Bearable vs mySymptoms
Bearable: the generalist
A chronic-illness tracker covering migraine, pain, fatigue, mood, medication, menstrual health and a long list of conditions, with a customizable symptom set you can shape to almost anything. It has one of the highest rating averages in this whole category and a large user base, and the praise is consistently about how quick and pleasant it is to log.
Its limits. Generality has a cost. Tracking everything against everything is where spurious correlations come from, and the app has to stay agnostic about mechanism, so it cannot build the things a gut-specific tool can: FODMAP groups by dose, delayed onset windows, Bristol typing. Price is the largest theme in its critical reviews.
mySymptoms: the specialist diary
On the App Store since 2010, which makes it one of the oldest apps still actively used in this category, with 4,045 US ratings averaging 4.6. It has a food database you can search or scan barcodes into, custom foods, meals, medications and symptoms, Bristol stool typing, multiple accounts, PDF and CSV export plus a web Clinic app so a clinician can review your diary. Its correlation reports come as histograms and trend charts you can inspect.
Its limits. It is work. It is also paid. The most distinctive complaint in its reviews is that logging is laborious. An abandoned diary produces nothing. It is subscription-only after a 7-day trial. We could not confirm from public sources how it handles delayed reactions, which matters because gut reactions are frequently delayed by hours.
| Bearable | mySymptoms | |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Multiple conditions at once | Food and symptom analysis in depth |
| Breadth of conditions | Very wide | Food, symptoms and related factors |
| Logging effort | Low, and widely praised | High, detailed entries |
| Food database and barcode | not verified | Yes, search or scan |
| Stool tracking | Bowel movements. Bristol typing not verified | Bristol scale |
| Analysis window | not verified | not verified |
| Customization | Extensive | Custom foods, meals, medications, exercises, symptoms |
| Platforms | iPhone and Android | iPhone and Android |
| Free tier | Yes. Correlation reports are Premium | None. 7-day trial |
| Paid price | $34.99/year | $9.99/month or $59.99/year |
| Guards against chance findings | not verified | not verified |
| Export | not verified | PDF and CSV |
| On the App Store since | 2020 | 2010 |
| US ratings | 6,383, averaging 4.8 | 4,045, averaging 4.6 |
| Biggest complaint theme | Price | Logging is laborious |
Checked September 2026. "Not verified" means we could not confirm it from public sources, not that the feature is missing.
Who should choose which
Choose Bearable if
- You are managing more than one condition.
- You want mood, sleep, medication and pain in the same place.
- You know you will not sustain heavy logging.
- You want a free tier, or the nicer daily experience, which is a legitimate reason.
Choose mySymptoms if
- Your gut is the problem you are trying to solve.
- You want a clinician to review your diary through its web Clinic app.
- You are willing to log in detail and to pay from the end of the trial.
- You want an app with more than fifteen years of track record.
The thing that decides this more than the app does
Whether you keep logging. There is no fixed minimum in days, because every useful question here is comparative: it needs enough logged days to know your baseline and enough separate meals with a food to compare against it. The most common reason people never identify their triggers is not that they picked the wrong tracker, it is that they stopped in week two. If you are torn, pick the one you will actually open on a bad day.
Second, and almost as important: record the days when nothing happened. A diary of only bad days puts every food you eat next to a symptom and nothing can be told apart from anything else.
Where Minthe fits, if at all
Minthe is a wellness and self-tracking tool, not a medical device. It does not diagnose or treat any condition and isn't a substitute for professional medical advice. If you have red-flag symptoms such as blood in your stool, unintentional weight loss, difficulty swallowing, persistent vomiting or a fever alongside gut symptoms, see a clinician rather than tracking them.
Frequently asked
Which is better for IBS, Bearable or mySymptoms?
mySymptoms, if the gut is your main problem. It is built specifically around food and symptom analysis, with a food database you can search or scan barcodes into, Bristol stool typing and correlation reports you can inspect. Bearable is better if your gut is one of several things you are tracking.
Which is easier to use?
Bearable, clearly. Its logging is quick and the interface is widely praised, which is reflected in an unusually high rating average. The most common complaint about mySymptoms is that thorough logging is laborious, and that is not a bug so much as the cost of the detail it captures. Choose honestly based on how much logging you will actually sustain.
Do both work on Android?
Yes, both are on iOS and Android, which is worth noting because many of the gut-specific alternatives are iPhone only.
Are they free?
Bearable is; mySymptoms no longer is. Bearable has a free tier with unlimited custom symptoms and weekly reports. Its Premium, which adds correlation reports and history beyond 30 days, is listed at $34.99 a year. mySymptoms is subscription-only after a 7-day trial, at $9.99 a month or $59.99 a year. Its own FAQ says you cannot add new entries after the trial until you upgrade. Earlier versions of this page said both let you log free, which is no longer true.
Can either one tell me my trigger foods?
Both offer correlation analysis, and mySymptoms is more oriented toward it. The caveat that applies to both, and to every tool that correlates many variables including ours, is the multiple-comparison problem: examine enough foods and some will look significant by chance. We could not find a published description of how either handles it, so we cannot compare them on that basis and we are not going to assume the worst.