Best Recipe Apps Compared: Pluck vs Paprika vs Mela vs Pestle vs Preplo

If you’re looking for a recipe manager app, you’ve probably come across names like Paprika, Mela, Pestle and CopyMeThat. They’re all solid apps, each with its own strengths. Most of them started as web clippers, and over the last two years most have added some way to save recipes from social media.

Here’s an honest comparison of the major recipe apps and where Pluck fits in, based on each app’s store listings, release notes and website as of October 2026. For a wider side-by-side, see our recipe app comparison hub.

Updated October 2026: this post originally said Mela and Pestle had no social import and that no other app transcribed video audio or had an AI assistant. None of those statements holds today, and the post has been corrected below.

Feature comparison at a glance

Feature	Pluck	Paprika 3	Mela	Pestle	Preplo
Web recipe import	AI	Web clipper	Web clipper	Apple Intelligence	No
Instagram	Yes (Reels, video posts, carousels)	No (Paprika 4 beta: yes)	Yes (description)	Yes (caption)	Yes (description)
TikTok	Yes (videos, carousels)	No (Paprika 4 beta: yes)	Yes (description)	Yes (caption)	Yes (description)
Facebook	Yes (videos, Reels)	No (Paprika 4 beta: yes)	No	Yes (caption)	No
YouTube	Yes	No (Paprika 4 beta: yes)	Yes (description)	Yes (caption)	Yes (transcript)
What it reads in a video	Caption + audio + on-screen text	n/a	Description, on device	Caption, on device	Transcript or description
Photo / scan import	AI (incl. handwriting)	No (Paprika 4 beta: yes)	OCR	Recipe scanner	No
AI cooking assistant	Yes (paid plans)	No	No	No	No
Cook mode	Yes, with step timers	Yes	Yes, with timers	Yes, guided with timers	Yes
Meal planning	Yes (weekly; free plan: current week)	Yes	Via Apple Calendar	Yes (14-day)	No
Plans the week for you	Fill my week, from your own recipes (Plus and Pro)	No (manual calendar, reusable menus)	No (manual calendar)	None stated (manual planner)	No
Grocery list	Merged, sorted by aisle, shared with up to 5 people	Yes, by aisle (shared through one account)	Via Apple Reminders, which can be shared	Yes	Yes, with price estimates
Search by ingredients	Yes (“What can I cook?”, free; also from a fridge photo)	Yes (several ingredients at once; pantry inventory)	Not stated	Yes (plus a pantry of staples)	Not stated
Import from other apps	Paprika, Mela, Crouton, CopyMeThat, JSON-LD	Not stated	Not stated	Paprika, Mela, Crouton	No
App languages	6	17	Not stated	7	English only
Offline access	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Not confirmed
Platforms	iOS, Android	iOS, Android, Mac, Windows	iPhone, iPad, Mac	iPhone, iPad, Mac, Watch, Vision	iOS (Android “coming soon”)
Price (as of Oct 2026)	Free; Light $2.99/mo, Plus $6.99/mo, Pro $11.99/mo	$4.99 once on mobile, $29.99 on Mac/Windows	Free download; Mela+ $6.99 once (iOS), $14.99 (Mac)	Free tier; Pro $2.99/mo or $24.99/yr	1 free extraction; $9.99/mo

Paprika Recipe Manager

See also: Pluck vs Paprika - detailed comparison

Paprika has been around since 2010 and is one of the most established recipe managers. Paprika 3, the current release, is excellent at its core job: clipping recipes from food blogs and organizing them.

Strengths:

• Mature, stable app with years of refinements
• Native apps on iOS, Android, Mac and Windows, in 17 languages
• Meal planner, aisle-sorted grocery list and pantry
• One-time purchase per platform

Limitations (Paprika 3):

• The web clipper relies on recipe markup and fails on pages without it
• No social media import, no photo scanning, no AI
• Each platform is a separate purchase, and desktop versions cost $29.99 each
• The Android app was last updated in August 2025

What’s coming: Paprika 4 entered open beta on September 28, 2026. It adds photo scanning, import from TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube, USDA nutrition, family accounts and shareable cookbooks. Premium features will need a subscription; the price hasn’t been announced. If you already use Paprika, it’s worth watching.

Mela

See also: Pluck vs Mela - detailed comparison

Mela is a beautifully designed recipe manager for Apple devices, focused on clean UI and a great reading experience.

Strengths:

• Gorgeous, modern interface and an excellent cooking view
• iCloud sync and shared libraries across Apple devices
• Since January 2025, imports from YouTube, TikTok and Instagram by reading the video description with on-device machine learning
• OCR scanning of printed recipes, plus recipe translation
• One-time Mela+ unlock

Limitations:

• Apple only (no Android or Windows), and Mela+ is bought separately on iOS ($6.99) and Mac ($14.99)
• Reads the description only; spoken or on-screen amounts aren’t captured
• No Facebook import, no AI assistant
• Meal planning and groceries go through Apple Calendar and Reminders rather than a built-in planner
• No update since June 2025

Mela is ideal if you’re all-in on Apple and want the best-looking recipe app, as long as the slow update pace doesn’t worry you.

Pestle

See also: Pluck vs Pestle - detailed comparison

Pestle is an actively developed Apple app (version 4.0 shipped in September 2026) built around guided cooking and on-device AI.

Strengths:

• Imports from Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and YouTube, parsing captions with Apple Intelligence on device
• Recipe scanner for photos
• Excellent step-by-step cook mode with integrated timers
• 14-day meal planner, shopping list, households and SharePlay
• Imports from Paprika, Mela and Crouton; 7 languages

Limitations:

• Apple only: no Android
• Reads captions, not the video, so recipes that are only spoken aloud come through incomplete
• No AI cooking assistant
• Subscription for Pro (from $2.99/mo), with a lifetime option

Pestle is the strongest Apple-native option. If your favorite creators write recipes in their captions, it does the job well.

Where Pluck is different

Pluck was built for the way people find recipes in 2026: on social media, in videos, in photos, and on the web. Several apps now share parts of that goal, so here’s specifically what’s different and what isn’t.

It reads the whole video, not only the caption

When you share an Instagram Reel or a TikTok to Pluck, the AI reads the caption, transcribes the audio, and reads on-screen text from the video frames, then works out which parts are ingredients, steps and commentary. A YouTube chef who lists ingredients on screen and a TikTok creator who only says them out loud both come through.

We’re not alone in this anymore. ReciMe and Honeydew transcribe the audio, and Deglaze says it also reads on-screen text frame by frame. Among the five apps in this post, Pluck is the only one that does more than read the caption or description.

Carousels, photos and handwriting

Instagram and TikTok photo carousels are read as one recipe. Photo extraction handles cookbook pages, screenshots and handwritten recipe cards. Mela (OCR) and Pestle (recipe scanner) also import photos; handwriting is where AI vision helps most.

An AI cooking assistant that knows the recipe

On paid plans, Pluck’s AI cooking assistant knows the recipe you’re on. Ask about substitutions (“I don’t have buttermilk”), scaling (“make this for 8”), unit conversion or technique (“what does ‘fold in’ mean?”), and apply the changes to your saved recipe. In cook mode you can ask about the exact step you’re on. Honeydew also has an AI assistant chat; none of the other apps in this post do.

From saved recipe to dinner

Pluck has a weekly meal plan, and on Plus and Pro Fill my week plans the empty days from your own saved recipes. The grocery list merges duplicate ingredients, sorts them by aisle and can be shared with up to 5 other people, free on every plan. “What can I cook?” ranks your saved recipes by what you have (how it works): type the ingredients, which is free, or let Pluck spot them in a photo of your fridge. A cooking log shows how often you’ve made each recipe and when you last did. Switching is easy too: Pluck imports Paprika, Mela, Crouton and CopyMeThat exports (guide).

Confidence scoring

Every extraction includes a confidence score, so you know when to double-check before saving. Learn more about how AI extraction works.

What Pluck doesn’t do

No web, Mac or Windows app. The recipe box and meal plan can’t be shared; the grocery list can, with up to 5 people. No nutrition info. The free plan is small (3 extractions a month, 10 saved recipes) and doesn’t include the assistant; paid plans start at $2.99/mo.

Preplo

See also: Pluck vs Preplo - detailed comparison

Preplo won the RevenueCat Shipyard 2026 Creator Contest and launched on the App Store in March 2026. It focuses on turning cooking video links into structured recipes.

Strengths:

• Clean video-to-recipe concept
• Recipe customization toggles (vegan, spicy, low-carb)
• Cooking streaks for building habits
• Guided full-screen cook mode
• Shopping lists with price estimates, plus per-recipe cost estimates
• Unlimited extractions on every paid plan ($9.99/mo, $49.99/yr or $129.99 lifetime)

Limitations:

• YouTube, TikTok and Instagram only: no Facebook, food blogs or photos
• Reads the transcript on YouTube but only the description on TikTok and Instagram, so spoken TikTok recipes and on-screen text are missed
• No AI cooking assistant
• The free tier is a single extraction
• iPhone only (Android is “coming soon”), English only
• No app update since v1.0.3 in March 2026
• Apple’s App Store privacy label lists usage data used to track you and data used for third-party advertising

What about ReciMe, Honeydew, Deglaze and Flavorish?

This post focuses on five apps, but some of the strongest competitors in 2026 aren’t among them:

• ReciMe imports from Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube and Pinterest (caption, then audio), plus photos and handwriting, and has a web app. Pluck vs ReciMe.
• Honeydew uses the video’s audio transcript and has an AI assistant chat, an AI meal planner, nutrition and household sharing. Pluck vs Honeydew.
• Deglaze claims caption, audio and on-screen text reading, with a meal planner, household sharing and a web app. Pluck vs Deglaze.
• Flavorish reads captions first and has strong photo import and a generous free tier for web imports. Pluck vs Flavorish.

Yummly, which used to appear in comparisons like this, was discontinued in December 2024. The Allrecipes app was discontinued around 2023; its owner launched the MyRecipes app in September 2026.

Which app should you choose?

• Choose Paprika 3 if you clip from food blogs, want desktop apps and prefer one-time purchases. Keep an eye on the Paprika 4 beta.
• Choose Mela if you’re all-Apple and value design above everything, and are fine with infrequent updates.
• Choose Pestle if you’re all-Apple, your creators write recipes in their captions, and you love a guided cook mode.
• Choose Preplo if you’re on iPhone and want unlimited YouTube extractions with cost estimates and streaks.
• Choose Pluck if… well, we’re obviously biased. We built Pluck because we were tired of screenshotting TikTok recipes at midnight and never finding them again. What it does best is read the whole video (caption, audio and on-screen text), handle carousels and handwritten cards, and give you an assistant that knows your recipe while you cook, on iPhone and Android, from $2.99/mo. If you need a web app or a recipe box the whole household shares, look at Deglaze, Honeydew or ReciMe instead.

Don’t take our word for it: save the same five recipes from your own feed in two or three of these apps and keep the one that gets them right.

Looking for a specific angle? We also compared the best free recipe apps, the best recipe apps for Android, iPhone, TikTok recipes, meal planning, families, and AI-powered recipe apps.

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Pluck is available on iOS and Android. Get it on Google Play. Also on iOS. Visit our roadmap to see what’s next and suggest what we should build.