The Best Plant Care Apps in 2026, Compared Honestly
Folly, Planta, PictureThis, Greg, PlantIn and Blossom. What each one is genuinely good at, what it costs, and which fits how you actually grow.
The short answer
- If you grow in more than one place, or want warning before weather does damage: Folly. Every growing site gets its own location and forecast, and alerts name the plants at risk.
- If you want to know why a schedule changed: Folly. Every watering interval breaks down into the 15+ attributes behind it, each with the percentage it added or removed.
- If your iPhone cannot run iOS 18: Folly runs on iOS 16.4. Planta does not.
- If you want the biggest database and years of polish: Planta, which is also cheaper annually.
- If you only want things identified: PictureThis.
- If you want other growers to talk to: Greg for its community, PlantIn if you would rather ask one expert.
How we compared these
We make Folly, so treat this the way you would treat any comparison written by someone with a stake in it. What we offer instead of pretending otherwise is a rule we hold to: nothing appears here about another app unless it comes from that app's own website or App Store listing.
That has one visible consequence. Most of these companies do not publish subscription pricing anywhere public, because pricing sits behind the in-app paywall and is often tested by region. Where we cannot verify a figure, the table below links you to the listing rather than printing a number we cannot stand behind. Two of the six publish, and those are the only two with prices shown.
Folly
Folly is built around a specific idea: that a watering schedule should reflect where a plant actually lives, and that you should be able to see the reasoning.
Every schedule is calculated from more than fifteen attributes covering the room, the light, the pot, the season and your local weather, and all of them are visible. Tap a plant and each factor is listed with the percentage it added or removed from the interval. When a gap stretches from six days to fourteen across the autumn, you can see exactly what did it. Every other app on this list asks you to trust the number.
Weather is handled per plant rather than per app. When frost, heat, wind or a storm is coming, the alert names which of your plants are at risk and gives a protection checklist for them. Each growing site has its own location and its own forecast, and Folly Pro runs up to five of them with up to 20 rooms each, so a flat and an allotment, or a garden and a greenhouse, are treated as the different places they are. None of the others handles multiple sites this way.
Plant Doctor covers more than 500 diseases and pests, each with a step-by-step treatment plan, a recovery timeline and prevention notes. Identification works from a single photo across a large database. The care guides are full rather than token, and Folly Pro adds a personalised monthly guide written around your collection and your climate. Chore day grouping puts care on days that suit you instead of scattering it through the week, and Folly recommends plants that suit your actual setup: your existing plants, your rooms, your light and your location.
The free tier is permanent, not a trial. Five identifications a month, one growing site with up to 20 rooms, chore grouping, notes with progress photos and the whole care guide, all at no cost. Folly Pro is £7.99 a month or £59.99 a year and raises identifications to 30 a month, and if a particular month runs long you can buy a one-off scan pack instead of moving up a tier.
Folly runs on iOS 16.4 and Android, so it works on iPhones that Planta has left behind. It is made by Zohho Ltd, a UK company registered in England and Wales, and we would rather publish our prices and name what we cannot verify than market our way around it. The light meter is coming. Folly is also the newest app here, and it has no community, which are the two things Planta and Greg have on us.
Planta
Planta is the most complete of the others and the one we would point you at if you grow indoors, in one home, and want the most established option. Its plant database is broader than ours, its care articles are thorough, and it has the polish that comes from years of iteration. It has a community, a working light meter, and it lets you invite family or friends to help with care while you are away.
On price it undercuts us. Its GB App Store listing states £7.49 a month or £32.99 a year against Folly Pro at £7.99 and £59.99, so if budget decides it, Planta wins that. The catch is that Planta now requires iOS 18, which rules out every iPhone older than the XS. Our full Planta comparison goes through the rest.
PictureThis
If you mainly want to point a phone at something and be told what it is, PictureThis does that job very well. It is one of the most downloaded plant apps in the world and its accuracy has a genuine reputation behind it. The encyclopedia is deep enough to read rather than merely search, with its App Store listing claiming over 400,000 species.
It also has watering reminders, a water tracker, notes, a monthly care guide and light exposure monitoring. Where it differs from Folly is what happens after identification: the reminders are not built around your particular room, site and local forecast. It does not publish subscription pricing. More detail here.
Greg
Greg's real product is its community, and it is good: a social feed, interest-based groups, and experienced growers who will look at a photo of a sad fiddle-leaf fig and tell you what is wrong, often within minutes. Folly has nothing like it. PlantVision is clever too, identifying the species while measuring the pot and the distance to the nearest window, and there is an Indoor Light Gauge.
Greg's App Store listing prices a year at $29.99 with a seven-day trial. That is the US figure and the listing notes pricing may vary elsewhere, so the UK number may differ. Our Greg comparison has the rest.
PlantIn
PlantIn puts you in touch with actual people. Ask the Botanist gets you a consultation with a gardening expert and step-by-step instructions for your case, which is worth a lot when a plant is failing and you want a human opinion. It identifies mushrooms, including offline, and weeds, so it covers ground Folly does not. Its AR light meter works today.
Its listing also promises warnings for storms and freezing temperatures for outdoor plants. Folly's weather alerts differ in going per plant and per growing site with a protection checklist attached, but PlantIn is doing a version of the same job. Pricing is not published. Full comparison.
Blossom
Blossom is the one to look at if you are growing food. Its guides for edible plants come with a personalised planting calendar and their own reminders, which is a job Folly does not do at all. It is a broad reference too, with a large identification library, a Multisnap mode that takes several photos of the same plant for a better match, search filtered by pet safety and care difficulty, and a light meter.
It also sends weather alerts, keeps notes with photos and groups plants by room, so those are not ours alone. Pricing is not published. Full comparison.
| App | Platforms | Minimum iOS | Paid tier |
|---|---|---|---|
| Folly | iOS, Android | 16.4 | £7.99 a month or £59.99 a year |
| Planta | iOS, Android | 18.0 | £7.49 a month or £32.99 a year |
| PictureThis | iOS, Android | 15.0 | Check current pricing |
| Greg | iOS, Android | 16.0 | $29.99 a yearThat is the US price from Greg's App Store listing, which notes that pricing outside the US may vary, so the UK figure may differ. |
| PlantIn | iOS, Android | 16.4 | Check current pricing |
| Blossom | iOS, Android | 15.4 | Check current pricing |
Competitor details checked August 2026 against each app's own website and App Store listing. Apps change - where a price is not published, we link to the listing rather than quote a figure we cannot stand behind.
Which app for which person
- You grow in more than one place. Folly. Five growing sites on Pro, each with its own location and weather, and nothing else here works that way.
- You want warning before frost, heat or a storm does damage. Folly, for alerts that name the plants at risk and tell you what to do about each.
- You want to understand your plants, not just be told what to do. Folly, for the attribute breakdown behind every schedule.
- Your iPhone cannot run iOS 18. Folly, on iOS 16.4.
- You want the largest database and the most polish, at the lowest annual price. Planta.
- You mostly want things identified. PictureThis.
- You learn best from other people. Greg for the community, PlantIn for an expert.
- You are growing vegetables. Blossom.
These apps are closer than any of their marketing suggests, and the deciding factor is rarely the feature count. It is whether you grow in one place or several, whether you want a community or a system that explains itself, and whether you want to be told what to do this morning or read about plants all evening.
Questions people ask
What's the best free plant care app?
Every app here is free to download and every one keeps its best features behind a subscription, so the question worth asking is what you keep without paying. Folly's free tier is permanent rather than a trial: five identifications a month, one growing site with up to 20 rooms, chore day grouping, notes with progress photos and the full care guide, all at no cost. Check the others against that, because most cap reminders too.
Which plant app works without a subscription?
All of them work to some degree without paying, and none gives you everything. Folly is unusual in leaving chore grouping, notes with photos and the whole care guide outside the paywall with no trial attached, and in selling one-off scan packs so a busy month does not force you onto a subscription. For the others, check the current in-app pricing screen, because most do not publish subscription terms on their websites.
What's the best plant identification app?
PictureThis, if identification on its own is what you want, and its reputation for accuracy is earned. If you want the plant identified and then actually looked after, Folly identifies from a photo across a large database and turns the result straight into a care schedule built for your room, your light and your local weather.
Which plant care apps work in the UK?
All six work in the UK. Two things are worth checking: whether pricing is shown in pounds, and whether weather features use your real local forecast rather than a broad climate zone. Folly is a UK company, prices in pounds, and gives every growing site its own location and forecast. Greg's listing prices in dollars.
Do plant care apps actually help keep plants alive?
They help most with the two things people get wrong most often: watering on a fixed schedule regardless of conditions, and not noticing a problem until it is advanced. An app that adjusts timing to your room, the season and the weather is solving a real problem, and one that shows you why it changed teaches you something as it goes.
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