Triggerbites vs Fig: which food app is right for you?

Fig is a clever, genuinely useful app. You're standing in a supermarket aisle, you scan a product's barcode, and in about a second Fig tells you whether its ingredients fit your diet - low FODMAP, gluten-free, low histamine, a specific allergy, or any of thousands of restrictions.

For shopping with a dietary restriction, it's excellent.

But notice the word "restriction." Fig works once you already know what you can't eat. It doesn't help you figure that out in the first place - and that's the job Triggerbites is built for.

These two apps aren't really competitors. They're two stages of the same journey. Let's break it down, honestly and fairly.

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The Quick Overview

	Triggerbites	Fig
Primary Focus	Discovering your food triggers	Checking if products fit your diet
Core Use	Track meals & symptoms, find patterns	Scan barcodes while shopping
Food & Symptom Logging	Full AI-powered diary	Not a tracker
Ingredient Extraction	Automatic (AI) from what you eat	Reads packaged-product ingredient lists
Compound Tagging	20+ categories, correlated to symptoms	Flags against diets you select
Symptom Tracking	Unlimited, fully analysed	None
Delayed-Reaction Analysis	Yes - up to 72 hours	No
Grocery & Restaurant Guide	No	Yes - 100+ stores and restaurants
Platform	iOS (Android coming soon)	iOS & Android
Price	Subscription (7-day free trial)	Free; Fig+ subscription for extras

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1. Two Different Jobs: Checking Products vs. Discovering Triggers

Fig

Fig answers a shelf-side question: "can I eat this?" You set your diets and allergies, scan a barcode, and it checks the product's ingredient list against them. It's a shopping assistant.

Triggerbites

Triggerbites answers an earlier, bigger question: "what is actually triggering me?" It tracks your meals and symptoms and works out the pattern.

One helps you shop within rules. The other helps you discover what the rules should be.

Winner: Depends where you are - finding your triggers, or shopping around triggers you already know.

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2. The Core Difference: Fig Assumes You Already Know

This is the crux of it.

Fig

Fig is only as good as the diet profile you give it. Tell it "low histamine" and it will faithfully flag high-histamine products - but it can't tell you whether histamine is your problem at all. It starts from an answer you've already arrived at.

Triggerbites

Triggerbites starts from the question. You don't need to know your triggers - that's the whole point. You log your days, and it surfaces which ingredients and compounds your symptoms track with.

Winner: Triggerbites - if you don't yet know what's wrong, only one of these apps can tell you.

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3. Logging and Symptom Tracking

Fig

Fig isn't a tracker. It doesn't log what you ate, it doesn't record symptoms, and it has no diary or correlation. That's not a flaw - it's simply not what Fig is for.

Triggerbites

Triggerbites is built entirely around logging meals and symptoms and connecting the two:

That entry becomes data - ingredients, compounds, symptoms, timing - that Fig has no mechanism to capture.

Winner: Triggerbites - for tracking and trigger analysis, Fig isn't in the race.

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4. Where Fig Excels: Shopping

To be just as fair the other way - at its actual job, Fig is great and Triggerbites doesn't compete.

Fig

Once you know your restrictions, Fig is a brilliant shopping companion: instant barcode checks, a guide to compatible foods across 100+ stores and restaurants, shopping lists, and profiles for the whole family. Backed by dietitian-reviewed ingredient ratings, it takes the stress out of the supermarket.

Triggerbites

Triggerbites doesn't scan products, doesn't have a grocery guide and isn't a shopping tool. It's a discovery and tracking app.

Winner: Fig - for shopping with a known restriction, it's purpose-built and Triggerbites isn't.

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5. Price and Platform

Price. Fig is free for core scanning, with an optional Fig+ subscription for restaurants, extra profiles and unlimited scans. Triggerbites is a subscription with a 7-day trial.

Platform. Fig is on iOS and Android. Triggerbites is iOS only for now, with Android on the way.

Winner: Fig - a free core tier and Android availability.

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Use Both - They're Two Steps of One Journey

This is the honest takeaway: Fig and Triggerbites work best in sequence.

First, use Triggerbites to discover what your triggers actually are - the ingredients and compounds behind your symptoms. Then, once you know, use Fig to shop confidently within those limits, scanning products so you never have to decode a label again.

Discovery, then shopping. Neither app does the other's job.

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So, Which One Should You Choose?

Choose Fig if:

• You already know your dietary restrictions or allergies
• You want fast barcode checks while grocery shopping
• You want a compatible-food guide for stores and restaurants
• You're managing diets for several family members

Choose Triggerbites if:

• You don't yet know what's triggering your symptoms
• You need to track meals and symptoms and find the pattern
• You want ingredient and compound analysis with delayed-reaction windows
• You want to confirm a restriction before you commit to it

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The Bottom Line

Fig is a great app for the supermarket - but it begins where the hard part has already been solved. It assumes you know what to avoid.

Most people don't. They know they feel awful; they don't know why. That discovery step is what Triggerbites is for: write your day in plain language, and it extracts the ingredients, tags the compounds, checks the time windows and tells you what's triggering you.

Find your triggers with Triggerbites. Then shop around them with Fig. Together they cover the whole journey - one app just can't.

Live, love, log.

Weighing up Triggerbites and Fig? Reach out at hello@triggerbites.com - the team is happy to help you find the right fit.