Carb Manager alternative — calorie tracking for any diet, not just keto
Carb Manager is the best app in the world for keto. If you're not on keto — or you cycle on and off — here's the broader alternative.
The bottom line
Carb Manager is the best app for one diet. Swoodie is diet-agnostic — keto is one option among many — and adds AI recipe generation across cuisines and a couples mode, with a 10-use free trial of the AI.
Carb Manager is laser-focused on keto and low-carb — net carbs are the headline metric, the recipe library is tens of thousands of keto dishes, and the coaching all assumes ketosis tracking.
Swoodie is diet-agnostic: track keto if you want, or Mediterranean, vegetarian, high-protein or flexible — with AI recipes that adapt to your style. The AI runs on a 10-use free trial, then Premium.
Features evolve fast
Swoodie ships new features regularly, so this page may not reflect the very latest. The homepage is always up to date — check there for everything Swoodie does today.
See the latest on the homepage →Feature by feature
| Feature |  Swoodie | Carb Manager |
|---|---|---|
| Permanent free plan (not a trial) | Free — $0 forever | Free tier |
| Annual price | $39.99 / year | ~$39.99/yr |
| Start without creating an account | Free — guest mode | Mobile works without an account; web app needs one |
| AI photo calorie / meal scan | Trial — 10 free uses, then Premium | Snap Foods (Premium) |
| Barcode scanner | Trial — 10 free uses, then Premium | Free |
| Log a meal you ate ("ate it") | Free — basic calorie logging | |
| Meal journal / food diary | Free: last 3 days · Premium: full history | |
| Packaged-product quality score (0–100) | Free — scan, score & breakdown · Premium: better swaps + Ask AI | |
| Blood-sugar impact read on a scanned meal | Blood Sugar Score — Free: steady / moderate / spiky, estimated from carbs & fibre | Glycemic load per food, but only in Premium reports — net carbs is the core framing |
| Recipe discovery / browse | Free — 8,000+ recipe library | Large keto-only library |
| Swipe-to-choose recipe UX | Free | |
| Filter recipes by ingredients you have | Free — Discover Mode | |
| AI recipe generation (Chef AI) | Trial — 10 free uses, then Premium | |
| Import a recipe from a URL | Trial — 10 free uses, then Premium | URL import (Premium) |
| Import a recipe from a video / social post | Trial — 5 free saves, then Premium | |
| Hands-free voice cooking mode | Free | |
| Built-in kitchen tools (converters, scaler, cook times) | Kitchen Tools — Free: 6 offline tools (unit, oven & air-fryer converters, scaler, cook times, safe temperatures) | Recipe serving scaling only |
| Multi-day meal planner (1/3/7-day) | Trial — 10 free uses, then Premium | Keto meal plans |
| Auto-generated shopping list | Trial — built with the plan | From meal plans (Premium) |
| Shopping list merges duplicate ingredients | Trial — built with the plan | |
| Real-time couples meal matching (Swipe Together) | Host: Lite or Premium · Join: Free | |
| Shared meal plan | Host: Lite or Premium · Join: Free | |
| Separate macro targets per person | Free | |
| Multi-person session (family / friends) | Host: Lite or Premium · Join: Free | |
| Challenges, duels & leagues | Solo: Free · Duo/Circle: needs a paid host | |
| Intermittent fasting tracker | Tracker: Free · Coach quips: Premium | Premium |
| Paired wellness accountability (2-person daily score) | Host: Lite or Premium · Join: Free | |
| Shareable meal report card | Meal Report Card — Free | JPG export of the daily log — a data export, not a card |
| Calorie & macro goal setting | Free | |
| BMR / TDEE auto-calculation | Free | |
| Body-stat & weight tracking | Free — on-device | |
| Diet-style macro targets (keto / low-carb / high-protein) | Free | Free — 10+ presets (keto, LCHF, carnivore…) |
| Custom macro targets (set your own grams) | Premium | Free — custom grams; Premium adds auto-adjust |
| Daily insight drawn from what you logged | Coach Ollie — daily insight: Free · Pattern insights: Premium | Weekly digest, not a daily insight |
| Dietary filters available | 2 free / 10 with Premium | Keto-focused |
| Keto / low-carb support | Premium | Its specialty |
| iOS app | ||
| Android app | ||
| Web app | Web app |
Cost over time
Drag the slider to see what each app costs you across the years.
Over 2 years: Swoodie $79.98 vs Carb Manager $79.98.
Prefer paying once? Swoodie Lite is a $9.99 one-time purchase that unlocks the whole app except the AI features. It also exports your log, weights and saves as CSV, so your data can leave with you.
Swoodie is $39.99/year — about $3.33/month billed yearly.
Carb Manager pricing verified July 2026 · source
Where Carb Manager wins
For strict keto and low-carb, Carb Manager is the deepest tool in the category — net-carb tracking, a 50,000+ keto recipe library, and coaching built entirely around ketosis. If keto is your long-term approach, nothing else is as specialized.
Honest scorecard
Where Swoodie wins
- Swipe-to-choose recipe UX
- Real-time couples meal matching (Swipe Together)
- Multi-person session (family / friends)
- Paired wellness accountability (2-person daily score)
The verdict
Switch to Swoodie if…
you're on a diet other than keto, you cycle between approaches, or you want AI recipe generation across all cuisines.
Stay with Carb Manager if…
you're committed to keto and want the deepest ketosis-tracking tools available.
Made up your mind? Start free.
Swoodie plans the week, tracks what you eat and lets two people pick dinner together. The recipe library and tracking are free, no account needed — every scan carries a Blood Sugar Score, six Kitchen Tools work offline, and Premium is free for 7 days on the yearly plan.
We put these comparisons together from publicly available information and each app's own website. Prices and features change — if you spot anything inaccurate or out of date, email support@swoodie.app and we'll correct it. We want this comparison to stay fair.
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