BigOven hosts a public catalog of over a million recipes with ratings and reviews. As a personal recipe keeper, the free tier caps at 200 saved recipes, shows ads (including video pop-ups and ads on printed recipes), and gates custom folders, advanced search, ingredient-level nutrition, and multi-account planner sharing behind BigOven Pro ($2.99 per month or $24.99 per year). BigOven's free tier also includes only 1 "RecipeScan" credit.
My wife and I made RecipeSage as a free, open source personal recipe keeper with no ads and no cap. Photo and PDF import are instant, not human-assisted. You can export everything in standard formats anytime if you decide to leave.
How they price
RecipeSage
Free forever, unlimited recipes, no ads, no tracking. Open source under the AGPL.
BigOven
Free up to 200 recipes with ads. BigOven Pro is $2.99/month or $24.99/year. BigOven's RecipeScan credit packs cost $9.99 to $59.99.
Feature by feature
We've tried to be fair here. Where BigOven is genuinely stronger, we say so. Numbers and feature claims are sourced from each product's own documentation as of May 2026.
| Feature | RecipeSage | BigOven |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free, open source | Free up to 200 recipes with ads, $24.99/year for Pro |
| Completely ad-free BigOven shows video pop-ups and ads on printed recipes. | Yes | No |
| Unlimited saved recipes BigOven caps free-tier at 200 recipes. | Yes | No |
| Custom folders / labels on the free tier BigOven gates custom folders behind Pro. | Yes | No |
| Advanced search on the free tier | Yes | No |
| Web app | Yes | Yes |
| iOS app | Yes | Yes |
| Android app | Yes | Yes |
| Auto import from a URL RecipeSage's URL importer supports a wider range of recipe sites. | Yes | Yes |
| Instant photo import (OCR) BigOven's RecipeScan is human-assisted and takes 2-5 days. The free tier includes 1 credit. | Yes | Partial |
| Import from PDF and Word documents | Yes | No |
| Real Firefox and Chrome extension BigOven offers a less-capable bookmarklet, not a real extension. | Yes | No |
| Data portability BigOven's cloud product has no bulk export. RecipeSage supports well-recognized standardized formats. | Yes | No |
| Drag-and-drop meal planner | Yes | Yes |
| Recurring meal plan items | Yes | Partial |
| Smart shopping list | Yes | Yes |
| Multi-account sharing Multi-account sharing requires BigOven Pro. | Yes | Partial |
| Ingredient-level nutrition tracking Ingredient-by-ingredient Nutrition Insight requires Pro. | Yes | Partial |
| Typo-tolerant search | Yes | Partial |
| Works offline | Yes | Partial |
| Open source | Yes | No |
| Self-hostable | 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 BigOven to RecipeSage
- No ads RecipeSage is ad-free and tracking-free. Cooking from a tablet in the kitchen shouldn't mean video pop-ups in the middle of your recipe.
- No 200-recipe cap and no Pro paywall on basics Custom collections, advanced search filters, nutrition, and multi-account sharing are free in RecipeSage. In BigOven all of these require Pro.
- Your data is portable RecipeSage gives you full export to JSON-LD, PDF, or text at any time. BigOven's cloud product has no bulk export.
- Instant photo, PDF, and Word import RecipeSage parses photos, PDFs, and documents in seconds. BigOven's RecipeScan is a separate human-assisted service that takes days.
- A real browser extension RecipeSage's Clip Tool is a proper Firefox and Chrome extension. BigOven's clipper is a bookmarklet you drag into your bookmarks bar.
- 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. BigOven has no built-in cookbook generator.
Where BigOven is honestly stronger
We're not pretending RecipeSage wins on everything. Here's what BigOven does better than us today.
- Public recipe community catalog BigOven's catalog of over a million public recipes with ratings and reviews is a real strength if you want to browse other people's recipes. RecipeSage is a personal recipe keeper, not a discovery network.
- Use Up Leftovers BigOven's Use Up Leftovers feature matches recipes against ingredients you already have. RecipeSage doesn't have a direct equivalent.
Bringing your BigOven recipes over
BigOven doesn't offer a bulk export, so this one takes a little more work than our other importers. Here are the practical options.
- 1 Option A (recommended for small collections): make each of your saved BigOven recipes public, then use RecipeSage's Clip Tool browser extension to import them from their public URLs.
- 2 Option B: use BigOven's per-recipe Print or Share view to copy each URL into RecipeSage's URL importer.
- 3 Either way, the new recipes land in your RecipeSage account tagged with an import label so you can review the batch.
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 BigOven
How can RecipeSage be free when BigOven needs Pro for basic features?
RecipeSage is a side project from the two of us, not a business with employees and ad sales. We don't have to put ads in your way or paywall features to keep the lights on.
Do I lose access to the BigOven recipe community?
Yes. RecipeSage is a personal keeper, not a discovery network. If browsing other people's ratings and reviews is the main reason you use BigOven, keep it for that and use RecipeSage for your own recipe library.
Will RecipeSage scan photos of recipes the way BigOven RecipeScan does?
Yes, and it's instant and unlimited rather than a 2-5 day turnaround. Our import handles photos, PDFs, and Word documents directly.
Will my BigOven meal plan come across?
Recipe content can come across via the options above. Past meal plan history doesn't carry over, but drag-and-drop makes the upcoming week quick to rebuild.
Is there a free alternative to BigOven?
Yes. RecipeSage is a free, open source alternative to BigOven, 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 you'd rather have a personal recipe keeper without ads, recipe caps, or a Pro paywall on basics, RecipeSage is built exactly for that. RecipeSage is free, so there's no reason not to try it :)