CopyMeThat Alternative - Free & Open Source

CopyMeThat is best known for its one-click web clipper. The free tier stops at 40 saved recipes. Past that, the paid tier is $1 per month, $12 per year, or $65 lifetime to remove the cap.

My wife and I made RecipeSage as a free, open source alternative with no recipe limit. It has its own Firefox and Chrome clipper, plus auto-import from photos, PDFs, and Word docs, drag-and-drop meal planning, smart shopping lists, and nutrition tracking.

How they price

RecipeSage

Free forever. Unlimited recipes, no ads, no paywall. Open source under the AGPL.

CopyMeThat

Free up to 40 recipes. Premium is $1/month, $12/year, or $65 lifetime to lift the cap.

Feature by feature

We've tried to be fair here. Where CopyMeThat is genuinely stronger, we say so. Numbers and feature claims are sourced from each product's own documentation as of August 2026.

Feature	RecipeSage	CopyMeThat
Price	Free, open source	Free up to 40 recipes, then paid
Web app	Yes	Yes
iOS app	Yes	Yes
Android app	Yes	Yes
Unlimited recipes on the free tierCopyMeThat caps free accounts at 40 recipes.	Yes	No
Firefox and Chrome extension	Yes	Yes
Auto import from any URL	Yes	Yes
Import from a photo (OCR)	Yes	No
Import from PDF	Yes	No
Import from Word documents	Yes	No
Drag-and-drop meal planner	Yes	Yes
Recurring meal plan items	Yes	No
Smart shopping list	Yes	Yes
Editable aisle categorization	Yes	No
Recipe scaling and unit conversion	Yes	Yes
Nutrition tracking (macros, vitamins, minerals)	Yes	No
Typo-tolerant search	Yes	Partial
Works offline	Yes	No
Open source	Yes	No
Self-hostable	Yes	No
Data portabilityCopyMeThat exports an HTML zip. RecipeSage supports well-recognized standardized formats.	Yes	HTML zip
Real multi-user collaboration with separate accountsCopyMeThat family sharing means logging into one shared account.	Yes	No
Public sharing by link or embed, no account neededCopyMeThat can share a recipe link, but people without an account see only the image, source link, and ingredients, and there's no website embed.	Yes	Partial
Native desktop app (Windows, macOS, Linux)RecipeSage has native desktop apps for Windows, macOS, and Linux. CopyMeThat is a web app (installable) and mobile only.	Yes	No
Cook Mode (full-screen, distraction-free cooking view)Both offer a cook mode that keeps the screen awake. RecipeSage's also lets you check off ingredients and steps as you cook and scale servings without leaving.	Yes	Yes
Built-in kitchen toolkitRecipeSage's toolkit includes a measurement converter, a pan and bakeware converter that rescales ingredients and suggests bake time and temperature adjustments, and a cooking-temperature reference for safe internal temperatures. CopyMeThat has none of these.	Yes	No
Printable PDF cookbook generatorRecipeSage'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 CopyMeThat to RecipeSage

Built-in kitchen toolkitRecipeSage adds built-in converters for units, pan sizes, and cooking temperatures. CopyMeThat has no built-in kitchen tools.
No 40-recipe capSave 400 recipes, save 40,000. RecipeSage is free and does not cap. CopyMeThat's free tier stops at 40.
More ways to importRecipeSage imports from URLs, photos, PDFs, Word docs, JSON-LD, and CSV. CopyMeThat's clipper is good for web pages but doesn't read photos, PDFs, or handwritten cards.
Works offlineRecipeSage works offline on web and mobile and syncs when you reconnect. CopyMeThat doesn't advertise an offline mode.
Editable shopping list categoriesRename, reorder, and delete aisle categories to match your store. CopyMeThat's defaults can't be edited.
Built-in nutritionRecipeSage tracks macros, vitamins, and minerals per serving, and you can paste a nutrition label to auto-fill. CopyMeThat doesn't track nutrition.
Open sourceRecipeSage's source is on GitHub under the AGPL. CopyMeThat is closed-source proprietary software.
Share your recipes with anyoneRecipeSage 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. CopyMeThat's public share shows people without an account only the image, link, and ingredients, not the full recipe.
Turn your collection into a printable cookbookRecipeSage'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. CopyMeThat has no built-in cookbook generator.

Bringing your CopyMeThat recipes over

RecipeSage has a dedicated CopyMeThat importer that preserves your content.

1In CopyMeThat, open the More menu, choose Download Recipes, pick HTML, and click Download. You'll get a .zip file with an .html file and an images folder.
2Create a free RecipeSage account at recipesage.com.
3In RecipeSage, open Settings then Import then CopyMeThat, and upload the .zip just as you downloaded it.

Start importing Read the full CopyMeThat import guide

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 optional contributions 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 CopyMeThat

How is RecipeSage free when CopyMeThat caps the free tier at 40?

RecipeSage is a side project from the two of us, not a business with employees and a marketing budget. Hosting is funded by optional contributions and has been since 2018.

Is RecipeSage's web clipper as good as CopyMeThat's?

We believe it's as good or better. We use a number of strategies to pull the content from the target page. If you hit a page our parser struggles with, please tell us so we can fix it.

Will my CopyMeThat images come through?

Yes. The HTML zip from CopyMeThat includes an images folder, and our importer wires the photos to the right recipes.

Will my recipes stay private?

Yes. Saved recipes are private to your account by default. You can choose to share specific recipes publicly or with friends, but nothing is public unless you make it so.

Is there a free alternative to CopyMeThat?

Yes. RecipeSage is a free, open source alternative to CopyMeThat, with no paywall and no ads. You can import your recipes, plan meals, build shopping lists, track nutrition, and use it on the web, desktop, iOS, and Android. If you ever decide to leave, you can export everything or self-host.

If you've hit the CopyMeThat cap or you'd rather not pay to keep clipping, bring your CopyMeThat zip over and try RecipeSage. It's free so there's really no downside :)

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The free, open source CopyMeThat alternative