Pluck vs Honeydew - Which Saves Recipes Better?

Honeydew is one of the strongest recipe apps of 2026. It’s on iOS and Android, it imports from TikTok, YouTube, Instagram Reels and Facebook Reels, it reads the audio of cooking videos, and it has an AI assistant you can chat with. On Google Play it has a 4.8 rating from about 22,500 reviews and has been a top-grossing Food & Drink app.

An earlier version of this post claimed Honeydew read captions only, couldn’t import Reels or Facebook, and had no AI assistant. All of that was wrong, and we’ve rewritten the comparison. Pluck vs Honeydew is now a comparison between two apps that take the same problem seriously and make different choices.

What Honeydew does well

Video import with transcripts. Honeydew finds the video, pulls its audio transcript and builds the recipe from it, so quantities that are only spoken make it into the recipe. It covers TikTok, YouTube, Instagram Reels, Facebook Reels, websites and screenshots.
An AI assistant and AI editing. You can chat with Honeydew’s AI assistant, ask for substitutions, have the AI edit a recipe, translate it, or make a copycat recipe from a photo of a dish.
An AI meal planner. Weekly or monthly plans, which the AI can help fill.
Household sharing. Up to six people, each with their own account, share recipes, planning and a real-time grocery list. It’s a Plus feature, and only the household owner needs Plus.
Nutrition. Calories and macros for your recipes.
A pantry. Grocery lists are checked against what you already have, and you can search by ingredient. Per Honeydew’s release notes, Pantry Mode also works from a photo of your pantry.
Hands-free cook mode, offline use, 11 languages, a Chrome extension, and a connector for Claude and ChatGPT.
Pricing. There’s a free tier, and Honeydew Plus is $6.99/month or $39.99/year. Photo, screenshot and social imports need Plus.

If you cook for a household, want nutrition numbers, or want AI to plan the month for you, Honeydew is a very good choice, and in those areas it’s ahead of Pluck.

Where Pluck is different

Reading the frames as well as the audio

Honeydew works from the video’s transcript; we couldn’t confirm that it reads the frames. Pluck’s AI watches the frames and reads on-screen text as well as transcribing the narration and reading the caption.

For a narrated video, both apps will usually get the recipe. The difference shows on videos where amounts are only on screen: a music-only TikTok with text overlays, or a YouTube video where a title card lists the ingredients for a few seconds at the start and the chef never says them aloud. There, a transcript has little to work with, and the frames have everything.

Photo carousels and handwriting

Pluck parses Instagram and TikTok photo carousels as one recipe and reads handwritten recipe cards and cookbook pages. Honeydew imports cookbook-page photos and screenshots; carousel handling we couldn’t verify.

An assistant that lives inside cook mode

Both apps have an AI chat, so this isn’t a “one has it, one doesn’t” difference anymore. Pluck’s AI cooking assistant is built around the recipe in front of you: in cook mode, tap “Ask about this step” and it already knows which recipe and which step you’re on. It handles substitutions, scaling, unit conversion and translation, and you can apply the changes to the saved recipe. Pluck’s cook mode also shows the ingredients each step uses, starts timers from the step and lets you resume where you left off. Finish a recipe there and it lands in your cooking log, so each recipe shows how many times you’ve cooked it and when you last did. Honeydew’s assistant covers more ground beyond the recipe, including meal planning.

Searching your own box by ingredient

Pluck’s “What can I cook?” ranks your saved recipes by what you have and what’s missing, free and unlimited on every plan. Honeydew searches by ingredient too, and it keeps a pantry that grocery lists are checked against. Pluck tracks no pantry; its pantry scan works from a photo you take when you want to cook, spots the ingredients in your fridge and runs the same search (1 scan a month on the free plan, more on paid plans). Honeydew’s release notes describe a similar Pantry Mode. If nothing you’ve saved fits, Pluck can create a new recipe from what you have. See what can I cook with what I have.

Price

Pluck’s paid plans start at $2.99/month or $23.99/year (Light), which includes the assistant (10 messages a month) and social imports. Plus is $6.99/month or $52.99/year, the same monthly price as Honeydew Plus but more per year. If you’d use the assistant a lot, compare the message allowances: 10 on Light, 100 on Plus and 300 on Pro each month.

Importing an existing collection

Pluck imports Paprika, Mela, Crouton and CopyMeThat files and any schema.org JSON-LD file. See how to switch recipe apps.

Where Honeydew is ahead

Pluck’s honest gaps against Honeydew:

Household sharing: Pluck shares the grocery list with up to 5 other people, live and free on every plan, but its recipe box and meal plan are personal. Honeydew’s household shares recipes and planning too.
Nutrition: Pluck shows no calories or macros today.
AI meal planning: Honeydew lists an AI meal planner that creates weekly plans in seconds; whether it plans from your saved recipes isn’t stated. Pluck’s Fill my week plans the week from your own saved recipes, but only on Plus and Pro. On Light and Free you fill the plan yourself.
Languages: 11 for Honeydew, 6 for Pluck.

Feature comparison

Feature	Pluck	Honeydew
TikTok, YouTube	Yes	Yes
Instagram Reels	Yes	Yes
Facebook	Yes (videos and Reels)	Yes (Reels)
Video method	Frames, audio, on-screen text, caption	Audio transcript (frames not verified)
Photo carousels	Yes, as one recipe	Not verified
Photo / cookbook / screenshot	Yes, handwriting too	Yes, plus copycat from a dish photo
AI assistant	Yes, inside cook mode (paid plans)	Yes, AI chat (Plus)
Cook mode	Yes, with step timers	Yes, hands-free
Meal planning	Yes (weekly)	Yes (weekly or monthly)
Plans the week for you	Fill my week, from your own recipes (Plus and Pro)	AI meal planner (recipe source not stated)
Grocery list	Yes, merged, sorted by aisle, shared with up to 5 people	Yes, by section
Ingredient search	”What can I cook?” (free), pantry scan (photo)	Pantry and ingredient search; Pantry Mode (photo) per its release notes
Household sharing	Grocery list only (up to 5 others, free)	Yes (up to 6, with a real-time list; Plus)
Nutrition	No	Yes (calories, macros)
Import from other apps	Paprika, Mela, Crouton, CopyMeThat, JSON-LD	Not verified
App languages	6	11
Platforms	iOS, Android (phone)	iOS, Android, Chrome extension
Paid price	From $2.99/mo (Light); Plus $6.99/mo	Plus $6.99/mo or $39.99/yr

Who should choose what

Choose Honeydew if:

You cook for a household and want up to six people sharing recipes and plans
You want nutrition: calories and macros
You’d like AI to plan your meals by the month as well as the week
You want the app in one of its 11 languages, or use the Chrome extension or AI connectors
You’re paying yearly and want the lower annual price ($39.99)

Choose Pluck if:

You save videos where amounts are shown on screen, not only spoken
You save photo carousels or handwritten cards
You want an assistant that already knows the step you’re cooking
You want the cheapest paid plan ($2.99/month) or free ingredient search
You only need to share the grocery list, and want that free on every plan
You’re moving a collection from Paprika, Mela, Crouton or CopyMeThat

Both apps read cooking videos properly, which most recipe apps still don’t. Honeydew is the better household and nutrition app; Pluck is the more focused one for getting everything out of a video and cooking from it.

For more comparisons, see Pluck vs Deglaze and Pluck vs ReciMe, check our guide to recipe apps with a cook mode, or see the Honeydew alternative page for a quick overview.

Pluck is available on iOS and Android. Get it on Google Play. Also on iOS. Check our roadmap to see what’s next.