How It Felt vs
How It Felt vs Eating Buddy.
How It Felt is a mindful eating journal with no calories, no macros, no weight and no goal — every entry is hunger, fullness and a named emotion, and it stays in a local database on your device with no account. Eating Buddy (by Sagital SRL, listed on the App Store as “Intuitive Eating Buddy” with the subtitle “Mindful Eating · Food Journal”, and on Google Play under the same name) starts from the same refusal of the numbers: its Play tagline is “Mindful eating without calorie counting”, and both store listings describe the app as an alternative to counting rather than a way to do it. This is the closest neighbour on the whole comparison list. The difference is scope. Eating Buddy widens the frame — mood, workouts, sleep and drinks alongside the meal, tags to group entries, patterns over time, and optional challenges you pick based on what those patterns show. How It Felt narrows it — one meal, one emotion from a 21-emotion grid, taste and texture, and then nothing else to do.
What each app optimises for
Eating Buddy
Seeing what surrounds your eating — mood, sleep, movement, drinks — so patterns surface over time, then picking one small challenge to work on. Their store copy says it's built around the Intuitive Eating framework.
How It Felt
One meal at a time — hunger, fullness, a specific emotion and the senses — with nothing to work toward and nothing to keep up with.
Side-by-side
| Feature | Eating Buddy | How It Felt |
|---|---|---|
| Calories and macros | Eating Buddy None — “mindful eating without calorie counting” is their pitch too | How It Felt None — no food database, no barcode scanner |
| What an entry is | Eating Buddy A meal with hunger and fullness, logged “in seconds”, plus optional notes, tags and a photo | How It Felt Hunger, fullness and at least one emotion, plus optional sense notes and a photo that's never analysed |
| Hunger / fullness | Eating Buddy Yes — logging hunger and fullness is the core of the app | How It Felt Sliders for both, every entry |
| Emotion logging | Eating Buddy Mood is one of the context factors you note; their site frames it as recognising emotional and environmental triggers | How It Felt 21-emotion grid, every entry |
| Context around the meal | Eating Buddy Yes — mood, workouts, sleep and drinks | How It Felt No — the entry is the meal; nothing about exercise, sleep or drinks |
| Notes, tags and sensory prompts | Eating Buddy Notes and tags to group entries and reflect on themes; sensory prompts aren't a listed feature | How It Felt Notes with taste, texture and setting prompts; no tags |
| Mindful eating timer | Eating Buddy Not a listed feature | How It Felt Yes — breathing-paced |
| Challenges | Eating Buddy Yes — optional challenges chosen from your own patterns, one small change at a time; this is what the subscription unlocks | How It Felt None |
| Trends and insights | Eating Buddy Patterns over time; the opt-in Smart Insights / Advanced Analytics setting adds personalised feedback and sends the entries you log to their servers anonymously | How It Felt Today / week / month view, free — nothing leaves the device and nothing interprets it for you |
| Reminders and streaks | Eating Buddy Not listed as reminders or streaks; challenges are the structure | How It Felt No reminders and no streaks; post-entry affirmations are optional and can be turned off |
| Account / data location | Eating Buddy No account required; entries live on your device, with Smart Insights as an opt-in upload of logged meals, drinks, check-ins and workouts | How It Felt No account; entries stay in a local database on your device, with nothing to opt into |
| App Store privacy label | Eating Buddy Everything declared as “not linked to you” — health & fitness, user content, purchases, identifiers, usage data and diagnostics; nothing declared as used to track you | How It Felt Entries never leave the device; the free tier's ads, analytics and crash reporting do collect identifiers, usage data and diagnostics — see our privacy page |
| Ads | Eating Buddy None — their privacy policy says usage data is not used for advertising, and the Play listing carries no ads label | How It Felt Yes on the free tier — AdMob, plus analytics and crash reporting; the Supporter tier removes them |
| Export | Eating Buddy Not a listed feature | How It Felt CSV or PDF, exported by you |
| Languages | Eating Buddy English only, on both stores | How It Felt 6 — EN, DE, ES, FR, IT, PT |
| Platforms | Eating Buddy iPhone, Apple Watch, Mac (Apple silicon), Apple Vision and Android | How It Felt iOS and Android |
| Pricing | Eating Buddy Free to download; the challenges need a subscription — the US App Store listed a Monthly Challenges Plan at US$5.99 and a Yearly Challenges Plan at US$19.99, both with a one-week free trial, checked August 19, 2026. Store prices vary by territory | How It Felt Free with ads; optional Supporter tier |
When to pick which
Pick Eating Buddy if…
- You want what surrounds the meal in the same record — mood, sleep, workouts, drinks — because you suspect the pattern lives there. How It Felt deliberately keeps the entry to the meal.
- A structured challenge helps you more than open-ended reflection does: one small change, picked from what your own log shows.
- You want tags, so you can group entries and come back to a theme later.
- No ads at all matters to you, and paying for the challenges is a fair trade for that.
- You read Intuitive Eating and want an app that describes itself as built around that framework.
- You want the journal on an Apple Watch, a Mac or Apple Vision — we're phone-only.
- One caution first: if eating feels hard right now, or you have a history of disordered eating, a challenge to keep up with — and logging mood, sleep, workouts and drinks around every meal — can add pressure rather than take it away; it's worth talking to a doctor or dietitian before you start.
Pick How It Felt if…
- The emotion is the part you want to get specific about — a named feeling from a 21-emotion grid, not a mood note.
- You want the meal itself in focus: taste, texture, setting, and a breathing-paced timer for the first few bites.
- You'd rather have no challenge, no next step and nothing to complete — just the entry, and then nothing.
- You want entries to stay on the device with nothing to opt into, and to export CSV or PDF yourself. The free tier is still ad-supported, so ads, analytics and crash reporting do collect identifiers, usage data and diagnostics.
- You need German, Spanish, French, Italian or Portuguese — Eating Buddy is English only.
Verdict
These two agree more than they disagree: calories are the wrong unit, hunger and fullness are the right ones, and neither is a diet. Eating Buddy is the better fit if you want the journal to explain something — it collects mood, sleep, workouts and drinks around the meal, surfaces patterns, and then offers a challenge aimed at one of them. That's a real structure, and it has no ads — though a challenge to complete steadies some people and adds pressure for others, so it's worth knowing which you are. How It Felt is the better fit if you want the journal to record something and stop there: a specific emotion, a hunger and a fullness, what it tasted like, kept on your device with nothing to opt into and nothing to finish. Neither app is treatment. If eating, hunger or fullness is causing you distress, that's worth taking to a doctor, therapist or registered dietitian rather than settling by picking an app.
Frequently asked
Do both apps really skip calories?
Yes. Eating Buddy's Google Play tagline is “Mindful eating without calorie counting”, and its store listings describe the app as an alternative to counting rather than a way to do it. How It Felt has no food database, no barcode scanner and no portion estimator, so there is nothing to count in the first place. Neither app asks for your weight or sets a goal.
What's actually different about an entry?
Eating Buddy logs the meal with hunger and fullness, and lets you note mood, workouts, sleep and drinks around it, plus notes and tags — it's designed to be quick and to build a picture across days. How It Felt logs hunger before, fullness after, at least one emotion chosen from a 21-emotion grid, and optional prompts for taste, texture and setting; a photo can be attached but is never recognised, named or analysed. One is wider, the other is deeper.
Does Eating Buddy need an account, and where do entries go?
No account. Their privacy policy says so directly and says they don't ask for your name, email or precise location. Entries live on your device, and there's an opt-in setting — Advanced Analytics, surfaced as Smart Insights — that sends the meals, drinks, check-ins and workouts you log to their servers anonymously in exchange for personalised feedback. Their policy is candid that because the data is anonymous, they may not be able to delete it on request. How It Felt has no equivalent setting: entries stay in a local database and there's nothing to turn on.
Which one is more private?
It depends which part you mean, and Eating Buddy comes out ahead on some of it. Its App Store privacy label declares everything as not linked to you and nothing as used to track you, and it carries no ads — its privacy policy says usage data isn't used for advertising. Their privacy policy names PostHog as the analytics provider, and Play's data safety page lists app interactions, crash logs, device IDs, purchase history and approximate location. How It Felt keeps your entries strictly on the device with no cloud option at all, but the free tier is ad-supported: AdMob, analytics and crash reporting receive identifiers, device information and usage events, which our privacy page lists in full. Your entries stay put in both apps unless you opt in with Eating Buddy — the difference is the ads.
What does each one cost?
Eating Buddy is free to download and free to journal in; the optional challenges system needs a subscription — the US App Store listed a Monthly Challenges Plan at US$5.99 and a Yearly Challenges Plan at US$19.99 when we checked on August 19, 2026, both with a one-week free trial. Check the store for current pricing in your region. How It Felt's full journal is free forever with ads, plus an optional Supporter tier that removes them and unlocks the full affirmation library and extended export.
Sources and review date
Comparison claims are based on the public product information linked below and the How It Felt feature set on this site.
Last reviewed: April 30, 2026.
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