Best Starting Solids and Baby-Led Weaning Apps in 2026 (Including a Solid Starts Alternative)

Four apps now cover the six months between a baby's first taste and their first birthday: Solid Starts, our own Avo Starting Solids, Starting Solids and Baby: Starting Solids. They do not all do the same thing. One is a reference library with a tracker attached, one, ours, is a tracker first, one is a dietitian-led recipe membership, and one is an AI assistant.

This comparison is built from each app's own App Store listing and website, read in October 2026, with prices from the US store. Where a listing is silent on something, the table says so. Avo is our app, so we have put our weaknesses in the same columns as everyone else's.

What is free and what is paid in each starting-solids app, from their own listings on 20 October 2026.

What should a starting solids app actually do?

Before the table, the job description. Based on what the NHS, AAP and CDC ask parents to do between 6 and 12 months, an app earns its place if it helps you:

1. Know how to serve each food at each age, because choking shape changes month by month.
2. Introduce allergens one at a time and keep offering them, which needs a record of what was tried and when.
3. Log reactions so a doctor can see a pattern, including the three-to-five-day gaps the AAP and CDC suggest.
4. Notice what is going on at the other end, since constipation and loose nappies are the commonest side effects of new foods.
5. Keep the milk and meal rhythm visible, so solids build without displacing milk too early.

Points 1 and 2 are where the big database wins. Points 3 and 4 are where a tracker wins. Nothing on the market does all five equally well.

The comparison table

Ratings are a measure of age and audience size as much as quality: Solid Starts has had years and a huge following; the other three are small or launched recently.

Solid Starts: the reference library

Solid Starts is the app most parents hear about first, and its First Foods database is the reason. More than 400 foods, each with how to serve it at 6, 9 and 12 months, choking risk and allergen notes, and the listing says the database is "free to download and use."

The app is built, in its own words, "by a pediatric feeding team" of pediatricians, allergists and feeding therapists, which no other app on this list can claim at that scale.

The catch is the price of everything beyond the database. The food log, reaction tracking and meal plans are part of the subscription, listed at $99.99 a year or $19.99 a month after a 7-day trial. The listing also shows a separate $19.99 "Tracker" purchase.

If you want the serving guidance and plan to track on paper, it is free; if you want it to be your tracker, it is the most expensive option here by a wide margin. English only.

Avo Starting Solids: the tracker (our app)

Avo is a tracker first. Logging foods, allergens, reactions and poop is free; the 100 Foods Challenge, the food library with age and allergen flags, 500+ recipes and a 30-day first-tastes plan synced with the log are in the same app. Avo AI checks a photo of the plate or a product barcode for the baby's age. Premium, at $24.99 a year, unlocks nutrition insights and the full recipe features.

What Avo does that the others do not is the nappy log: poop form, colour and type recorded on the same timeline as each food, which is the record a GP or paediatrician asks for when a baby is constipated or has a rash. It also supports both purées and baby-led weaning without pushing either, and it imports recipes saved from Instagram, TikTok and blogs, flagging their age and allergens.

What it does less well: the food database is smaller, about 350 foods against Solid Starts' 400+; it has 16 App Store ratings; and its content is compiled from NHS, AAP and WHO guidance by an editorial team, not reviewed by clinicians, which is stated on our About page. One thing the listing undersells: the app runs in 21 languages, and the library on this site in 19, while the store page still says English only.

If you want a clinician-authored serving guide, Solid Starts is the better reference and Avo is the better log; many parents use both. We go row by row in Avo Starting Solids vs Solid Starts, and have done the same for BLW Meals and 101 Before One, two apps outside this roundup.

Starting Solids: the dietitians' app

Starting Solids comes from Starting Solids Australia and is the only app in this list made by paediatric dietitians. It centres on hundreds of recipes filterable by age, texture and meal type, a weekly meal planner, tracking of the nine common allergens, and a members' community with a monthly workshop.

The listing's purchase tiers ($14.99 and $59.99) do not match the description's "$25 per month or $75 for six months", so check the store before subscribing; either way it is a premium membership rather than a tracker. English only, and its single App Store rating is not a useful signal.

Baby: Starting Solids: the AI assistant

Baby: Starting Solids is a newer, cheaper app built around an assistant you can ask "is this safe for my baby?", with answers based on the baby's age. It adds a "what's for dinner" recipe generator, a weekly planner with a shopping list, WHO growth charts, vaccine and teething schedules and milestones, including a "5 allergens tried" badge. Premium is $12.99 a year.

It is light on the reference side: the listing does not describe a food-by-food serving database, so you would pair it with a library such as this site's first foods pages. Languages: English, French, German and Turkish.

Which starting solids app should you choose?

• You want the most complete serving guide and will pay for it: Solid Starts.
• You want a free log of foods, reactions and nappies, and the 100 Foods Challenge: Avo Starting Solids.
• You want dietitian recipes and a community: Starting Solids.
• You want a cheap assistant to ask quick questions: Baby: Starting Solids.

Whichever you choose, the guidance underneath is the same: solids from around 6 months, one new allergen at a time, iron-rich foods early, no honey, salt, sugar or cow's milk as a drink before 12 months. Our 6 month old feeding schedule and foods to avoid for babies under 1 cover the rules the apps are built on.

Prices, features and ratings are from the US App Store and each developer's website on 20 October 2026 and will change. Avo Starting Solids is made by Avo Parenting, the publisher of this site.