Glucose Buddy Diabetes Tracker

Review by eFreeware

Glucose Buddy has been logging diabetes data since 2012, and the developer bills it as the top-ranked diabetes management app for more than a decade. That long run is the most distinctive thing about it: this is not a new experiment but a tracker that has been collecting readings, meals and medication entries for years. The app is free to install, carries ads, and offers a Premium subscription on top.

I'd expect it to suit people who want a single logbook for the numbers they already write down somewhere: glucose readings, insulin doses, what they ate, and how all of that moves over weeks and months. Anyone managing diabetes who wants their daily record in one place, rather than scattered across a paper notebook and a phone's notes app, is the obvious audience.

The rating is worth mentioning plainly: it sits at 1.9 from more than 14,500 ratings, which is low for an app with this many installs.

One entry, several pieces of information

The core of the app is a combined log. Rather than entering a glucose reading, then a meal, then a dose as separate events, you can record blood glucose, medication and meals together in one entry. For someone checking several times a day, that design cuts down on the number of times you open the app and type.

Entries can carry notes, which the developer includes for future reference. That matters more than it sounds: a reading taken after a long walk or during an illness means something different from the same number on an ordinary morning, and a short note preserves that context when you look back later.

Glucose units are handled both ways, with support for mg/dL and mmol/L. If you travel, or if you read material from a country that uses the other convention, you don't have to convert numbers in your head before logging them.

Trends, A1C and the hourly picture

Beyond the raw log, the app tracks trends in blood sugar, insulin, weight and A1C. This is the part that turns a stack of readings into something you can act on: patterns across a week or a month are easier to spot than a single high or low.

The developer also describes an hourly view of blood sugar and carbohydrate intake. Seeing carbs and glucose side by side on the same clock is a sensible way to connect a meal to what happened afterward, and it's the feature I'd point to first for anyone trying to understand their own responses.

An automatic A1C calculator sits behind the Premium subscription rather than in the free tier. The same subscription adds custom tags to speed up logging, more flexibility in choosing report date ranges, and an ad-free experience. Fitness Buddy and Calorie Mama are among the other health apps that come free with Premium.

Meals from a built-in food database

Meal logging leans on an extensive food database, so carbohydrates can be recorded without estimating from memory each time. For anyone counting carbs, that is the difference between a log that gets kept and one that gets abandoned after a week.

The database is the piece that ties the rest together. Carbs logged at a meal feed the hourly view and the trend charts, which is what makes the app more than a place to store numbers. I'd expect the food database to be the feature people use most, and the one that decides whether the app fits their routine.

What the free version asks of you

Glucose Buddy is free to download and shows ads. A Premium subscription is available, and the developer lists the automatic A1C calculator, custom tags, flexible report ranges, an ad-free experience and access to the companion health apps as what it adds. I'd treat those as the extras rather than the foundation: the logging, trends, notes and unit support are the app's stated core.

The other thing to weigh is the app's history. It has been available since 2012, and the most recent update was in July 2024, described simply as bug fixes. That tells you the app is still being maintained, but it also suggests the recent work has been upkeep rather than new features.

A tracker like this is only useful if you actually enter data, so the real cost is the daily habit. That's true of any logbook, and it's the honest trade-off here: the app gives you structure, but the inputs come from you.

Suited to a steady logging habit

The people who get the most from Glucose Buddy are those who already check their glucose regularly and want those readings to accumulate into something useful. If you log consistently, the trends, hourly view and food database start to say something about how your day-to-day choices show up in your numbers.

It also fits anyone who wants their medication and meals recorded alongside their readings rather than in separate places. The combined entry and the notes field are built for exactly that kind of record keeping.

The subscription is optional, though the A1C calculator and custom tags sit behind it. Someone who mainly wants quick tagging has a reason to consider Premium; someone who just wants the core features can start with the free version and see whether the habit sticks.

A logbook for people who will use it daily

Glucose Buddy is a long-running diabetes logbook that puts glucose, medication and meals into one entry, then charts the trends and shows carbs and blood sugar hour by hour. The food database and dual unit support round out a tool that is clearly built around daily use rather than occasional checks.

I'd recommend it to someone who wants a structured place to record readings and meals and is willing to keep that record going.

The low rating is the caveat I'd keep in mind. It doesn't tell me what users ran into, but with more than 14,500 ratings behind it, it's a signal worth taking seriously before you build a daily habit around the app.

What's new in version 5.36.9582

Bug fixes added