Comparing AnyList
AnyList can put the meals you picked onto your calendar. Eat Roostly reads your Google Calendar first, sees the Thursday flight, and plans dinners that fit, inside everyone's allergies and diets.
Start freeNo credit card · about 2 minutes
Free to start · web, iPhone, and Android · calendar reading free on every plan
AnyList is a very good list app, with shared grocery lists that update in real time. Its meal plan, with AnyList Complete, has an iCalendar subscription link (Meal Plan, then Email, Print, Share and Subscribe, then Subscribe in External Apps). Add it to Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, or Outlook, and the meals you placed on each day appear there.
That feed runs one way, out, and AnyList notes Google Calendar may take up to 12 hours to catch up after a change. If Tuesday has a 7pm soccer practice, the feed will cheerfully show the braised short ribs you planned for Tuesday. You still choose each meal and place it yourself.
Most apps write your meal plan to a calendar. Eat Roostly reads the calendar first, then plans the week around it.
Eat Roostly checks the dinner window, roughly 4pm to 9pm, on every day of the plan week, including all-day and multi-day events like trips. Busy nights get quick dinners, open nights can get something slower, and nights you are away get nothing planned and nothing bought. Free on every plan. Not connected? Set rules by hand, like "Tuesdays are busy".
On Home Chef and up, each dinner is added to your Google Calendar as an event, 6:00 PM by default. Swap a meal and the event updates, with no duplicates. Each household member connects their own Google account.
Each person gets their own allergies, intolerances, and diet, and every plan is filtered against all of them at once. Best-effort, and free on every tier.
Photograph your shelves and the week uses what you own. Only missing items land on the list. One tap in Settings exports all your data, free on every plan.
No credit card · about 2 minutes
The read side: busy nights, trips, and dinner parties.
The write side: dinners as Google Calendar events, visible on iPhone or Outlook through Google.
| AnyList | Eat Roostly | |
|---|---|---|
| Who decides the meals | You do. With AnyList Complete you add recipes and notes to each day. | Eat Roostly generates the week in a minute or two. Swap any meal you do not want. |
| Reads your calendar before planning | No documented feature. | Yes, Google Calendar, free on every plan. |
| Puts the plan on your calendar | With AnyList Complete, an iCalendar subscription for Apple Calendar, Google Calendar, or Outlook. One-way; Google may take up to 12 hours to show changes. | Home Chef and up: dinners written to Google Calendar as events. Google only, no .ics feed; Apple Calendar or Outlook show them if that Google calendar is added there. |
| Allergies and diets per person | No documented allergy or diet filtering. | Per person, filtered on every plan. Never paywalled. |
| Plans around your pantry | AnyList does not generate plans, so cooking from what you have is your call. | Photograph your shelves; the week uses what you own. |
| Shopping list | Real-time shared lists, item prices, store filters. | Aisle-organized for the week. Kroger cart on paid plans. |
| Recipe import | From websites, browser extensions, and the phone share sheet. Can import a Paprika export file. Free tier limited to 5 web imports. | Paid plans: one at a time by URL or photo of a recipe card. No bulk importer. |
| Platforms | iPhone and iPad, Android, web, Mac app, Apple Watch. Windows via web. | Web, iPhone, and Android. No native Mac or Windows app. |
| Price | Free tier for basic lists and recipe storage. AnyList Complete is $9.99/yr individual or $14.99/yr household. | Free plan at $0. Home Chef $6.99/mo or $69.99/yr. Family Table $12.99/mo or $129.99/yr. |
If you already know what you want to cook and mostly need a great shared list, AnyList is hard to beat, and at $14.99 a year for a household it costs far less than our paid plans. It has native Mac and Apple Watch apps, which we do not, and an .ics feed for Apple Calendar and Outlook, where our dinners go to Google Calendar only. If you love curating a big recipe library, AnyList suits that better too.
Eat Roostly is for the household where deciding what to cook, around this week's schedule and three people's food rules, is the chore you want gone.
Each person's allergies, intolerances, and diet, entered once, then Google Calendar so the planner can see your week.
A minute or two later you have dinners matched to each night, with the shopping list built.
On a paid plan, add favorites one at a time by URL or recipe-card photo. There is no bulk importer.
You can keep AnyList for grocery lists if you like it. Eat Roostly builds its own list, and nothing stops you from using both.
Coming from Mealime? It closes October 21, 2026. Here is where to land if you cook around dietary needs.
No credit card · about 2 minutes
A week planned within low-FODMAP guidelines.
Each person's allergy list, checked on every plan.
Dinners planned with blood sugar in mind.
In one direction. With AnyList Complete, the meal plan offers an iCalendar subscription link that you can add to Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, or Outlook. AnyList notes Google Calendar may take up to 12 hours to reflect changes. Nothing in AnyList's docs describes reading your calendar to decide what to cook.
Eat Roostly reads your Google Calendar before it plans. A night with a 7pm practice gets a quick dinner, and a night you are away gets nothing planned or bought. Reading is free on every plan. Home Chef and up can also add each dinner to your Google Calendar.
Not in bulk. Eat Roostly has no bulk importer. On a paid plan you can add recipes one at a time by pasting a URL or photographing a recipe card.
Yes, if you like it. Eat Roostly builds its own shopping list for the week, and plenty of people keep a separate list app for household items.
Yes, there is a free plan with 2 AI meal plans a month, Google Calendar reading, a shopping list, and full allergy and diet filtering, and it needs no card. Home Chef is $6.99 a month or $69.99 a year, and Family Table is $12.99 a month or $129.99 a year.