Looking for a Deglaze Alternative? An Honest Comparison

I make AnyRecipe, so read this knowing that.

Deglaze has been on the App Store since September 2023, and at 4.87 stars it sits level with AnyList, near the top of this series. Its site tells a familiar story: a small team who left corporate jobs because recipes were scattered everywhere and building a grocery list felt like a chore. That is close to word for word why I built AnyRecipe, so this is two apps with the same frustration and different answers to it.

Figures were checked in September 2026 against Apple’s App Store listings, including my own, and against Deglaze’s site.

The numbers, mine included

Deglaze: 4.87 stars from around 3,850 ratings. Shipping since September 2023. iPhone and iPad. Requires iOS 15.1.

AnyRecipe: 4.5 stars from 2 ratings. Shipping since 2024. iPhone and iPad. Requires iOS 26.

Nearly four thousand ratings against two, for apps of a similar age. And iOS 15.1 against iOS 26 means Deglaze installs on phones AnyRecipe cannot.

What Deglaze does

Saves from anywhere in two taps: your browser, social apps or other recipe apps.

Photo import for cookbook pages and screenshots, which its listing calls best in class.

Sorts recipes with AI, searchable by title, ingredient and author.

Recipe Search across the top recipe sites, where you can follow favourite sites and authors for personalised results.

A household library. Share your recipes, grocery list and meal plan with the people you live with.

A social side. See what your friends are cooking, and keep a record of what you cooked with your own notes.

A grocery list you can build by hand or from whole recipes, which its listing says gets smarter the more you use it.

Cooking help: the screen stays on, you can switch between recipes with a tap, and audio cooking sessions read along so you are not staring at your phone.

What it costs

Deglaze is unusually open about its free version: its listing calls it fully featured. Deglaze Pro is an optional subscription that unlocks:

• unlimited recipe imports and collections, which means the free version caps both, though the listing does not say at what number
• the meal planner
• aisle sorting on the grocery list
• recipe scaling and conversion between metric and standard units
• one-tap timers from a recipe step

Its App Store page lists Deglaze Pro at $49.99, and the listing says the price and period appear on the checkout screen, with a free trial for new users.

Where we actually differ

Planning and the list. In Deglaze the meal planner and aisle sorting are part of Pro. In AnyRecipe the week and the list are the centre of the app: plan by hand or ask it to fill the week from recipes you saved, and the shopping list merges and sorts everything you planned.

Cooking for a household. Deglaze shares the library, the list and the plan with the people you live with. AnyRecipe has no shared library inside the app. Its shopping list syncs both ways with Apple Reminders, and a Reminders list can be shared with family, which works if everyone is on Apple devices and is clumsier than Deglaze’s approach.

Finding new recipes. Deglaze searches the top recipe sites and lets you follow authors, and shows what friends are cooking. AnyRecipe is built around recipes you have already found.

Accounts. Deglaze’s site has you sign in, and sharing with a household needs a service in the middle. AnyRecipe has no account and syncs through your own private iCloud, so I cannot read your cookbook.

Shopping list arithmetic. AnyRecipe merges quantities across every recipe in a planned week and rounds them up to the packet sizes shops sell, so the list asks for the 500g bag rather than 340g of something. Several apps merge and sort by aisle; the rounding is the narrow part I have not found elsewhere.

Where Deglaze is straightforwardly ahead

Household sharing of recipes, lists and plans. Recipe search with sites and authors you follow. Audio cooking sessions.

iOS 15.1 support, and 3,850 ratings against my 2.

Who should pick which

Pick Deglaze if you cook for a household that wants one shared library, you like discovering recipes from sites and authors you trust, or you save far more recipes than you plan. Also if your phone cannot run iOS 26.

Pick AnyRecipe if you want no account and your recipes in your own iCloud, want a week planned from your own recipes, and want a shopping list that rounds to real packet sizes.

Try both if you are unsure. Save the same five recipes into each, then plan three dinners and look at the list. That is where the two apps differ most.

All twenty-two are side by side, with ratings and iOS requirements, in the best recipe apps for iPhone.

Other comparisons: Flavorish has a generous free plan and runs on Android, AnyList is the one for shopping together, Plan to Eat is the best pure meal planner, and Pepper is the most social.

AnyRecipe is free on the App Store, for iPhone and iPad running iOS 26 or later. Deglaze is on the App Store and at deglaze.app, and is made by people who clearly cook.