What MacroFactor does well
MacroFactor comes from Stronger By Science Technologies and is built around an algorithm that estimates your energy expenditure from what you eat and weigh. According to the store listing, a weekly check-in adjusts your calorie and macro targets, and the app comes with a verified food database, a barcode scanner and micronutrients. There is also a "Weight Trend" view that removes daily fluctuations. For training, the developer now offers its own app, MacroFactor Workouts.
If you want to track your nutrition precisely anyway, you get a lot in one app.
Why an alternative anyway?
The most common reasons people look for a MacroFactor alternative are quite concrete:
- No free entry: after the trial, MacroFactor is subscription only.
- Language: the store listing names English and Japanese, but not German.
- Too much for the actual purpose: if you mainly want to know whether your bulk is running too fast or your cut is stalling, you don't necessarily need every meal in a database.
What Lean is law does differently
Lean is law is a trend and body app. The focus is your trend weight, not your food diary.
- Trend for free: trend weight, weekly rate and history are free. You choose the method yourself: exponential smoothing (default), moving average over 7 or 14 days, or double exponential smoothing.
- Phases with a rate: Bulk, Cut, Maintain and Diet Break, each with a rate in percent of your trend weight per week. If a bulk runs faster than 0.5 % or a cut faster than 1.0 % per week, the app warns you.
- Calories optional: you can log calories and macros, by hand or from Apple Health or Health Connect. With Pro, Lean is law uses them to calculate your adaptive TDEE and target calories for the phase. If you'd rather just weigh in, use the app without nutrition.
- Body instead of plate: weekly check-in with posing photos (front, back, side, lat spread), supplement reminders, experiments and markers, for example for a refeed.
- One-time purchase possible: Pro is also available without a subscription.
Honestly: MacroFactor is better here
- Food tracking: Lean is law does not have a database, barcode scanner, recipes or micronutrients.
- Coaching: MacroFactor adjusts your targets weekly as a coach. Lean is law calculates target calories from TDEE and phase rate, and you make the decision about the next phase yourself.
- Devices: MacroFactor also runs on iPad, Mac and Apple Watch.
- Transparency and content: the developer explains its algorithm in detail in many expert articles.
Combine instead of switch
The two don't exclude each other. If you already use a nutrition app that writes to Apple Health or Health Connect, you can let Lean is law read the calories from there and use the app only for trend, phases and check-ins.