Is MyFitnessPal bad for keto or carnivore?

Not bad, just built for a different diet. Its database is carb-first and crowd-sourced, so you spend more time second-guessing entries and hunting for the protein and fat numbers that actually matter on low-carb. A tracker built around your way of eating, like Hewett Health, removes that friction.

What's the best app for carnivore and low-carb tracking?

The best one is whichever you'll still be using in a month. Cronometer suits data lovers and Carb Manager suits strict keto, but if you want nutrition, training and recovery in one app built around carnivore and whole-food eating — with photo logging that returns protein and fat in a tap — that's exactly what Hewett Health is built for.

Are there free MyFitnessPal alternatives?

Most trackers, including Hewett Health, offer a free tier with paid upgrades. The honest test isn't the day-one price — it's whether the app fits how you actually eat. A carnivore-friendly tracker you'll keep using beats a general one you abandon by Thursday.

Do I need a carnivore-specific app, or will a general one work?

A general tracker works if you don't mind fighting the carb-first defaults every day. A purpose-built one like Hewett Health saves that friction by leading with protein and fat and handling whole-food logging cleanly — which, over months of daily logging, is the difference between a habit that sticks and one that doesn't.

MyFitnessPal alternatives for low-carb and carnivore

If MyFitnessPal keeps fighting your low-carb or carnivore diet, the fix is a tracker built for how you actually eat — one that leads with protein and fat instead of carbs. The main alternatives are Cronometer, Carb Manager, MacroFactor and Hewett Health, the all-in-one app I built specifically for carnivore and whole-food eating. Here's how they compare.

If you've landed here, you've probably hit the same wall a lot of low-carb eaters do: MyFitnessPal is fine for plain calorie counting, but it fights you the moment your diet stops revolving around carbs. Let's look at why — and at the tracker that actually fits your plate.

Why MyFitnessPal frustrates low-carb eaters

MyFitnessPal is the default calorie tracker, and for general use it does the job. The friction shows up when you eat low-carb or carnivore:

The database is crowd-sourced and messy. Multiple entries for "ribeye steak" with wildly different numbers means you're constantly second-guessing which one is right.
It's built around carbs. The default dashboard leads with a carb-heavy macro split and treats total calories as the headline. On carnivore, the number you care about is protein — and fat — not net carbs.
The best features sit behind a subscription, including tools that used to be free.

None of that makes MFP a bad app. It's just built for a different way of eating than yours — which is exactly the gap the alternatives below fill.

What actually matters in a low-carb tracker

Before comparing apps, it helps to know what to weigh:

Protein and fat front-and-centre — the macros that actually drive a carnivore or keto diet, not buried under net carbs.
Trustworthy food data — you shouldn't have to audit every entry.
Low logging friction — the best tracker is the one you'll still be using in three weeks. If logging is a chore, you'll quit.
Everything in one place — if you're also training and tracking recovery, stitching three apps together is its own kind of friction.

The alternatives, honestly

Cronometer covers micronutrients in depth and draws on more rigorous data than crowd-sourced entries — a good fit if you love detail, though it can feel data-heavy for quick macro logging.

Carb Manager is built for strict keto, so net carbs sit front-and-centre. Well-suited if a carb limit is your single priority, but it's still carb-first rather than protein-first.

MacroFactor adjusts your targets from your actual weight trend over time — handy if you want the maths done for you, though the focus is numbers rather than a whole-food, carnivore-style workflow.

Each is a capable tool. But none of them is built specifically for the way carnivore and whole-food eaters actually track — which is the gap I set out to close.

Hewett Health: built for exactly this

I built Hewett Health because I was tired of bending general trackers around a carnivore diet. It's an all-in-one app — nutrition, training, sleep and recovery in one place — designed around whole-food and carnivore-style eating from the ground up:

Photo logging tuned for real food. Snap a steak and eggs, get calories plus protein and fat back, and correct the portion in a single tap. No hunting through a database of dubious entries.
Protein and fat lead, not carbs. The macros that matter on your diet are the ones you see first.
One app, not four. Your nutrition, workouts, sleep and HRV-based recovery live together, so you're not stitching a food tracker to a training log to a recovery ring.
Made by someone who eats this way. It's built and run by one person who actually follows a low-carb, whole-food approach — so the defaults assume your diet instead of fighting it.

If you want the deepest micronutrient data, Cronometer is a fair shout. If you only care about carb limits, Carb Manager does that one job. But if you want a tracker that fits carnivore and whole-food eating without a fight — and handles your training and recovery too — that's precisely what Hewett Health is for.

The bottom line

MyFitnessPal isn't broken; it's just built for a different diet. The alternatives each have a niche, but if you eat low-carb or carnivore and want one app that leads with protein and fat, logs real food in a tap, and keeps your training and recovery alongside it, Hewett Health is the one built for you. It's free to start on iPhone and Android — the best way to know if it fits is to log a couple of meals and see.