Cook review
A plain-text recipe manager with guided cooking, shopping lists and meal planning.
Reviewed by iTechGuides Editors · Editorial team · Updated Oct 2026
Cook is a recipe app for people who want to manage recipes as portable plain-text files rather than keep them only inside a fixed catalog. Its mobile apps provide step-by-step cooking, background timer notifications, ingredient scaling and shopping lists grouped by aisle or recipe. Cook also runs on macOS, Windows and Linux, making it a fit for cooks who want recipes available across mobile and desktop. The app is open-source, with local-file workflows and sync options that include existing folder-sync services or paid Cook Cloud.
Recipe capture and cooking are the strongest parts of the product. Recipes can be imported from websites, and the listed options also include pasted text, photos, social videos and batch imports from supported recipe apps. Integrations include iCloud Drive, Dropbox, Nextcloud and Syncthing, as well as Paprika, Mela and Mealie. During cooking, users can follow steps, run timers with background notifications and scale ingredient quantities. That combination suits people bringing their own recipes together; it is less suited to shoppers seeking a ready-made catalog with a fixed number of recipes.
The free plan includes Cook Editor and mobile apps, unlimited imports from recipe sites and manual sync. Cook Basic adds syncing across devices, batch imports from recipe apps, photo and social-video imports, and nutrition data. Cook Pro adds CookBot AI in the desktop editor, meal planning from personal recipes and nutrition targets. According to the pricing page, Pro is listed at €10/month as a limited founding price and €12.99/month otherwise; its 7-day trial requires a card. Meal planning uses Cooklang menu files and a visual week view, then combines planned recipes into shopping lists. Choose Cook for portable recipe files and flexible imports; look elsewhere if you want a built-in catalog or prefer to avoid a card-required trial.
Cook pros and cons
- Where it wins
- Stores recipes as portable plain-text files across five platforms
- Guided cooking, timers, scaling and aisle-grouped shopping lists
- Imports from websites, photos, social videos and recipe apps
- Where it doesn't
- Cook Cloud sync and cross-device sync are paid features
- Cook Pro’s 7-day trial requires a payment card
- Meal planning relies on Cooklang menu files and personal recipes
Cook fact sheet, pricing and score →
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