Prepbook vs. Paprika
Paprika is a native app built around grocery lists and meal planning. Prepbook is a document-first recipe manager that syncs everywhere.
Paprika Recipe Manager has been the default answer to “where do I keep my recipes” for more than a decade, and it earned that place.
Prepbook is after a different itch. A recipe is a living thing: it picks up notes, swaps and corrections 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 on a phone in one hand with a pan going in the other.
Which one suits you comes down to what you want the app to hold. Paprika is at its best when a recipe is an input to a plan: a week of dinners, a shopping list, a stocked pantry. Prepbook is at its best when the recipe is the thing itself, the one you keep cooking.
Side by side
| Feature | Prepbook | Paprika |
|---|---|---|
| Platforms | Web, iOS, Android, installable as an app on any desktop | macOS, Windows, iOS, Android |
| What you pay | Free up to 30 recipes, then one subscription that covers every device | One-time purchase, bought separately for each platform |
| Writing a recipe | A free-form document with headings, notes, photos, tables, whatever the recipe needs | Structured fields for ingredients, directions and notes |
| 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 | Clip it with the built-in browser |
| Import from a video | YouTube, TikTok and Instagram | Not supported |
| Import from a photo | Photograph a cookbook page or a handwritten card | Not supported |
| Import from files | .paprikarecipes, Cooklang, JSON-LD, JSON, YAML, .docx, .doc, .rtf and .odt | Its own .paprikarecipes export format |
| Search | Associative search: “something with lentils for a cold night” finds the stew | Keyword search across recipe fields |
| Sharing | Every recipe gets a link that opens in any browser, no app or account needed | Send an export file or share into another Paprika install |
| Grocery list, meal planner, pantry | Not built in | Yes |
| Cooking mode | Step-by-step view with the ingredients kept in reach, a screen lock and timers | Full-screen recipe view with a screen lock and timers |
| Works offline | Yes | Yes |
| Connect an AI assistant | Connect Claude or ChatGPT and ask what is in your cookbook | Not supported |
Living document > filling a form
Paprika stores a recipe as a set of fields: a name, a block of ingredients, a block of directions, a notes box. That structure is what lets it do the clever grocery maths, and for a straightforward weeknight recipe it is perfectly pleasant.
It starts to chafe when a recipe is not shaped like a form. A bread with three overnight variations, a curry where half the point is the paragraph about which chillies to use, a family recipe that is mostly a story with quantities buried in it.
In Prepbook a recipe is a rich text document. You get headings, lists, images, tables and free-form notes anywhere you want them, and 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
In Paprika, what you learn from cooking a recipe goes in its notes box. That is a fine place to write “less salt next time”, and a poor place to find out, six months later, which of the last four attempts was the good one.
In Prepbook you 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. The log becomes the recipe's history, and the recipe itself settles into the version you actually make.
And when you rewrite the recipe itself, 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 are good at web pages. Paprika clips them with a browser inside the app. In Prepbook you paste the link, which 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. Paprika has no equivalent for either.
Sharing what you cook
Sending a Paprika recipe to someone generally means sending them a file, and a file is only useful to somebody who also has Paprika.
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 Paprika suits you better
If the app you want is the one that builds your shopping list and plans the week, Paprika is built for that. Prepbook is built for the cooking itself.
Moving your recipes over from Paprika
- Prepbook reads Paprika's own export format directly, so nothing has to be retyped.
- On Mac or Windows, open Paprika and choose File → Export, then pick the Paprika Recipe Format. You will get a single
.paprikarecipesfile holding your whole collection, photos included. - Open Prepbook, add a recipe, and hand it that file. Every recipe comes across with its ingredients, directions, notes, source link and photos intact, and you can keep Paprika installed while you decide.
Common questions
Can Prepbook import my Paprika recipes?
Yes. Export a .paprikarecipes file from Paprika on Mac or Windows and import it into Prepbook. Ingredients, directions, notes, categories, source links and photos all come across.
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.
Does Prepbook work offline?
Yes. Install it on your phone, tablet or desktop and your cookbook is there without a connection, cooking mode included. Anything you change syncs the next time you are online.
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.