We independently evaluate all recommended products and services. If you click on links we provide, we may receive compensation. Learn more.

Best Weight Loss Apps

Easy-to-use Lose It! is the best weight loss app thanks to its large library of foods

Weight loss apps can help you meet a goal by offering tools that support diet, exercise, and lifestyle changes. They may offer nutrition and activity trackers, food databases, diet-specific tips and tools, and even fitness classes and customized weight loss plans.

The best weight loss apps include features such as suggested exercise routines, weight loss plans and support, nutrition and macro counting, and meal planning. They also provide data so that you can see your progress and make any necessary adjustments. We’ve narrowed down the top picks for weight loss apps here.

Best Weight Loss Apps of 2024

Best Overall : Lose It!


Lose It!

Lose It!

Key Specs
  • Price: Basic is free; premium plan is $40 per year
  • Devices: Android and iOS
  • Features: Calorie and meal tracking, with optional premium features
Why We Chose It

Lose It! took the top spot for weight loss because of its simple app interface and focus on calorie counting, weight loss, and community support.

Pros & Cons
Pros
  • User-friendly interface

  • Free version is enough to get started

  • Large food database and barcode scanner

Cons
  • Premium features only available with subscription 

  • Encourages daily weigh-ins

Overview

Lose It! makes weight loss easy—that’s why it’s also our choice for “best for weight loss” on our list of best diet apps. As the name implies, this app intends to help you lose unwanted pounds, and it does so through an extremely simple and user-friendly app interface.

Lose It! focuses on calorie counting and weight tracking, but that’s not all it does. Upon your first use of the app, you’ll set a goal and answer questions about your current weight, age, and other lifestyle information. Lose It! then generates a customized weight loss plan for you to follow. The plan includes a recommended daily calorie budget and food recommendations. 

After you have your plan, you can start logging food. Lose It! features three great ways to keep a food diary: Search the food database of more than 50 million items, scan the barcode on any packaged food, or take a photo of your food with the “Snap It” feature. Once you start logging, Lose It! compiles your food diary into daily and weekly reports, as well as a line graph that depicts your weight loss progress.

Best for Extra Support : Noom


Key Specs
  • Price: Starts at $17.42 a month (for the annual auto-renew plan; you pay $209 upfront). The month-to-month auto-renew plan is $70.
  • Devices: Android and iOS
  • Features: Nutrition, coaching, goal tracking
Why We Chose It

Access to certified health coaches and a foundation in cognitive behavioral therapy earns Noom the top spot for extra support.

Pros & Cons
Pros
  • Weight loss is focused on the long term

  • Offers extensive support 

  • Whole foods and fitness are key

Cons
  • More expensive than other weight loss apps

  • No face-to-face option

  • Intense commitment required

Overview

If you’ve found it difficult to stick to a weight loss program in the past, you may benefit from a little extra structure and support. Noom uses a psychology-based approach to help you change your eating habits for the better and employs health coaches to support you when you have questions or concerns. 

With Noom, no foods are off-limits, and the approach focuses more on shifting overall lifestyle habits, which is the best way to lose weight and keep it off. During business hours, you get in-app, one-on-one coaching from a health coach. In addition to that support element, Noom also allows you to track your weight, food, exercise, blood pressure, and blood sugar all in the app.

Noom isn’t cheap, but with a staff of psychologists, nutritionists, scientists, and health coaches, you can feel confident that you’ll get the information and support you need to develop and sustain healthy habits. It now also offers Noom Circles, which is an online support community connecting users to each other as well as coaches for advice and inspiration.

Best for Building an Exercise Routine : Daily Burn


Daily Burn

Daily Burn

Key Specs
  • Price: $7 to $15 per month
  • Devices: Roku, Amazon, Android, iOS-compatible systems, Chromecast
  • Features: Circuit training, high-intensity interval training (HIIT), yoga, running
Why We Chose It

Daily Burn has comprehensive library of pre-recorded fitness classes, daily live classes, and access to tracking features.

Pros & Cons
Pros
  • Comprehensive workout app with hundreds of classes available 24/7

  • Easy to sign up and navigate 

  • Offers daily live classes

Cons
  • No personalized training options 

  • Can be difficult to reach customer service 

  • Requires additional fees to access certain programs

Overview

Daily Burn is known for its fun, supportive, and diverse approach to exercise—three key aspects of a fitness program you’ll enjoy and actually stick to. Choose from traditional circuit training workouts, high-intensity interval training (HIIT), yoga, or running. 

Daily Burn offers workouts suitable for all fitness levels, from true beginners to die-hard athletes. And remember: Any workout is as hard or as easy as you make it. In addition to the wide array of on-demand workout styles, you can also join a new live group class each day. You can stream Daily Burn workouts from virtually any electronic device, including your TV, smartphone, laptop, desktop, or tablet. 

Daily Burn works on a paid membership program, but you can opt for a 30-day free trial to make sure it’s a good fit for you.

Best for Integrating Healthy Habits : Fitbit


Fitbit

Fitbit

Key Specs
  • Price: $10 monthly or $80 per year for premium
  • Devices: iOS, Android, Fitbit products
  • Features: 200+ workouts, health metrics dashboard, sleep scores
Why We Chose It

Fitbit combines nutrition and fitness tracking with sleep and other non-exercise activity to create an excellent weight-loss tool at your fingertips.

Pros & Cons
Pros
  • Does not require a Fitbit device to use

  • Integrates nutrition, diet, sleep, and fitness into weight loss

  • Creates weekly and monthly reports

Cons
  • Some features cost extra

  • Does work better with a Fitbit device

Overview

The Fitbit app, combined with a Fitbit wearable, can propel you to your goals if you take advantage of all of the incredible features. 

When you wear a Fitbit or compatible device, it tracks your heart rate, workouts, non-exercise activity (e.g., your steps throughout the day), sleep, and more. On the companion app, you can log all of your food, your water intake, weight fluctuations, menstrual cycle, and more.

The app pulls data from the wearable and presents it, along with everything you log manually, in a daily report that’s easy to understand. The Fitbit app also creates weekly and monthly reports, congratulates you for your achievements, and offers a strong community component that can help keep you motivated. 

Apple Watch, Garmin, and other activity trackers with accompanying apps also offer many of the same features and benefits of Fitbit, so don’t feel limited if you already have a different activity tracker.

Best for Tracking Nutrition : Cronometer


Cron-O-Meter

Cron-O-Meter

Key Specs
  • Price: $9 monthly or $50 annually for premium subscription
  • Devices: Web browser, iOS and Android apps
  • Features: Exercise tracking, diet settings, nutrient reports
Why We Chose It

Cronometer takes the guesswork out of weight loss and nutrition tracking with its reliable barcode scanner, accurate nutrition data, intermittent fasting timer, and diet-specific support.

Pros & Cons
Pros
  • Free version provides plenty of nutritional info

  • Tracks over 80 nutrients 

  • Easy-to-use barcode scanner, food tracker, and exercise database

  • Supports keto, vegan, paleo, and other specialty diets

Cons
  • Premium features require upgrade to paid subscription 

  • Not as much information on fitness

Overview

Losing weight and maintaining weight loss requires a deep understanding of what you’re eating, how much you’re eating, and how your food intake affects your body. Cronometer helps with all of that by tracking more than 80 different nutrients, helping you optimize nutrient intake but also keep your total calorie consumption where it needs to be.

This app is fantastic for ensuring you eat a diet diverse enough to support health in addition to weight loss, a combination that often seems elusive when restricting calories. The Trends feature provides you with graphs that display your weight loss progress over time, and the Snapshots feature allows you to upload progress photos for visual proof that your hard work is making a difference.

Best for Beginners : Fooducate


Fooducate

Fooducate

Key Specs
  • Price: Pro version is $7 monthly
  • Devices: App for iOS and Android
  • Features: Premium version includes custom health and nutrition settings
Why We Chose It

Fooducate tracks the number and quality of calories, encourages healthy eating, and provides tips and information about losing weight.

Pros & Cons
Pros
  • Focuses on food education, not just weight loss

  • Food tracker and barcode scanner

  • App ranks food based on health and your goals

  • Emphasis is on the quality of calories and macros

Cons
  • Not as much information on fitness 

  • Premium features requires upgrade to paid subscription 

  • Minimal community features compared to other apps

Overview

Fooducate, as you might have guessed by the name, is all about education. This app aims to teach everyone, beginners and healthy eating veterans alike, about nutrition and its place in a healthy lifestyle. You might find yourself surprised to learn that some foods aren’t as healthy as you thought.

Fooducate is great for beginners because it offers a barcode-scanning feature that goes beyond carbs, protein, and fat. When you scan a food on Fooducate, you see other nutrient information that you may have previously overlooked, such as sodium content, added sugars, artificial ingredients, and more. Each food you scan receives a food score from A to D based on how healthy it is in relation to your goals. And as you scan foods, the app uses an algorithm to curate healthier alternatives for you.

In addition to its great educational features, Fooducate also serves as a place to track your food consumption, sleep, mood, hunger levels, and more.

Final Verdict

When it comes to weight loss apps, finding one that matches your lifestyle, habits, and goals is critical to losing weight and keeping it off. A great app to start with is Lose It!. It’s comprehensive, easy to use, and provides you with an accurate calorie and activity tracker. Plus, it comes with tons of helpful tools for sticking to your fitness routine. If you’re looking for an app with a fitness focus and tons of classes, consider Daily Burn. But if it’s support and assistance with adjusting lifestyle habits that you need, then check out Noom.  

Guide to Choosing the Best Weight Loss App

Weight loss apps allow you to monitor your lifestyle habits and aid in your weight loss efforts. A common feature of weight loss apps is the ability to track and record your food and beverage intake, along with calories and nutritional information. Most also have other helpful tools like activity trackers, barcode scanners, meal planners, and support forums.

When deciding which weight loss app is best for you, it's important to have a clear idea of your goals. Are you working to shed pounds through both diet and exercise? If so, then it's important to understand that you will want to manage your diet so you have the right fuel to keep you energized for those workout sessions. If you want to lose weight by focusing on your eating habits, then you will want to choose an app that helps you hone in on the concerns you have, which may be curbing mid-day snacking (or all-day snacking), and finding the best substitutes for those sweet tooth moments. In this case, a diet-tracking app will suit you best. If your goal is to shed a few pounds but also to build strength or cardiovascular endurance, then you may want a more exercise-centered app.

As you can tell from our roundup, weight loss apps can cover just about every aspect of health and wellness, so matching your goals to apps that excel in addressing your needs and tracking your weight loss progress will be the best bet for you.

Frequently Asked Questions

  • What's the Difference Between a Weight Loss App and a Nutrition App?

    Weight loss apps and nutrition apps may have some features in common, like fitness tracking and tips. Nutrition apps focus more on food and nutrients. They’re often designed to track calories, fat, protein, carbs, and micronutrients. With some nutrition apps, you can customize meal plans and input recipes.

  • Do Weight Loss Apps Work?

    There’s evidence that using a calorie-tracking app can have a positive effect. A 2019 study found that people who regularly used a diet and fitness app lost more weight than those who didn’t use it as frequently.

  • Is a Weight Loss App Right For Me?

    As is the case with many diet and exercise plans, the more you put into it, the better your results will be. If you’re committed to your weight loss approach and take advantage of a weight loss app’s tracking and other helpful features, it can be a powerful tool to help you reach your goals.

  • Are Weight Loss Apps Worth It?

    The answer depends on your weight loss goals, budget, and how you hope to use the app. Free versions may offer limited features. A subscription fee can range from $3 up to $70 per month but more expensive apps offer customized options, personalized feedback, access to experts, and fitness workouts.

Methodology 

We researched six different apps from reputable companies to curate this list of best weight loss apps. All apps are compatible with iOS or Android. They’re also relatively easy to use and provide adequate support for weight loss. Additionally, we looked at free versions vs. upgrades requiring a paid subscription. To make this list, the free version needed to offer enough tools to make the app helpful and worth using. Most importantly, all of the weight loss apps listed deliver a balanced message of overall health and wellness, not just diet and weight loss.

Young Woman Using Meal Planning Mobile App for a Healthy Diet

Oscar Wong / Getty Images

Article Sources
Verywell Fit uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read our editorial process to learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.
  1. Patel ML, Hopkins CM, Brooks TL, Bennett GG. Comparing self-monitoring strategies for weight loss in a smartphone app. JMIR Mhealth Uhealth. 2019;7(2):e12209. doi:10.2196/12209

By Amanda Capritto, ACE-CPT, INHC
Amanda Capritto, ACE-CPT, INHC, is an advocate for simple health and wellness. She writes about nutrition, exercise and overall well-being.

Edited by
April McCormick
April McCormick

April is the health editor for performance marketing at Verywell, where she oversees family health, wellness, and lifestyle content. Her work has appeared in Time, Parents Magazine, The Huffington Post, TripSavvy, Parenting.com, First Time Mom and Dad, Mama Mia, All4Women, the New York Times Bestseller, A Letter To My Mom, and more.

Learn about our editorial process