Best Mealime Alternative in 2026: Mealime Shuts Down on 21 October
Mealime's own site says the app will be discontinued on 21 October 2026 and that personal data will be deleted at shutdown. Here is what the notice says, how to keep the recipes you cook from, and how Drizzlelemons compares.
Short answer: Meals Hub (official successor): best for Mealime's recipes, free in Albertsons grocery apps. Plan to Eat: best for calendar planning ($5.95/month). Eat This Much: best for calorie targets (free daily plans). Lightning Meal Plans: best for AI suggestions ($2.99/month). Drizzlelemons (ours): best for keeping your Mealime recipes in your own ad-free cookbook (web; free to start, $1.99 top-ups, no subscription).
Our test: on 22 September 2026 we pasted a public mealime.com recipe link into Drizzlelemons, and its ingredients, steps, four servings and 30-minute cook time came through. Prices checked on 9 October 2026; sources are in the table below.
Reviewed 22 September 2026. We make Drizzlelemons; the Mealime facts below come from the linked public sources. Drizzlelemons is not affiliated with Mealime or Albertsons Companies.
Paste a public Mealime recipe link to try it. One free conversion each day, no signup.
Alternatives to Mealime at a glance (as of 9 October 2026)
Each row uses the same columns, with prices in US dollars as each tool's own website listed them on 9 October 2026. We make Drizzlelemons, so we tested a Mealime recipe only there; the import notes for the other tools describe what their makers document. None of these makers describes importing a Mealime account.
| Tool | Best for | Price (as of 9 October 2026) | Platforms | Can it import Mealime recipes? | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Meals Hub | Mealime's own recipes and meal-planning tools, from the same team | Meals Hub: free, including former Pro recipes (as of 9 October 2026) | Inside Albertsons Companies store apps and websites; works without a nearby store | Already has them: Mealime says every Mealime recipe continues in Meals Hub. Accounts do not transfer, and some preferences must be set up again. | |
| Plan to Eat | Planning a calendar around recipes you collect yourself | Plan to Eat: $5.95 a month or $49 a year after a 14-day free trial; no free plan (as of 9 October 2026) | iPhone, Android and web | No Mealime account import. Its Recipe Clipper saves recipes from web pages; we have not tried it on a Mealime page. | |
| Eat This Much | Automatic meal plans built around calorie and macro targets | Eat This Much: free daily plans; Premium $5 a month billed annually, for weekly plans and grocery lists (as of 9 October 2026) | Web, iPhone and Android | No Mealime account import. Its Import from URL option reads recipes from other websites; we have not tried it on a Mealime page. | |
| Lightning Meal Plans | AI meal suggestions matched to web recipes, with a grocery list sorted by department | Lightning Meal Plans: free to try; Pro $2.99 a month or $29.99 a year (as of 9 October 2026) | iPhone and Android | No Mealime account or library import, per its own guide. It imports public recipe links; we have not tried it on a Mealime page. | |
| Drizzlelemons (we make it) | Keeping your Mealime recipes in your own ad-free cookbook | Drizzlelemons: free to start (1 conversion a day without an account; 5 lemons on signup, one per conversion); top-ups from $1.99 for 20; Lifetime $39 at the founding price; no subscription (as of 9 October 2026) | Web: any browser on phone, tablet or desktop | Public mealime.com recipe links: yes, tested on 22 September 2026. No account import; Mealime meal plans and grocery lists do not carry over. |
Store, region and promotional prices can differ. Check each maker's page before paying for anything.
What Mealime's shutdown notice says
A banner on the Mealime homepage links to a closing page that states Mealime “will be discontinued as of October 21, 2026”. Mealime was acquired by Albertsons Companies in 2021, and the page explains that its recipes and planning tools are moving into Meals Hub, the recipe feature inside the grocer's store apps. The current App Store and Google Play release notes repeat the date and add that Pro is now free for everyone and existing subscriptions will not renew.
- Shutdown date
- Mealime says the app will be discontinued as of 21 October 2026.
- Official replacement
- Meals Hub, a free recipe and meal-planning feature inside Albertsons Companies store apps and websites (Safeway, Albertsons, Vons, Jewel-Osco and others).
- Pro billing
- Paid subscriptions are being wound down. Pro recipes and features are now available to all users, and current Pro subscribers will not be charged again before the shutdown.
- Your data
- All personal data will be deleted when the app is shut down. Accounts do not transfer to Meals Hub, and some preferences will need to be set up again there.
- Export
- The support site describes no recipe export. Individual recipes can be shared from the iOS app, the grocery list can be printed from the web app, and the recipe library is published on mealime.com.
Facts as published on 22 September 2026. Mealime may update its notice; the closing page and the release notes are the sources to check.
Save your favourite Mealime recipes before 21 October 2026
Mealime publishes its recipe library on mealime.com/recipes, and each public recipe page carries standard structured recipe data: ingredients, steps, servings and cooking time. On 22 September 2026 we pasted one of those pages into Drizzlelemons and the ingredients, method, four-serving yield and 30-minute cook time came through as a clean, ad-free recipe. Meals Hub keeps the library too, so this step is for people who want their favourites in a cookbook of their own rather than inside a grocery app.
- Find the recipe on mealime.com/recipes, or share it from the iOS app (Mealime's sharing article describes the share icon in the recipe action sheet). Copy the link.
- Paste the link into the form above. No account is needed for the daily trial.
- Check the extracted ingredients and steps, then use the save prompt to keep it in your free cookbook.
- Repeat for each favourite. A recipe without a public page can be pasted as text, and recipes you imported into Mealime from other websites can be converted from their original links.
- Copy any personal notes out of Mealime by hand before the shutdown. They are personal data, and Mealime says personal data is deleted when the app closes.
There is no Mealime account import, and Drizzlelemons cannot reach anything behind a login. If a page blocks extraction, paste text you can access.
Which fits the way you cook?
Mealime generated a personalized weekly plan from its own library, turned it into a grocery list sorted by category and offered grocery delivery through partners. That workflow continues, free, in Meals Hub inside Albertsons Companies store apps. If being told what to cook this week is what you valued, Meals Hub is the closest match.
Drizzlelemons does not generate plans and has no curated library. You bring recipe links from any site, including Mealime's public pages, or paste text, and cook from an ad-free view. Saved recipes can be planned for This Week, combined into a shopping list, scaled to any serving count and cooked in Cook Mode, in any browser, with one-time upgrades instead of a subscription.
Choose Meals Hub if you want Mealime's recipes and generated plans and do not mind a grocer's app. Choose Drizzlelemons if you want your own recipe collection, from any source, that outlives any one app.
How much did Mealime cost?
Mealime is free to download. Its US App Store and Google Play descriptions, checked on 22 September 2026, list the optional Pro subscription below. The support article on Pro describes it as a monthly subscription; an annual plan was not advertised in the listings we reviewed.
| Offer | Listed price | Status on 22 September 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Mealime app | Free download | Available until 21 October 2026 |
| Mealime Pro | US$2.99 per month | Being wound down; Pro features free for all users and existing subscriptions will not renew |
| Meals Hub | Free, per Mealime's closing page | Available inside Albertsons Companies store apps and websites |
Web, regional and promotional offers may have differed. If a Pro charge still appears on your statement, check the subscription in your App Store or Google Play account.
How Drizzlelemons charges
Try one conversion each day without an account. A free account starts with 5 lemons; keeping your anonymous trial recipe uses one of them. New conversions and AI edits each use one lemon. Saving an already-converted recipe has no separate charge.
One-time top-ups start at $1.99 for 20 lemons. The optional Lifetime plan is $39 while the founding offer is available, with a regular price of $69. Lifetime removes lemon charges for conversions and AI edits, with a fair-use limit of 100 conversions and AI edits a day. Check pricing and Lifetime availability for the current offer.
The recipe scaler and unit calculators are free and do not use lemons. Meals Hub is free, so compare what you would actually use before paying for anything.
Feature comparison
Mealime's store listings and support site describe generated meal plans, an automatic grocery list, a mobile-only cooking mode, recipe import from the web and servings up to six. We have reviewed the public descriptions, not tested every feature in the app.
| Feature | Drizzlelemons | Mealime |
|---|---|---|
| Recipe sources | Extract from accessible recipe links, including Mealime's public recipe pages, or pasted text | Curated Mealime library; the mobile apps can also import recipes from the web into 'Your Recipes' |
| Meal planning and shopping lists | Plan saved recipes for This Week and combine their ingredients into a shopping list; no generated plan | Personalized weekly plan generated from its own library, automatic grocery list sorted by category, grocery delivery and pickup partners advertised |
| Adjust serving sizes | Any serving count, plus a free recipe scaler | Servings set in eating preferences, up to six per the support article |
| Recipe adaptation | AI edits use lemons; review the suggested changes before cooking | Diet types, allergy filters and disliked ingredients shape the plan; per-recipe edits are not described |
| Guided cooking and screen wake | Cook Mode with steps, timers and screen wake, in the browser | Cooking mode with hands-free step navigation, mobile apps only per the support article |
| Nutrition | Shown when the source states it; never estimated | Calories, macros and micros were a Pro feature, now open to all users |
| Metric and US units | Free calculators; ingredient estimates are labelled | US or metric switch in the app settings |
| Platforms | Any browser on phone, tablet or desktop; nothing to install | iOS and Android apps plus a web app, until 21 October 2026 |
| After 21 October 2026 | Your cookbook stays in your account | App discontinued and personal data deleted; the recipe library continues in Meals Hub |
A feature not described in these sources may still exist. Several Mealime support articles date from 2019 to 2020, so the app may have changed since they were written.
Try Drizzlelemons with one Mealime recipe
- Copy a recipe link from mealime.com/recipes and paste it into the form above. No account is needed for the daily trial.
- Check the extracted ingredients and steps before cooking. If a page blocks extraction, paste recipe text you can access.
- Use the save prompt to keep the recipe in your free cookbook. Keeping a trial recipe uses one signup lemon.
- Open the saved recipe on another device, add it to This Week, scale the servings or use Cook Mode.
There is no direct Mealime account import, and your Mealime meal plans and grocery lists do not carry over. Rebuild This Week from the recipes you saved, and the shopping list follows from it.
Frequently asked questions
Is Mealime shutting down?
Yes. Mealime's website says the app will be discontinued as of 21 October 2026, and its App Store and Google Play release notes repeat the date. The team points users to Meals Hub inside Albertsons Companies grocery apps.
What replaced Mealime?
Meals Hub. Mealime's closing page, read on 22 September 2026, names Meals Hub as the replacement: a free recipe and meal-planning feature inside Albertsons Companies store apps and websites, with all the Mealime recipes. It is not a standalone app, and Mealime accounts do not carry over, so some preferences need setting up again. If you would rather keep recipes from any site in a cookbook of your own, Drizzlelemons is one alternative.
What is Meals Hub?
Meals Hub is the recipe and meal-planning feature inside Albertsons Companies store apps and websites, including Safeway, Albertsons, Vons and Jewel-Osco. Mealime says it is free, includes all Mealime recipes plus thousands more, is run by the same team, and still works if there is no Albertsons store near you. It is the official replacement, not a standalone app.
Will I still be charged for Mealime Pro?
Mealime says Pro subscribers will not be charged any additional subscription fees before the shutdown on 21 October 2026, that existing subscriptions will not renew, and that Pro recipes and features are now available to every user. Check your App Store or Google Play subscriptions to confirm nothing is still active.
Can I export my Mealime recipes?
Not in bulk: Mealime's support site describes no recipe export. Individual recipes can be shared from the iOS app, the grocery list can be printed from the web app, and the recipe library is published on mealime.com. Public recipe pages do convert: on 22 September 2026 we pasted one into Drizzlelemons and its ingredients, steps, servings and cook time came through as an ad-free copy in our own cookbook. For a recipe without a public page, paste its text instead.
What happens to my Mealime data?
Mealime's notice says all personal data will be deleted when the application is shut down, and that some preferences will need to be set up again in Meals Hub. Save anything you want to keep, including favourites and notes, before 21 October 2026.
What is the best Mealime alternative?
It depends on what you used Mealime for. Meals Hub, the official successor, keeps Mealime's recipes free inside Albertsons Companies store apps. Plan to Eat suits planning a calendar around your own recipes, Eat This Much suits calorie and macro targets, and Lightning Meal Plans suits AI meal suggestions. Drizzlelemons, which we make, suits keeping recipes from Mealime's public pages and any other site in your own ad-free cookbook, with one-time top-ups instead of a subscription. Prices for each, checked on 9 October 2026, are in the table on this page.
Does Drizzlelemons generate a weekly meal plan for me?
No. Drizzlelemons has no recipe library and does not generate plans. You choose which saved recipes go on This Week and combine their ingredients into a shopping list, and the what's-in-my-fridge tool can suggest a recipe from ingredients you already have.
What is free with Drizzlelemons?
You can try one conversion each day without an account. Signup grants 5 lemons; keeping your anonymous trial recipe uses one of them. Each new conversion and AI edit uses a lemon. Saving an already-converted recipe has no separate charge, and the standalone scalers and unit calculators are free.
Is Drizzlelemons cheaper than Mealime?
Not necessarily. Mealime's free tier and Meals Hub are free, so if the Mealime library is all you need, Meals Hub costs nothing. Drizzlelemons offers one-time top-ups from $1.99 for 20 lemons, plus a Lifetime plan at $39 while the founding offer is available ($69 regular price). Its free allowances are not unlimited.
Keep your recipes past 21 October 2026
Start a free cookbook with 5 lemons. No subscription required.