Looking for a Recipe Gallery Alternative? An Honest Comparison
I make AnyRecipe, so read this with that in mind.
Recipe Gallery has been on the App Store since May 2013 and has more than eleven thousand ratings at 4.81 stars. It is also the app in this series closest to AnyRecipe on one thing I usually count as a difference: it syncs through iCloud. So this comparison comes down to what each app does with a recipe once it has it.
Figures were checked in September 2026 against Apple’s App Store listings, including my own.
The numbers, mine included
Recipe Gallery: 4.81 stars from around 11,300 ratings. Shipping since May 2013. iPhone, iPad and Apple silicon Macs. Requires iOS 13. Last updated March 2026.
AnyRecipe: 4.5 stars from 2 ratings. Shipping since 2024. iPhone and iPad. Requires iOS 26.
Eleven thousand ratings against two. And iOS 13 against iOS 26 means Recipe Gallery installs on phones going back many years that AnyRecipe cannot. The last update in March is worth knowing about too: six months is not alarming, but it is a slower pace than most apps here.
What Recipe Gallery does
Captures recipes with little or no typing, using the iPhone or iPad camera, for magazines, cookbooks and recipe cards.
Saves from the web through a built-in browser and Safari bookmarks, and imports PDFs.
Makes everything searchable. Text recognition indexes what it captures, so you can search by recipe name, ingredients, instructions or notes, offline included.
Syncs and backs up through iCloud across your devices.
Annotates recipe images, with custom categories, sorting and ratings, and personal notes such as serving history or changes you made.
Shares by email or AirDrop, and prints in one tap.
What it costs
Recipe Gallery is free to download. Its App Store page lists a premium subscription at $2.99 a week or $9.99 a year. The listing does not say what premium unlocks, so look in the app before you pay. If you do subscribe, the yearly plan is far better value: the weekly price comes to over $150 a year.
Where we actually differ
What happens to a recipe. Recipe Gallery’s listing describes capturing recipes and making their text searchable, with tools to annotate the images. AnyRecipe turns each recipe into separate ingredients and steps, which is what lets it plan a week from them and add them up into one shopping list. If you want a searchable archive of the recipes you already own, Recipe Gallery’s approach is simpler. If you want the recipes to feed a plan and a list, that is the part AnyRecipe is built for.
Planning and shopping. Recipe Gallery’s listing does not describe a meal planner or a shopping list. AnyRecipe merges quantities across 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, and it syncs the list with Apple Reminders.
Social video. Recipe Gallery’s listing mentions the camera, the web and PDFs, not Instagram or TikTok. AnyRecipe saves from Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest and YouTube Shorts through the share sheet.
Privacy is close to a tie. Both sync through iCloud. That is usually a point I make for AnyRecipe, and here it is not one.
Where Recipe Gallery is straightforwardly ahead
A Mac app. iOS 13 support, which covers much older phones. Thirteen years on the App Store, and a yearly price of $9.99.
And 11,300 ratings against my 2.
Who should pick which
Pick Recipe Gallery if you mainly want your cookbooks, cards and printouts in one searchable place, on a Mac as well as your phone, at a low yearly price. Also if your phone cannot run iOS 26.
Pick AnyRecipe if your recipes arrive from Instagram and TikTok, and you want them planned into a week and added up into one shopping list.
Try both if you are unsure. Photograph the same three recipes into each, then try to shop for them. That shows the difference quickly.
All twenty-two are side by side, with ratings and iOS requirements, in the best recipe apps for iPhone.
Other comparisons: Paprika is the pay-once veteran with a Mac app, Recipe Keeper runs on even more platforms, OrganizEat also scans recipes from photos, and MealBoard has been shipping even longer, since 2009.
AnyRecipe is free on the App Store, for iPhone and iPad running iOS 26 or later. Recipe Gallery is on the App Store, and has been a quiet favourite for over a decade.
Frequently asked
What does the Recipe Gallery app do?
It keeps recipes you capture with the camera, save from the web or import as PDFs, and uses text recognition to make them searchable by name, ingredient, instructions or notes, even offline. It syncs and backs up through iCloud and runs on iPhone, iPad and Apple silicon Macs.
How much does Recipe Gallery cost?
It is free to download. Its App Store page lists a premium subscription at $2.99 a week or $9.99 a year. The listing does not spell out what premium adds, so check that in the app.
Does Recipe Gallery make a shopping list or meal plan?
Its listing does not describe either. It is built around keeping and finding recipes. AnyRecipe turns recipes into ingredients and steps, plans a week from them and builds one merged shopping list.
Which one works on an older iPhone?
Recipe Gallery, by a wide margin. It needs iOS 13, while AnyRecipe needs iOS 26.
