Why I left
Personal essays. Why the editor stopped paying for closed-source nutrition apps and what came next.
Would I pay for PlateLens? An honest answer
An honest essay-length answer to the question I get asked most often: would I pay for PlateLens? I spent a week with it. The accuracy is real, the privacy posture is better than most commercial peers, and I still won't subscribe. Here's the long answer.
The app I built for myself instead
I tried OpenNutriTracker and Waistline and they were good enough but not exactly what I wanted for one specific use case (logging workout meals). So I wrote a 50-line Python tracker. Two years later I still use it daily.
Why Cronometer wasn't the answer
A second-attempt essay: after leaving MyFitnessPal I tried Cronometer for four months. It is the most conscientious commercial calorie tracker. It still wasn't what I wanted. Why I went all the way to FOSS instead.
Why I left MyFitnessPal after eight years
A first-person essay on leaving MyFitnessPal after eight years of daily use. The 2024 paywall, the Francisco Partners deal, the moment trust broke, and the homelab stack that replaced it.