AnyList is a shopping list and recipe app. Their free tier covers shared shopping lists and basic recipe collection, but web access, the meal planner, the Apple Watch app, location reminders, item photos, and recipe imports (more than 5) all require AnyList Complete which costs $9.99 per year for an individual or $14.99 per year for a household.
My wife and I made RecipeSage as a free, open source alternative. The web app, meal planner, unlimited recipe imports, nutrition tracking, and photo, PDF, and Word document import are all free, with no subscription and no per-feature gating.
How they price
RecipeSage
Free forever. No subscription, no ads. Unlimited recipes, meal planning, web access, and shopping lists for every account.
AnyList
Very basic free tier for shared shopping lists and up to 5 imported recipes. AnyList Complete is $9.99/year for an individual or $14.99/year for a household. Web app, meal planning, Apple Watch, location reminders, item photos, and unlimited recipe imports all require payment.
Feature by feature
We've tried to be fair here. Where AnyList is genuinely stronger, we say so. Numbers and feature claims are sourced from each product's own documentation as of May 2026.
| Feature | RecipeSage | AnyList |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free, open source | $9.99 to $14.99/year for most features |
| Web app AnyList requires a subscription to use their web app, no free tier access. | Yes | Yes |
| iOS app | Yes | Yes |
| Android app AnyList's Android app is less polished than its iOS app. | Yes | Partial |
| macOS app RecipeSage is fully functional within your browser and can be installed to your desktop via Chrome. | Yes | Yes |
| Apple Watch app | No | Yes |
| Browser extension (Firefox, Chrome) | Yes | Yes |
| Auto import from a URL AnyList limits this to 5 total imports for free | Yes | Yes |
| Import from a photo (OCR) | Yes | No |
| Import from PDF and Word documents | Yes | No |
| Free drag-and-drop meal planner Meal planning is an AnyList Complete feature. | Yes | Yes |
| Reusable meal-plan templates AnyList's v6 Templates are more developed than RecipeSage's equivalent today. | Partial | Yes |
| Smart shopping list with aisle categorization | Yes | Yes |
| Per-store category sets AnyList's implementation is more complete | Partial | Yes |
| Multi-store price tracker with running total AnyList is designed around shopping lists first, while RecipeSage prioritizes recipes first. | No | Yes |
| Location-based store reminders | No | Yes |
| Barcode scanning for shopping items | No | Yes |
| Nutrition tracking (macros, vitamins, minerals) | Yes | No |
| Typo-tolerant search | Yes | No |
| Real multi-user collaboration | Yes | Yes |
| Works offline | Yes | Yes |
| Open source | Yes | No |
| Self-hostable | Yes | No |
| Data portability AnyList has no bulk export. Recipes and lists can be emailed or printed one at a time. RecipeSage exports to JSON-LD, PDF, and text. | Yes | No |
| Recipe scaling with metric/imperial conversion AnyList scales the ingredient quantity field but doesn't convert between imperial and metric. | Yes | Partial |
| Public sharing by link or embed, no account needed RecipeSage gives you a public profile to share a recipe, a label, or your whole collection by link, plus website embed codes. AnyList sharing is account-to-account only, with no public link for non-users. | Yes | No |
| Printable PDF cookbook generator RecipeSage's Cookbook Generator compiles your recipes into one printable PDF with a cover page, optional table of contents, and each recipe on its own page. | Yes | No |
Why people switch from AnyList to RecipeSage
- No paywall on web, meal planner, or recipe imports RecipeSage's web app, drag-and-drop meal planner, and recipe imports are all free. AnyList paywalls all three behind Complete and caps the free tier at 5 imported recipes total.
- Data is not held hostage RecipeSage exports your full library to JSON-LD, PDF, or text any time. AnyList has no bulk export. The only official options are emailing or printing recipes and lists one at a time.
- Nutrition and richer import RecipeSage tracks macros, vitamins, and minerals per serving, and imports from photos, PDFs, and Word documents. AnyList offers none of those.
- Open source and self-hostable RecipeSage is AGPL-licensed and you can run it on your own server. AnyList is closed source with no public API and the cloud is the only sync target.
- Cross-platform without Apple bias RecipeSage runs equally well in any browser, on iOS, and on Android. AnyList's deepest features assume the Apple ecosystem, and Chromebook, Windows, and Linux users can only reach AnyList through the Complete-gated web app.
- Share your recipes with anyone RecipeSage gives you a public profile to share a single recipe, a whole label, or your entire collection by a link anyone can open without an account, plus embed codes to drop a recipe onto a website or blog. AnyList only shares account-to-account, with no public link for people without an account.
- Turn your collection into a printable cookbook RecipeSage's Cookbook Generator assembles your recipes into a single PDF, with a cover page, an optional table of contents, and each recipe on its own page with its image and nutrition. It's an easy way to print a personal cookbook or give one as a gift. AnyList has no built-in cookbook generator.
Where AnyList is honestly stronger
We're not pretending RecipeSage wins on everything. Here's what AnyList does better than us today.
- Best-in-class shopping list Per-store category sets, multi-store price comparison with a running total at checkout, location-based reminders when you arrive at a store, and barcode scanning. RecipeSage's shopping list is solid but doesn't match this depth.
- First-class Apple Watch app AnyList's Apple Watch app includes complications and voice, Scribble, and emoji input for adding items from the wrist. RecipeSage doesn't have a watch app.
Bringing your AnyList recipes over
There's no dedicated AnyList importer, and AnyList itself doesn't offer a bulk recipe export. The practical path today is to re-import each recipe from its original source, about one click per recipe with the RecipeSage Clip Tool browser extension.
- 1 Create a free RecipeSage account at recipesage.com.
- 2 Install the free RecipeSage Clip Tool extension for Firefox or Chrome.
- 3 Open each recipe's original source web page and click the RecipeSage extension icon to import it, about one click per recipe. If you kept your source URLs, you can paste them into RecipeSage's URL importer to bring them in as a batch.
AnyList doesn't offer a bulk recipe export, so per-recipe re-clipping is the practical option today. If you've kept the original source URLs of your AnyList recipes, RecipeSage's URL importer accepts a list of URLs in one go, which can speed things up considerably.
About the people behind RecipeSage
My wife and I built and run RecipeSage. We're not a venture-backed startup. We cook every night, we got tired of paying subscriptions and losing access to recipes when an app changed hands, so we built the app we wanted to use. Hosting is funded by donations and has been since 2018, and the source code is on GitHub under the AGPL.
If you ever want to leave RecipeSage, you can export everything in standard formats or run the whole thing on your own server. Your recipes are yours.
Common questions about switching from AnyList
Can I keep AnyList for groceries and use RecipeSage for recipes?
Sure. A lot of people split tools this way. Use RecipeSage for recipe organization, meal planning, and nutrition, and keep AnyList for the shopping run itself. RecipeSage's meal planner can generate a shopping list you copy across.
What about my AnyList shared list with my household?
RecipeSage has shared shopping lists too, with real multi-account collaboration (each person has their own login). You'll need to rebuild the membership in RecipeSage by inviting the same people to a new shared list, but the day-to-day shared-shopping experience is there.
Is there a free alternative to AnyList?
Yes. RecipeSage is a free, open source alternative to AnyList, with no subscription and no ads. You can import your recipes, plan meals, build shopping lists, track nutrition, and use it on the web, iOS, and Android. If you ever decide to leave, you can export everything or self-host.
If AnyList's shopping list is the main reason you use it, keep AnyList. If you mostly want a recipe organizer and meal planner with nutrition without a subscription, RecipeSage might be a better fit. RecipeSage is free, so there's no harm in giving it a try alongside AnyList for a few weeks :)