Mealie is a favourite with people who run their own servers. It’s open source (AGPL-3.0), runs on your own hardware, and has link importing, meal planning, webhooks and shared household groups.
But owning your recipes in Mealie means running a server. Before you save a pancake recipe, you set up Docker and backups, and keep a VPN or reverse proxy working so your phone can reach home from the shop. In Gratin your recipes are on your phone and laptop, so they still work when your router restarts.
Gratin vs Mealie at a glance
Figures come from each app’s public pricing and help pages. Trademarks belong to their owners. Mealie website ↗
Mealie is free software you host yourself. Gratin is free too, including running your own sync server. Our $12/year or $39 one-time plan is for when you’d rather we ran sync for you.
See Gratin’s pricing and the 5-year Pay-once guarantee →What Mealie does well, and what gets in the way
What Mealie does well
- Open source under AGPL-3.0, and runs on your own hardware
- Good importer for recipe links, plus a meal planner and shopping lists
- Household groups for several users, a full API, and automatic server backups
What gets in the way
- You have to set up and look after your own Docker server
- Runs in a web browser, with no desktop or phone apps
- Best if you’re already comfortable running a home server
Why people switch from Mealie to Gratin
No Docker to set up
Install Gratin on your Mac, Windows PC, iPhone or Android phone and start saving recipes.
Always there in the supermarket
With Mealie, if your home internet or VPN drops while you’re out, your recipes won’t load. In Gratin, they’re already on your phone.
Run just the sync server yourself, if you like
If you enjoy self-hosting, point Gratin at your own sync server. If it’s down for a week, your devices keep working and catch up when it’s back.
Or let us host sync for $12/yr or $39 once
Hosted sync is end-to-end encrypted on your device before upload, so your recipes stay private while we run the server.
Bottom line
Run Mealie if you enjoy looking after a home server and want a web app. Use Gratin if you want apps that work offline on every device, with optional encrypted sync.
Questions about Mealie and Gratin
How is running Gratin’s sync yourself different from hosting Mealie?
In Mealie, the server is the app. If it’s down, you can’t read or edit recipes, and it stores your data unencrypted. In Gratin, your recipes are on your devices, and your sync server only passes encrypted changes between them.
Can I move my recipes from Gratin into Mealie later?
Gratin exports your whole collection with photos as standard Schema.org JSON-LD, or single recipes as Cooklang files. Both are easy to bring into other tools.
Does Gratin support household sharing?
Yes. With Hosted sync you can share recipe books with family or housemates, and everyone sees changes as they happen.