Minthe vs Bowelle
Choose Bowelle if
- You want it to be free.
- You want the simplest possible logging experience, with no learning curve.
- You want a clean record to show a doctor rather than a statistical verdict.
- You have tried tracking before and given up because the app was too much work.
- You are not ready to commit to logging consistently for several weeks.
Choose Minthe if
- You want the app to reach a conclusion, not just store your entries.
- You want false positives corrected for across the many foods being tested.
- You want each suspect confirmed with a scheduled test.
- You want photo and label scanning instead of manual entry.
- You want lab results, sleep, stress and cycle in the same analysis.
Where Bowelle is genuinely better
- It is free. Minthe's logging is free too, but its analysis is not. If money is the constraint, that is decisive and no feature list changes it.
- The experience is lighter. Reviewers consistently describe Bowelle as beautiful and effortless. Minthe asks for more detail because the analysis needs it, and more detail means more friction.
- Adherence beats sophistication. This is the honest strategic point and it cuts against us. The most common reason people fail to identify their triggers is not weak statistics, it is quitting in week two. An app you enjoy using for three months is worth more than a rigorous one you abandon in nine days.
- It is established. 250,000-plus downloads and consistently high ratings. Minthe launched in 2026.
What you give up by staying simple
Not a criticism of Bowelle, which is doing exactly what it sets out to do. It is a description of what a simple diary structurally cannot do.
A record tells you what happened. It does not tell you whether what happened was unusual. To know that onion is a trigger you need to compare how often you bloat after onion against how often you bloat anyway, and almost nobody knows their own baseline. If you bloat on 40% of all days, bloating after onion twice is not evidence of anything.
Then there is the problem of testing many things at once. A diary with two hundred foods in it will always contain a handful that look guilty by chance alone. Reading your own log by eye reliably finds them, because human pattern-matching does not know how to discount coincidence. Minthe applies a Benjamini-Yekutieli correction for exactly this reason, and the whole method is published.
Side by side
| Bowelle | Minthe | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Unlimited manual logging, free forever. Export included. Analysis is paid. |
| Platform | iPhone | iPhone only. No Android, no web. |
| Ease of use | Very simple, minimal friction | More detailed, more to learn |
| Logging method | Manual, custom values | Photo scan, label scan, or text |
| Stool, water, stress | Yes | Bristol 1-7, urgency, incomplete evacuation, colour flags. |
| Menstrual cycle | not verified | Sleep, stress, menstrual cycle, water, Apple Health. |
| Statistical analysis | Insights and trends | Base rates, risk ratios, confidence intervals |
| Multiple-comparison correction | not verified | Yes. Benjamini-Yekutieli false discovery rate correction. |
| Confirmation testing | not verified | Yes. Guided with-and-without trials with washout. |
| Lab test import | not verified | Manual entry plus GI-MAP import, with evidence tiering. |
| Track record | 250,000+ downloads | New in 2026. No long track record yet. |
Checked August 2026. "Not verified" means we could not confirm it from public sources, not that the feature is missing.
A reasonable way to decide
Start with Bowelle if you are unsure. It costs nothing, and the first thing you need to find out about yourself is whether you will actually log for a month. That question is answered more cheaply with a free app than a paid one.
Then look at what you have. If your log has given you a clear answer, you did not need anything more. If you are staring at four weeks of entries knowing something is in there but unable to say what, that is the specific gap Minthe fills, and it is a gap that better logging will not close.
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
Is Bowelle free?
Bowelle is free to use and has been downloaded over 250,000 times with strong ratings. If your budget is the deciding factor, that is a genuine advantage and no amount of statistical machinery outweighs a price of zero for someone who cannot pay.
What does Bowelle do well?
Simplicity and design. Users consistently describe it as beautiful and so easy that logging barely feels like tracking. That matters more than it sounds, because the biggest failure mode in symptom tracking is not bad analysis, it is stopping after nine days. An app you keep using beats a better app you abandon.
What does Minthe add?
Analysis and confirmation. Minthe establishes your personal base rate, tests foods across four delay windows, corrects for the false positives that arise from testing many foods at once, and then schedules a controlled with-and-without trial to confirm each suspect. Bowelle is primarily a record you and your clinician read; Minthe tries to reach a conclusion.
Which should I start with?
If you have never tracked before, starting free and simple is a completely reasonable decision, and there is no shame in it. The question to ask after a month is whether looking at your own log is actually telling you anything. For most people it is not, because the comparison that answers "does this food do this more often than chance" is not one you can do by eye.
Do they work on the same platforms?
Both are iPhone apps. Neither has an Android version, so if you are on Android you will need something else, such as mySymptoms or Cara Care.