Alternatives
Forage grew out of the Falling Fruit data model and still speaks it. Here is what each does, and where the two part ways. Checked 4 September 2026.
Falling Fruit is a nonprofit open data project mapping over a million edible plants worldwide, and for urban foraging, a mulberry on a verge, a fig over a wall, a public apple tree, it is the biggest map there is. It is free, the data is downloadable, and anyone can add or correct an entry.
Forage began as a map in the style of Falling Fruit and still uses the same underlying shape of location and species data. That is not a criticism of the project; it is the reason this app exists at all. If the biggest possible public map of tree fruit is the only thing you want, Falling Fruit is the right tool.
Forage has a map too: public spots and private ones, decided per find, with a heatmap of where a watched species is actually reported, and offline regions with Pro. Falling Fruit's map has been growing since 2013 and is the largest open one; Forage's grows from its community. What Forage adds is everything a map alone cannot do.
It identifies. Point the camera at a plant or mushroom and Forage names it, shows the characteristics to check, the edible parts and warnings, and lists the lookalikes with a compare view against the dangerous double. Falling Fruit has no identification at all.
It answers when, not just where. A map entry says a plum tree stands here; it does not say the plums are ripe this week. Forage builds each species' season from real occurrence records for your grid cell, over three billion data points via GBIF, anywhere in the world, and corrects it for the current year: the last three weeks of temperature against the climate normal of that cell over the past ten years at about three and a half days per degree, capped at two weeks, plus elevation, plus a soil moisture model for mushrooms. Put a species on your watchlist and it tells you when the season starts near you.
And it keeps the rest of a foraging life in one place: a community where you post the photos when you are unsure and other foragers help you narrow it down, a private harvest log with amounts, notes and an estimate of store value that adds up over years, a Foragedex that collects the species of your region, a daily riddle, weekly challenges, and 18 languages.
Falling Fruit is free and nonprofit; the mobile app is a small paid download that funds the servers. Forage installs free, with the map, the seasonal view, the community and a limited number of identifications, and Pro is $39.99 a year or $7.99 a month for offline regions, an unlimited watchlist, 50 identifications a month and journal insights across years. US store prices, checked 4 September 2026.
The Season Finder is the same seasonal data as the app, free in the browser: pick a place and see what is in season there this month.
Open the Season FinderForage helps you discover and identify wild plants, but identification is never 100% certain. Many edible plants have toxic lookalikes. Never eat anything you find based only on what this app tells you. Always confirm with a field guide, an experienced forager or a local expert. The season score tells you where to look, too: it’s not a guarantee. Mind conservation law and property rights as well.
