MyFitnessPal has been around since 2005. It has over 300 million registered users and a food database that stretches into the hundreds of millions of items. By any measure, it is the dominant calorie tracker in the world.
So why build Kilo?
Because a 300-million-item global database does not help you log a plate of Kabsa. A premium subscription priced in USD does not serve someone budgeting in SAR. And an app designed for a US gym-goer does not feel right when you are eating iftar with your family during Ramadan.
This is a direct comparison. We cover the food database, scanning, design, Saudi context, and price. You decide which one fits your life.
The Food Database
MyFitnessPal's database is enormous, but size creates its own problems. Search for "rice" and you get thousands of entries from dozens of countries, many of them unverified, with wildly inconsistent macro data. Users add items themselves, which means duplicates, errors, and entries that nobody has checked.
Kilo takes a different approach. The database focuses on Saudi and GCC food. You search for Kabsa, Mandi, Harees, Jareesh, Mutabbaq, or a chicken wrap from Al Baik and get a clean, verified result. The data is curated. You are not sifting through 400 variations of the same dish.
For Saudi users, this matters. Most of the foods you eat every day simply do not exist as reliable entries in MyFitnessPal. You end up building custom entries from scratch or picking the closest approximation from an American restaurant chain. Neither option is accurate.
If you live in Saudi Arabia and eat Saudi food, a database built for Saudi food will serve you better than the largest database in the world that barely covers it.
AI Food Scanning
Both apps let you scan barcodes. Most packaged food in Saudi Arabia has a barcode. This works fine for chips, protein bars, and bottled drinks.
The difference shows up with real food. Kilo's AI scanner recognizes meals by photo. Hold your phone over a plate of Shawarma, a bowl of Ful, or a piece of Kunafa and the app identifies it, pulls the closest match from the Saudi database, and logs the estimate. It is not perfect, but it is fast and it handles foods that do not have barcodes because they were never mass-produced.
MyFitnessPal has photo logging through a feature called Meal Scan, but it is built around global foods and works best with Western dishes. Saudi home cooking and traditional dishes consistently return poor results.
Design and Speed
MyFitnessPal is functional. It is also cluttered. The navigation has layers. Getting from opening the app to logging a meal takes more taps than it should.
Kilo is built around the logging flow. Open the app, tap the meal, log the food. The interface is clean. Nothing is competing for your attention. This sounds like a small thing, but it is not. Calorie tracking only works if you actually do it every day. Friction kills habits.
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | Kilo | MyFitnessPal |
|---|---|---|
| Saudi food database | Verified, curated Kilo | Sparse, unverified |
| AI photo scanning | Optimized for Saudi dishes Kilo | Global focus, weak on local food |
| Barcode scanning | Yes | Yes MFP |
| App design | Clean, fast, minimal Kilo | Functional but cluttered |
| Arabic support | Full Arabic UI Kilo | None |
| Global food database | Growing | 500M+ items MFP |
| Price | $19.99/year Kilo | $19.99/month |
| Platform | iOS | iOS and Android MFP |
Who Should Use Each App
Use Kilo if you:
- Live in Saudi Arabia or the GCC
- Eat Saudi, Arabic, or Gulf cuisine regularly
- Want an app that actually knows your food
- Prefer a clean interface over feature overload
- Want Arabic language support
Use MyFitnessPal if you:
- Eat primarily Western or packaged food
- Need Android support
- Want the largest possible food database
- Already have years of logged history there
- Use fitness integrations like Garmin or Apple Health at scale
The Bottom Line
MyFitnessPal is a good app built for a global audience. It does not pretend to know Saudi food because that was never its goal.
Kilo is a smaller app with a specific purpose: help people in Saudi Arabia track what they actually eat, in their language, with their food. It does that job well.
If you are in Saudi Arabia and you have tried MyFitnessPal and found yourself manually entering Kabsa or guessing at a Shawarma wrap from a Lebanese chain, Kilo fixes that problem. That is why it exists.
Download Kilo and log your next meal. If the food is in the database and the interface feels right, you have your answer.