Prepbook vs. AnyList
AnyList is a shared grocery list that also keeps recipes. Prepbook is a cookbook built around the recipe itself.
AnyList is one of the best shared shopping lists ever made, and plenty of households run their whole week on it.
Prepbook starts at the other end, with the recipe. A recipe is a living thing: it picks up swaps, corrections and notes every time you cook it, until it reads the way you actually make it. So Prepbook treats it as a document you keep writing rather than a form you fill in once, and assumes you will be reading it with a pan already going.
Which one suits you comes down to what you want the app to hold. AnyList is at its best when a recipe is on its way to a shopping list. Prepbook is at its best when the recipe is the thing itself, the one you keep cooking.
Side by side
| Feature | Prepbook | AnyList |
|---|---|---|
| Platforms | Web, iOS, Android, installable as an app on any desktop | iOS, Android, web, Apple Watch |
| What you pay | Free up to 30 recipes, then one subscription that covers every device | Free tier, with a paid plan for the full feature set |
| Writing a recipe | A free-form document with headings, notes, photos, tables, whatever the recipe needs | Structured ingredient and direction fields |
| Cooking history | Tap “Made this” each time you cook it, and every try lands in the recipe's log with your notes | A notes field |
| Version history | Every earlier version of a recipe is kept, so you can always look back | Not supported |
| Import from a web page | Paste the link | Paste the link |
| Import from a video | YouTube, TikTok and Instagram | Not supported |
| Import from a photo | Photograph a cookbook page or a handwritten card | Not supported |
| Search | Associative search: “something with lentils for a cold night” finds the stew | Keyword search |
| Sharing a single recipe | Every recipe gets a link that opens in any browser, no app or account needed | Share it with other AnyList users |
| Grocery lists and meal planning | Not built in | Yes |
| Cooking mode | Step-by-step view with the ingredients kept in reach, a screen lock and timers | A recipe view |
| Languages | Interface in 20 languages, recipes in any language | English-first |
| Connect an AI assistant | Connect Claude or ChatGPT and ask what is in your cookbook | Not supported |
Recipes you write > recipes you store
AnyList keeps a recipe in fixed fields, and that structure is what makes the shopping list come out clean at the other end. For a weeknight dinner it does the job.
A lot of the recipes worth keeping are the ones you changed, though. Half the butter, a different pan, the note that it needs ten more minutes than the book says. In fields, those corrections end up in a box at the bottom and stay there.
In Prepbook a recipe is a rich text document. Headings, lists, images, tables and notes go wherever the recipe needs them, and there is not a single field to fill in. Write it however it comes out, or paste it from anywhere, and Prepbook works out the rest on its own: which lines are ingredients, how much of each, and which step uses what. Scaling, cooking mode and timers just work, without you tagging anything.
Every time you make it
Tap Made this when you cook something and that try goes into the recipe's log with the date and whatever you want to say about it: what you swapped, what went wrong, who asked for seconds.
Over a few months the log becomes the recipe's history, and the recipe itself settles into the version you actually make. And when you rewrite it, nothing is lost. Version history keeps every earlier version, so you can always look back at how it read before you halved the sugar.
Getting recipes in
Both apps take a recipe web page from a pasted link. Prepbook's route works the same way from a phone share sheet, a desktop browser or the clipboard.
The gap is everything that is not a web page. A lot of cooking now lives in short video, and Prepbook will turn a YouTube, TikTok or Instagram post into a proper recipe. It will also take a photograph of a cookbook page or a handwritten card.
Prepbook also reads exports from other apps: .paprikarecipes, Cooklang, JSON-LD, YAML, .docx and .rtf. That matters if this is your second or third attempt at getting organised.
Sharing what you cook
Sharing a recipe from AnyList works best when the person on the other end is also in AnyList.
Prepbook gives every recipe a public link. Your sister opens it on whatever phone she has, reads it, scales it to four people, and never installs anything. If she does have Prepbook, one tap saves it to her own cookbook.
When AnyList suits you better
If what you want is a shopping list your whole household shares, AnyList is built for that. Prepbook is built for the cooking itself.
Moving your recipes over from AnyList
- Most AnyList recipes started life as a web page, and the original link gives the cleanest result. Paste it into Prepbook and the recipe rebuilds itself, photo and all.
- For the recipes you typed yourself, export them from AnyList and import the file, or paste the text straight into a new Prepbook recipe.
- Nothing has to move at once. Keep AnyList for the shopping side while your recipes settle into Prepbook.
Common questions
Can I bring my AnyList recipes into Prepbook?
Yes. Paste the original link for anything you saved from the web and Prepbook rebuilds the recipe with its photo. For recipes you wrote yourself, export them and import the file, or paste the text into a new recipe.
Can Prepbook save a recipe from a video?
Yes. Paste a YouTube, TikTok or Instagram link and Prepbook turns it into a recipe you can read, scale and cook from, with the ingredients and the steps laid out properly. It will do the same with a photograph of a page from a cookbook.
Can I share a recipe with someone who does not use Prepbook?
Yes. Every recipe has a link that opens in any browser, with no app and no account needed. They can read it, scale it and print it.
Can I get my recipes back out of Prepbook?
Always. You can export your whole collection as PDF, Markdown, HTML or plain text at any time.