Lose It! Alternative with No Ads: Bao, Compared for Asian Food

October 31, 2026 · 5 min read

Bao is a calorie tracker for iPhone that names Taiwanese dishes from a photo and has no ads on any plan. Here is how it compares with Lose It! on price, photo AI, Chinese interface and dish naming, from both apps' App Store pages read on October 31, 2026.

We are Bao, so we are not neutral, and we are not affiliated with Lose It!. That is why every competitor cell below is something its store page says, with the date.

The chart

Two rows from the chart we use on every comparison page. Scroll sideways on a phone.

Facts read from each app's App Store page and Apple's public listing data on October 31, 2026. Prices and ratings change; check the store before you decide. Bao's own rating is from 4 ratings in the US and 10 in Taiwan. Prices are the entries the store page shows, which does not say which entry is current.

Sources, read October 31, 2026: Bao and Lose It! (US storefront), ratings from https://itunes.apple.com/lookup?id=<app id>&country=us and country=tw. All eight apps are in the full chart.

Where Lose It! is stronger

Lose It! has 782,836 US ratings and 267 Taiwan ratings (read October 31, 2026) against Bao's 4 and 10. Its listing says it launched in 2008 and has “helped over 57 million users lose more than 150 million pounds,” which is the listing's own claim and not something we checked.

Its listing has a section headed “AI voice & photo meal logging” and says you can “log healthy meals using your voice or a photo.” It names a “global food database of 56+ million items and recipes,” fitness app syncs including Fitbit, Garmin and Healthkit, intermittent fasting tracking, and GLP-1 medication logging. It also lists Lifetime purchase entries at $49.99 and $59.99, which Bao does not offer: Bao's plans are weekly, monthly and annual. We did not test either app's food database, so we make no accuracy claim about Lose It!'s figures or our own.

Where Bao is different

Bao scans a whole menu before you order. It reads the menu in the language it is printed in and gives an AI estimate for each dish, which is separate from scanning one plate after it is served. Our post on scanning a whole restaurant menu explains the difference.

Bao shows dish names in three languages, and its listings name Taiwanese dishes: the US listing says “Taiwanese street food,” “beef noodle soup” and “boba,” and the Taiwan listing names braised pork rice, fried chicken, bubble tea, bento, street snacks and buffet meals in Chinese. Lose It!'s US listing, as we read it, names no Taiwanese dish. Bao lists a Traditional Chinese interface; Lose It! lists Simplified Chinese only.

Bao shows no ads on any plan. Bao is free to download with a 7-day free trial of Pro, then $4.99 weekly, $9.99 monthly or $59.99 annual. Every Bao figure is an AI estimate, not a lab measurement.

What we did not test

We did not run the same plates through both apps, so we make no accuracy claim either way. We did not install Lose It!, try its photo or voice logging, or check how it names Asian dishes. We read public store pages on one day.

Common questions

Is Lose It! free? Its US App Store listing shows the price as Free and calls the app “more than just a free calorie tracker,” with a section headed “Lose It! free basic features.” The same listing describes a Premium subscription, and the in-app purchase list we read showed Premium entries from $9.99 to $79.99 plus Lifetime entries at $49.99 and $59.99 (read October 31, 2026). We did not install the app, so we cannot say what the free download includes beyond the listing.

Lose It! vs MyFitnessPal: which is better? We compared listings, not accuracy, so we cannot say which is better. On October 31, 2026, Lose It!'s US listing had 782,836 US ratings and Premium entries from $9.99 to $79.99, and MyFitnessPal's had 2,386,714 US ratings and 10 Premium entries from $9.99 to $79.99. MyFitnessPal lists Simplified and Traditional Chinese; Lose It! lists Simplified Chinese only. Neither listing names a Taiwanese dish.

Does Lose It! have a Chinese interface? According to its US App Store listing, partly: the Languages field on October 31, 2026 listed Simplified Chinese among 8 languages and did not list Traditional Chinese. We did not open the app to check how much of it is translated.

Is there a Lose It! alternative with no ads? Bao is one option. Bao shows no ads on any plan. It is free to download with a 7-day free trial of Pro, then $4.99 weekly, $9.99 monthly or $59.99 annual, and every figure it gives is an AI estimate. It logs a plate from one photo, can scan a whole menu before you order, and shows each dish name in three languages.

Does Lose It! work for Taiwanese food? We cannot say how the app performs. Its US listing names no Taiwanese dish; we searched the listing text and found none. Bao's Taiwan listing names braised pork rice and bubble tea in Chinese, and its US listing names “Taiwanese street food.” We did not test how either app handles a Taiwanese dish.