Drinqly vs Untappd: Which Drink App Fits You?
Two check-in apps, two different jobs. One is the best in the world at beer. The other is built for everything in the glass.
Untappd is the best app in the world for beer, huge database, badges, and a massive community. Drinqly takes the same check-in-and-remember loop and applies it to every drink: cocktails, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, and mocktails, in one journal, with a full sober mode. Drink mostly beer? Untappd. Drink across categories, or non-alcoholic too? Drinqly.
Drinqly is a free download for iPhone.
Get Drinqly on the App StoreBefore I created Drinqly, Untappd was my go-to drink tracker. I used it almost religiously, but for a core reason: my husband is the beer drinker in the family, and VERY picky at the same time when it comes to his beers. Untappd being the largest database for beer in the world made it really easy for us to always know what would be available for him when we went out. We check the menu for our local brewery before we go, search specifically for the hazy IPAs, look at the tasting notes and photos, and suddenly he's got his whole night planned out. For me, maybe the brewery also had their ciders listed, but that was it. And if we were going to a cocktail lounge that evening? Yeah, forget about it. I could maybe rely on Yelp reviews to know what the lavender martini was gonna taste like, but I was putting it up to chance. I became pretty frustrated that my husband had an app so perfectly built for him, and here I was manually searching through Google, Yelp, and Facebook posts trying to guess if a drink was going to be worth ordering.
That gap wasn't a flaw in Untappd, it's just what happens when an app goes all in on one category. I built Drinqly, so weigh this comparison accordingly, but I've tried to keep it fair. These apps really are made for different drinkers, and if you love Untappd there's a good reason.
What each app is actually for
Untappd is a beer app with a social check-in loop, and it's excellent at that. It went deep on one category and grew the best community in it. Drinqly took the same loop and pointed it at anything in a glass: a cocktail, a natural wine, a pour-over, a mocktail, all equally worth logging. Both choices are reasonable. They just fit different drinkers.
| Untappd | Drinqly | |
|---|---|---|
| Built around | Beer & breweries | Every drink, equally |
| Cocktails, wine, spirits | Secondary | First-class, rich details |
| Coffee, tea, mocktails (sober) | No | Full sober mode |
| Check in, rate, photo | Yes | Yes, any drink |
| Rating precision | Whole stars free; quarter-stars need Untappd Plus | Half-stars, free for everyone |
| Photo per check-in | One photo | Drink photo + a separate memory photo |
| Social feed | Yes, large community | Friends + worldwide feed |
| Community size | Massive | Growing |
| Beer database depth | Best in class | Good, general purpose |
| Venue discovery | Breweries & bars | Bars, cafes & venues |
| Platforms | iOS & Android | iOS & web (Android soon) |
I handed Untappd the rows it earns. Its community size and beer database are genuinely best in class, and pretending otherwise would just be sour grapes.
Where each one wins
Untappd wins if…
- Beer is your main thing
- You want the biggest beer database
- You love badges & brewery culture
- You want the largest community
Drinqly wins if…
- You drink across categories
- You want cocktails & wine logged too
- You also drink non-alcoholic
- You want one journal for all of it
Try the ten-drink test on yourself. Think back over the last ten things you actually drank. If eight of them were beer, Untappd is your app and you should stop reading. If they were a cocktail, a wine, a whiskey, a couple of coffees, that spread is the gap Drinqly closes.
The thing Untappd cannot do
Drinking is changing, and a growing share of the glasses people care about have no alcohol in them: the matcha, the single-origin pour-over, the zero-proof spritz a good bar now makes on purpose. A beer app has no slot for any of it. Drinqly has a full sober mode where those drinks get the same check-in, rating, and journal as anything else, tracked on their own so they never blur into the alcohol side. For a lot of people that's the entire reason to switch.
Two smaller things that add up
Untappd's check-in takes one photo and a whole-star rating, unless you pay for Untappd Plus, which unlocks quarter-star precision. Drinqly's check-in takes a half-star rating by default, no subscription required, plus a second photo slot if you want it: the drink itself, and a separate memory photo, the friend, the patio, whatever made the moment worth keeping, paired to the same check-in but never shown to anyone you haven't connected with. Neither difference will make or break your decision on its own. Together with the sober mode, they're the shape of the same philosophy: Drinqly puts what most apps treat as an upsell into the free check-in.
Can you use both?
Of course. Plenty of people do. Serious beer drinkers keep Untappd for the badges and brewery depth and run a Drinqly journal alongside it for everything else they pour. There's no rule here. If you're tired of your drinking life scattered across a beer app, a wine app, and a half-forgotten notes file, Drinqly is the one place that holds all of it.
Common questions
What is the difference between Drinqly and Untappd?
Is Drinqly a good Untappd alternative?
Is there an Untappd for wine or cocktails?
Does Untappd work for non-alcoholic drinks?
Which is better, Drinqly or Untappd?
