Skip to content
Day 69: new resources are added every day. See what's new
Best Productivity ResourcesBy Shushant LakhyaniVerified creator

Web App

Mealie

Self-hosted recipe manager with meal plans and shopping lists.

Visit Mealie4.6

  • Rating

    4.6 / 5

  • Pricing

    Free

  • Difficulty

    Intermediate

  • Works on

    Web, Cross-Platform

Built with love by Shushant Lakhyani. Building bestproductivityresources.com

Free: 1,100+ ways people make money onlineFree: 399+ ways to make money online

What is Mealie?

Mealie is a free, open-source recipe manager and meal planner you can host yourself. Import recipes from any website with a link, plan meals for the week, build shopping lists from your plan and share everything with your household.

Third-party open-source projects. We are not affiliated with their authors; repositories are provided as-is by their maintainers. Review each project's license, code and security before installing. See our Disclaimer.

Pros: what Mealie does well

  • Imports recipes from a link
  • Meal plans feed shopping lists
  • Free and open source

Cons: where it falls short

  • Needs a server or Docker to run
  • Imports from some sites need tidying

Who Mealie is for

Households who want to plan meals and shop with less effort each week.

Who can skip it

Anyone who rarely cooks from recipes.

Mealie alternatives

Not sold on Mealie? These do a similar job, and each card says what it has in common.

All Organization resources

Grocy

Focus: groceries and household. Shares meal planning and open source with Mealie. Rated 4.5 (Mealie: 4.6).

Web AppFreeWeb, Cross-Platform
4.5Visit

Ente

Focus: encrypted photos, 2fa and cloud storage. Shares open source and github with Mealie. Freemium (Mealie: Free). Adds iOS, Android and macOS. Rated 4.7 (Mealie: 4.6).

Web AppFree planWeb, iOS
4.7Visit

Jellyfin

Focus: media server, streaming and self-hosted. Shares open source and github with Mealie. Rated 4.7 (Mealie: 4.6).

Web AppFreeCross-Platform
4.7Visit

Navidrome

Focus: music, streaming and self-hosted. Shares open source and github with Mealie. Adds macOS, Windows and Linux. Rated 4.7 (Mealie: 4.6).

Web AppFreeWeb, macOS
4.7Visit

Paperless-ngx

Focus: documents, ocr and self-hosted. Shares open source and github with Mealie. Adds Linux. Rated 4.7 (Mealie: 4.6).

Web AppFreeWeb, Linux
4.7Visit

Free alternatives to Mealie

Want to spend nothing? These free picks cover similar ground.

Dashy

Focus: dashboard, start page and self-hosted. Shares open source and github with Mealie. Same 4.6 rating.

Web AppFreeWeb, Cross-Platform
4.6Visit

Homarr

Focus: dashboard, homelab and self-hosting. Shares open source and github with Mealie. Adds Windows and Linux. Same 4.6 rating.

Web AppFreeWeb, Windows
4.6Visit

Homepage

Focus: dashboard, start page and docker. Shares open source and github with Mealie. Same 4.6 rating.

Web AppFreeWeb, Cross-Platform
4.6Visit

PhotoPrism

Focus: photo library, self-hosted and face recognition. Shares open source and github with Mealie. Same 4.6 rating.

Web AppFreeWeb
4.6Visit
Are you the maker of Mealie?Get a free Featured badge for your site, a share image and ready-to-paste posts. No sign-up.

Free Notion database

1,100+ ways people are making money online

Real online businesses, creators and projects, broken down by how they make money: apps, online stores, AI tools and more. Free on Gumroad.

Get the free database

Free Notion database

399+ ways to make money online

Hundreds of online income methods in one place, so you can compare options and pick one to try. Free on Gumroad.

Get the free list

For research and ideas only. Results vary and nothing here is a promise of income. See our Disclaimer.

Weekly newsletter

Everything new, every Monday.

One short email every Monday with everything shipped that week: new free tools and websites, new guides, new free browser tools and what's new in my free Gumroad libraries, plus how the site is growing. Free, and you can unsubscribe anytime.

Join the newsletter

You sign up on Gumroad, which stores your email to send the newsletter. See our Privacy Policy.