Full disclosure: we make Popotam, one of the apps in this guide. That's why everything about the others comes from their official sites, dated, with sources, and why our own limits are written as clearly as theirs. There's no app that's best for everyone: there's the right one for the way you shop.
Prices and features change. Everything here comes from the services' official pages, checked on that date. Nothing is copied from a comparison site or a blog.
By Jérémy, who makes Popotam. Profiles checked on September 19, 2026 at the earliest.
Before comparing features, ask yourself who builds the menu. Some apps build it for you, based on your tastes, your time and your budget; others help you lay out recipes you pick or import over the week. Both are fine, they just don't meet the same need.
Next, where do you shop: at the supermarket of your choice, at the market, or curbside pickup at a specific retailer? Some apps rely on partner retailers, which is super handy if that's already yours, and a hassle if not.
Finally, what you're willing to give: a subscription, an account, an email address. That's where “free” takes on very different meanings, and that's the next table.
No subscription, no account, and what each one costs, as the service lists it.
| Criterion | Popotam | Jow | Romi | Pimzi | Cookimag |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Usable without a subscriptionUse the tool for its main purpose without paying for a subscription. | Yes | Yesby linking a store; optional subscription from €2.92/month | Noseven-day trial, then paid | Partlyfirst menu free, then a monthly subscription or lifetime access, both paid | Partlya free version, whose limits aren't detailed |
| No accountUse the service without creating an account or giving an email address. | Yesno account, a secret link | Nothe account is linked to a store chain | Nothe subscription requires an account | Nothe terms of sale mention the account and its email address | Nocreating an account is part of getting started |
| What it costsThe price the service lists, as of the check date. | €0no strings attached | €0with a linked store | €4.99a month, or €39.99 a year | Not verifiedamounts not shown | €0then €8.99 a month for Premium |
How to read this table. “No” means “not offered according to the service's public info as of the check date”: you can't prove a feature doesn't exist, but you can say so honestly. “Not verified” means we couldn't find an official source, and we'd rather say so than guess.
| Criterion | Popotam | Jow | Romi | Pimzi | Cookimag |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plan your mealsOrganize the week's meals ahead of time, day by day. | Yes14 meals a week, lunch and dinner, up to four weeks | Yes | Yesthe week's meals | Yesthe week's dinners | Yesa seven-day calendar, up to four meals a day |
| Grocery listGet the list of ingredients to buy, grouped for the store. | Yessorted by aisle, with checkboxes | Yesturned into a cart | Yessorting by aisle isn't announced | Yesorganized by aisle, with an estimated total | Yessorted by aisle |
| Shop wherever you wantBuy at any store, with no required retailer and no partnership. | Yesno partner store chain | Partlysix partner store chains listed | Yesno partner store chain announced | Partlymenus follow the prices of one of the thirteen announced store chains | Yesno partner store chain announced |
| Estimated budgetKnow what the week costs before you go shopping. | Yesestimated ingredient by ingredient | Partlythe price of the cart at the store chain | Not verified | Yesan estimated total before shopping, announced to within 10% | Not verified |
| Fine-tuned customizationSet cooking time, equipment, favorite cuisines, spice level, nutrition goal… | Yestime, equipment, cuisines, spice, goal, pantry, time slots… | Not verified | Partlybudget and preferences announced, no details | Partlybudget, store chain and allergens announced | Partlycollections by cuisine, season or diet |
| AI generationMenus are put together by AI, not just picked from a catalog. | Yesinstant generation | Not verified | Not verified | Not verified | Not verified |
A meal planner that puts together your week, or your month, plus the grocery list that goes with it, with no account and no subscription.
A recipe app that turns the menu you pick into a grocery cart at a partner store chain.
A French-language meal planner: it puts together the week's meals and the grocery list that goes with them, taking a budget and preferences into account.
A dinner planner: it puts together the week's dinners and their grocery list based on a budget, using the prices of the store chain you pick among thirteen announced.
A recipe notebook that imports recipes from Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest or a website in one click, then places them on your week with a grocery list sorted by aisle.
Popotam builds your week, lunch and dinner, or the whole month, based on your tastes, your time, your equipment and your budget, then turns it into a grocery list sorted by aisle. It checks every dish before showing it to you: a diet or an excluded food is verified in the result, not just requested. It keeps your favorite dishes in a cookbook, handles your meal prep, and the meal plan is shared live with your household. It's on Android (Google Play), can be added to an iPhone home screen, and works in a computer's browser.
Its limits, taken from its profile: no ingredient delivery: it's a planner, not a grocery service ; you can't order your groceries from Popotam, no store chain is a partner ; the prices shown are estimates, based on average in-store prices (Open Prices), not the actual prices of a given store ; no iPhone app: on iOS, Popotam runs in the browser and can be added to your home screen (the Android app is on Google Play) ; with no account, access depends on a secret link: lose it without having left an email address, and you lose your meal plan.
A paper meal plan on the fridge works great, as long as the week doesn't change. An app wins as soon as a meal changes: the grocery list follows, so does the budget, and the whole household sees the new version. The two aren't at odds: Popotam prints your week or saves it as a PDF, our printable meal plan is free, and ready-made weekly menus, with their grocery list, can be copied as is.
It'll happily write a weekly menu, and often a good one. What it doesn't do on its own: remember what you ate last week, keep a grocery list you can check off, estimate a budget, or make sure a dish really fits a diet. If you already have ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini, Popotam knows how to use it: it writes the prompt, you paste it into your AI, and it puts the answer into your week.
A meal kit like HelloFresh or Quitoque doesn't plan your weekly menu: it delivers pre-portioned ingredients for a few recipes. It takes away the grocery run, not the cooking, and you pay per serving. If that's what you're after, our tool comparison puts them side by side with meal planners, and Popotam or HelloFresh breaks down the difference.
Mealime, a free meal planner in English, has announced it's shutting down on October 21, 2026, and deleting its users' data. So it isn't compared here. If you used it, the Mealime alternative page suggests several options in French. And so you don't lose anything, Popotam can bring over your Mealime recipes, along with your diet and allergies, in French and in grams.
Recipe sites and apps that don't build a week, and apps whose prices we couldn't verify on an official source, aren't compared: a comparison based on blog numbers would be worthless. Prices and features change; each profile says the date it was checked, and we recheck at least every six months.
Say what you like, get your week and its grocery list, and keep it all in one link. No account, no credit card.
There isn't one for everyone, and it's best to be wary of a ranking that names one. Three questions decide it: do you want the menu built for you or to build it yourself, where do you shop, and are you OK with an account or a subscription. Among the apps compared here, Popotam and Jow can be used without a subscription for their main use; the others offer a trial or a limited free version, then a paid plan.
Yes. Popotam is free with no strings attached: no subscription, no premium version, no ads, no account. It puts together the week's meals, lunch and dinner, and the grocery list sorted by aisle. It's our app: the table on this page also says what it doesn't do.
All the ones in this comparison build a grocery list from the menu. What changes is what they do with it: Jow (turned into a cart), Romi (sorting by aisle isn't mentioned), Pimzi (organized by aisle, with an estimated total), Cookimag (sorted by aisle), Popotam (sorted by aisle, with checkboxes).
With a meal planner that doesn't tie you to any retailer, yes: the list is yours, at the supermarket or at the market. Popotam, Romi and Cookimag don't list any required retailer. Jow and Pimzi rely on partner retailers, for the cart or for the prices.
Among the apps compared, only Popotam can be used without an account. With Popotam, the meal plan lives behind a private link that you share with the people who eat with you. The others require an account, tied to a store, a subscription or an email address.
Some estimate it before you shop: Popotam (estimated ingredient by ingredient), Jow (the cart price at the retailer), Pimzi (an estimated total before you shop, stated as accurate to within 10%). An estimate is still an estimate: your store's prices and your brands will move it.
That's meal prep. Popotam has a free built-in meal prep app: starting from your week, it picks the dishes that keep, writes a timed plan based on your kitchen and tells you where to store each container, according to ANSES (the French food safety agency).
Yes, it'll happily write a menu, and often a good one. What it doesn't do on its own: remember what you've eaten, keep a grocery list you can check off, estimate a budget, or make sure a dish really respects a diet. Popotam does that work around it, and can also use your own ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini: it preps the prompt, you paste it, it files the answer.