Bay vs. MyFitnessPal: a coach you text or the biggest food database?

Side by side

	MyFitnessPal	Bay
What it is	A calorie and macro tracking app	An AI coach you text (iMessage, RCS, SMS)
How you log	Search the database; barcode scan and meal scan on Premium	Text a sentence, send a photo or a voice note; confirm with a tapback
Food data	The largest library, largely user-submitted; Cal AI's photo model now connected	Open Food Facts and USDA FoodData Central label data; barcodes from photos; published menus for 160+ US chains; your own learned portions
Targets	You set them, or use its goal calculator	Set from your goal, then reviewed weekly from your weight trend (±150 kcal max)
Training	Exercise diary; no program	Builds a plan from your days, equipment and injuries; prescribes the weight per lift each morning; handles progression
Check-ins	Reminders you configure	One nudge a day at most, timed to your meals; morning plan and evening recap
Free tier	Yes, with ads; manual search only	Everything, free right now
Paid	Premium $19.99/mo or $79.99/yr; Premium+ $99.99/yr	None right now
Platform	iOS, Android, web	Your messages app; a private web dashboard on request

Logging

MyFitnessPal's strength is breadth. Almost any packaged food and most restaurant items exist in its library, and Premium adds a barcode scanner and a camera "meal scan". Its weakness is the same breadth: entries are largely user-submitted, so the same food can appear with several different numbers and you learn to pick carefully.

Bay's logging is a message. "Chicken burrito bowl, no rice", a photo of the plate, or a voice note on the way out of the restaurant. Bay proposes the calories and protein and you confirm with a tapback or correct it in words. Where a verified source exists it uses one: label data for packaged foods, the barcode if it is in the photo, the published menu for 160+ US chains. Where it has to estimate, it says so, and over time it learns your usual portions so a repeat meal is one line. The mechanics are in how to track calories by texting. Bay has no searchable database to browse; you describe the food and it looks it up.

Targets and adjustment

MyFitnessPal calculates a starting target and leaves it there until you change it. Bay sets the target from your goal and then, every Sunday evening, compares your logged intake with your weight trend over 14 days and proposes a change only when they disagree: at most 150 calories at a time, never below 1,500 (men) or 1,200 (women) calories, protein held fixed, and only once it has four weigh-ins and ten logged days. You approve or decline. If you are choosing on this feature specifically, MacroFactor is the app-based product to compare against.

Training

MyFitnessPal has an exercise diary. Bay builds a training plan from your goal, experience, days, minutes, equipment and anything that hurts, then runs it: the day's session with a weight per lift in the morning text, shorthand set logging ("squat 185x5x3"), rule-based progression and a lighter fifth week once you are past the beginner stage. If training is half of what you want from a coach, this is the clearest difference between the two; see an AI personal trainer over text.

Price

MyFitnessPal's free tier is usable but carries ads and keeps barcode scanning behind Premium at $19.99 a month or $79.99 a year, with Premium+ at $99.99 a year. Bay is free right now with nothing behind a paywall. If and when that changes, the price will be stated here and in the Terms.

Privacy and data

Bay's website sets no cookies and runs no analytics or advertising trackers (the dashboard sets one cookie to keep you signed in), and your dashboard and progress photos are private to you behind a single-use sign-in link that expires in 15 minutes; see the Privacy page. MyFitnessPal's data practices are described in its own privacy policy, which you should read for yourself; we will not characterise them.

Who should pick which

• MyFitnessPal if you want to browse a huge database, scan barcodes in a dedicated app, and manage your own targets, especially if you already have years of history there.
• Bay if you want the log to take one message, the targets to adjust themselves from your results, a training plan with the weights to lift, and someone checking in daily, without an app.
• Both is reasonable: some people keep MyFitnessPal for its database and use Bay for the coaching. Bay does not import from MyFitnessPal today, though it exports your own food, weight and workout history as CSV from the dashboard.