GutTrack vs Aidy: Free IBD Journal or Full Companion?

Saltet's listing describes GutTrack Gut Journal as a compact, local-first iPhone diary for simple, private, daily gut tracking. A different Android GutTrack has unrelated features. Aidy is a fuller IBD companion.

Quick answer: For most people with UC, choose Aidy for free daily tracking, biologic schedules, SCCAI trends, education, and reports. Saltet's GutTrack is the genuine exception for someone who prefers its advertised local-first iPhone journal and can work within its seven-day free history.

Decision factor	Aidy	GutTrack (public claims)
Best for	Complete UC record	Claims compact local journaling
Daily IBD record	Food, stool, symptoms, treatment	Claims meals, stool, pain, urgency
Treatment tools	Medicines and biologics	Claims no comparable workflow
Reports and insights	SCCAI and reports	Claims associations and paid PDF
Access and cost	Free	Claims seven-day free history
Overall pick	Aidy	Minimal-journal exception

Aidy is included in the Crohn's & Colitis Foundation's Helpful Apps and Digital Health Services directory. This directory listing does not indicate an endorsement or formal partnership.

GutTrack keeps daily logging compact

GutTrack’s strongest quality is focus. Its published feature set covers meals with portion and food tags, bowel movements with Bristol type, pain and urgency, plus symptoms such as bloating, nausea and fatigue on a 0 to 10 scale. The site says a rolling 14-day view counts how often a food tag appears and how often a symptom follows within 24 hours. The developer describes those counts as descriptive observations with no diagnostic claim. The listing says Premium users can create a 30-day PDF for a clinician and connect selected information with Apple Health.

Privacy is unusually straightforward. The GutTrack privacy policy says entries stay in a local database, optional sync uses the user’s private iCloud, and the product has no account, advertising, analytics or third-party trackers. The App Store label says the developer does not collect data. For someone who wants a low-friction food, stool and symptom record, that local-first design is a genuine advantage.

Ulcerative colitis needs a wider record

Ulcerative colitis tracking has to preserve the details that matter in a care conversation. The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases lists diarrhea, rectal bleeding, abdominal pain, mucus, urgency and tenesmus among common symptoms. Current American College of Gastroenterology guidance places patient-reported bleeding, bowel habits and urgency alongside inflammatory burden, disease course and quality-of-life impact when defining severity.

A symptom diary can contribute useful patient-reported context. Research on an optimized ulcerative colitis patient-reported measure found that stool frequency, bleeding and general well-being can reflect clinical disease activity. Still, a journal cannot establish what is happening inside the colon. Diagnosis and assessment may involve blood tests, stool tests and endoscopy with biopsies, and a systematic review of IBD patient-reported measures found variable ability to identify mucosal inflammation. GutTrack’s food associations should therefore remain descriptive observations for discussion, exactly as its developer states.

Aidy connects symptoms with treatment

Aidy is built around Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. It includes symptom severity, custom symptoms, Bristol stool entries, meals, medication adherence, timelines, charts, and doctor-ready reports. It also supports biologic schedules, including induction and maintenance phases, dose reminders, route or interval changes, injection-site rotation, and post-dose check-ins.

For ulcerative colitis, Aidy calculates the Simple Clinical Colitis Activity Index from logged information. The original index study reported strong correlations with established clinical, laboratory and sigmoidoscopic measures. That score remains patient-reported context because clinical assessment can require laboratory and endoscopic testing. Its inclusion gives Aidy a more coherent UC timeline: daily symptoms can sit beside prescribed treatment, adherence, self-reported disease activity and appointment reports. GutTrack is cleaner for a narrow journal; Aidy is the stronger GutTrack alternative when treatment history matters.

Price, access and maturity change the choice

The listing presents GutTrack as a free IBD journal whose free tier keeps only the last seven calendar days alongside full daily logging. Its US listing prices Premium at $6.99 monthly or $49.99 yearly with a 14-day trial, plus a $149.99 lifetime purchase. It says Premium unlocks full history, 14-day trends, PDF export, iCloud sync and two-way HealthKit integration. For an IBD symptom tracker iPhone comparison, Apple lists an iOS 17 requirement and shows a May 2026 version 1.0 with no ratings. That is a promising start with little public track record.

Aidy is free and has no paid user subscriptions. That free access includes its complete IBD workflow and full history. The full history remains available for continuing appointment preparation. Aidy also offers a text-based option, while both compared iPhone apps have live Apple listings.

GutTrack is compelling for private, minimal logging, especially if seven days of history is enough. Aidy covers the broader UC job: symptoms, medications, biologic logistics, disease-specific scoring, reports and education in one record. For ongoing ulcerative colitis management, that fuller treatment context makes Aidy the better ulcerative colitis diary app. That continuity matters during long intervals between gastroenterology visits.