What users love
Simplicity, flexibility, tracking, reminders and progress.
Research study
We analysed 103,820 reviews to learn what people want from a fasting tracker.
Every review from 23 competing intermittent fasting tracker apps, analysed without naming products. No cherry picking. Just the themes users repeat about simplicity, reliability, and a fasting tracker app they can keep for life.
23
Apps analysed
103,820
Reviews analysed
4.51 / 5
Average rating
81,960
5 star reviews
9,424
1 to 2 star reviews
3,769
Reviews from 2026
4.10 / 5
2026 average rating
The research question
What do fasting tracker users actually say?
Instead of asking “What features does an intermittent fasting tracker app list?”, we asked: “What do users repeatedly praise, complain about, and ask for from a fasting tracker?”
What users hate
Intrusive advertising, subscription friction, unreliable notifications and inaccurate tracking.
Where the opportunity is
Build a fasting experience that is simple, reliable and flexible instead of simply adding more features.
Market concentration
103,820 reviews are heavily concentrated
App names are withheld. The top 3 apps account for 85.9% of all reviews in the dataset; the top 4 for 91.6%. Those products matter most to study, without naming them.
85.9%
of every review sits in just three apps
91.6%
once you include the fourth largest
Rating distribution
78.9% of reviews are 5 star, but that isn’t the whole story
Don’t read the market as perfect. High averages still leave a large low rated segment that shapes churn and trust.
7,153 reviews
6.9% of total
6.9%
1★
2,271 reviews
2.2% of total
2.2%
2★
3,101 reviews
3% of total
3%
3★
9,335 reviews
9% of total
9%
4★
81,960 reviews
78.9% of total
78.9%
5★
9.1% of all reviews across these 23 apps are one or two stars (9,424 reviews). That's the segment app store averages round away.
What users talk about
Theme mentions across the dataset
Keyword analysis of 103,820 reviews. These are theme mentions, not unique users expressing a single positive or negative opinion. A review can belong to multiple themes.
Simplicity / ease of use
17,772
Subscription / premium / pricing
4,490
Weight
4,164
Notifications / reminders
4,003
Ads / advertising
2,812
Education / information
2,676
Water / hydration
2,664
Customization / flexibility
2,126
Timer
1,931
Progress / streaks / statistics
1,817
Food / meals / recipes
1,641
Coaching
1,624
Widgets
832
Wearables
322
The #1 theme
People don't want another complicated fasting tracker dashboard.
They want a fasting tracker app they can open and immediately understand whether they are fasting, when they can eat, and what they need to do next.
17,772
reviews · 17.1% of the dataset
easysimpleintuitivestraightforwarduser friendly
The core fasting loop
Plan → Start → Fast → Reminder → Finish → Review
The core experience should remain extremely simple even as advanced functionality is added around it.
01
Plan
Choose a fasting schedule.
02
Start
Start the fast with one action.
03
Fast
Clearly see elapsed and remaining time.
04
Reminder
The app keeps the user informed without requiring them to open it.
05
Finish
Record completion without interruption.
06
Review
Show progress and consistency.
Reliability
A fasting app has one job it absolutely cannot get wrong.
Users can forgive a missing chart. They are much less likely to forgive an app that tells them their fast didn't happen.
Trust breakers
- Wrong timer
- Missing notification
- Lost fasting history
- Incorrect completion
- Premium not activated
Non-negotiables
- Accurate timer
- Reliable reminders
- Editable history
- Persistent data
- Correct subscription state
Ads research
2,812 reviews explicitly mention ads or advertising
We report the defensible mention count, not an unverified “% complain about ads” figure. Advertising isn’t inherently the problem. Interrupting the primary workflow is.
Fullscreen interruptions
Ads during core actions
Excessive frequency
Difficult to close ads
Ads when starting or ending a fast
Subscription research
Users will pay for value. They resist friction.
4,490 reviews mention subscription, premium, pricing or related terms.
Free should demonstrate the product's value. Premium should expand it.
Not: free should make the product frustrating enough that users pay. Complaints cluster around price, artificial free limits, unmet expectations, failed activation, and painful cancel/refund flows.
Flexibility · 2,126 mentions
Real life isn't always 16:8
Work schedules, weekends, social events, sleep patterns, and changing durations. Users need day specific and custom plans, not a single forced protocol.
Custom14:1016:818:620:424h+ day specific schedules
Progress · 1,817 mentions
Tracking vs analytics
Tracking answers “What happened?” Analytics answers “What is changing?” Fasting isn't a normal daily habit. A conventional streak can mislead.
86%
Fasting consistency
182h
Total fasting
17h 42m
Average fast
31h
Longest fast
Education · 2,676 mentions
Don't just show the clock. Explain the journey.
Educational content should be presented carefully and should not imply guaranteed physiological outcomes for every individual.
4 hours
Early fasting
8 hours
Fasting continues
12 hours
Increasingly relying on stored energy
16 hours
Extended fasting
Secondary features
Weight and water belong around fasting, not over it
Weight: 4,164 mentions. Water / hydration: 2,664. Useful beside the timer, schedule, history, analytics, and learn surfaces, without crowding the core loop.
Widgets 832 · Wearables 322
The best fasting interface may sometimes be outside the app.
Users don't always want to open the app. They want to see 14h 32m fasting on Lock Screen, Dynamic Island, widgets, notifications, and Apple Watch.
Lock ScreenDynamic IslandHome widgetsNotificationsApple Watch
How this data was collected
None of this was copy-pasted by hand.
Every review in this dataset, all 103,820 of them across 23 apps, was pulled into a spreadsheet with a free Chrome extension called ReviewKit.
01
Point at a listing
Open any Google Play fasting app page in Chrome.
02
Export every review
ReviewKit pulls rating, text, date, replies, and helpful votes into Excel.
03
Analyse the themes
We tagged praise, pain, and opportunities across the full set.
Free Chrome extension
ReviewKit: export any app's Play Store reviews to Excel
Point it at a Google Play listing and it exports every review into an .xlsx file. No copy-pasting, no manual scrolling. That is exactly how the dataset behind this page was built.
Get ReviewKit (free)
Chrome Web Store · free to install
What the research tells us
Seven findings that shaped Fastingkit
01
Simple beats complicated.
17,772 reviews mention simplicity and ease related concepts.
02
The timer is only the beginning.
Users need scheduling, reminders, history and progress around it.
03
Reliability is a feature.
Incorrect timers, missing notifications and lost history damage trust disproportionately.
04
Flexibility matters.
Users don’t always follow a fixed 16:8 schedule.
05
Monetization must respect the core experience.
Ads and subscriptions become particularly problematic when they interrupt or restrict fundamental workflows.
06
Analytics should measure behaviour, not manufacture failure.
Fasting consistency is more meaningful than blindly applying conventional streak mechanics.
07
The next generation should disappear into the routine.
Notifications, widgets, Live Activities and wearable surfaces can reduce the need to constantly open the app.
We didn't start with features.
We started with users.
103,820 reviews. 23 apps. One goal: understand what makes a fasting tracker genuinely useful, including free fasting tracker options people can stick with.
The result wasn't “add more features.” It was simpler: build an intermittent fasting tracker that is easier to follow, easier to understand, and easier to keep as a life fasting tracker.
Built from research, not assumptions. Back to Fastingkit