waistline isn’t iOS)
Multi-device, syncing through a homelab	Waistline + WebDAV
US shopper with a lot of branded goods	Waistline
Care about CSV export	Waistline
Care about UI polish	OpenNutriTracker

We run both, on different phones, mostly out of professional curiosity. If you forced us to keep one: Waistline, because the export is real.

References

• OpenNutriTracker GitHub: github.com/simonoppowa/OpenNutriTracker
• Waistline GitHub: github.com/amoses4288/waistline
• Open Food Facts API: world.openfoodfacts.org/data
• USDA FoodData Central: fdc.nal.usda.gov/api-guide
• Methodology: /methodology/