I tried every major migraine tracker. Here's the honest comparison.

I’ve used five migraine trackers across the last few years. Three on the App Store now, two long-since deleted. This is what I learned writing my own (Migra) — what each does well, what each does badly, and what nobody covers.

Honest disclaimer: I built Migra. I’m going to try to tell you when something else is genuinely better.

TL;DR

App	Best for	Price	Notable weakness
Migraine Buddy	Aggregate data + sharing reports	Free / $4.99/mo	Cloud-based; data privacy is OK but not on-device
Bearable	Multi-condition tracking (migraines + mood + sleep + meds)	Free / $4.99/mo	Not migraine-first; UI is dense
Claru	AI-powered predictions + voice logging	Free / paid tiers	New entrant; cloud-based; smallest user base of AI-focused apps
MiG (Migraine Tracker & Diary)	Fast lightweight logging	Free / $3.99/mo	Limited insights, no weather
Migraine Monitor	None — outdated	Free	Last meaningful update ~2022
Migra (mine)	On-device AI + barometric pressure + Apple ecosystem	Free / $4.99/mo or $29.99/year (7-day trial)	Newest of the privacy-first apps; smaller user base than Migraine Buddy

Skip down for the deep dive on what actually matters when picking one.

Best for each use case

If you’re skimming, here’s the short version by what you care about most:

• Best for AI insights and predictions: Migra (on-device AI via Apple Foundation Models, no data leaves your phone) or Claru (cloud-based 7-day risk forecast). Pick Migra if privacy matters; Claru if you want voice logging.
• Best for barometric pressure tracking: Migra. It’s the only major app that uses the iPhone’s built-in altimeter for real-time pressure detection, in addition to WeatherKit forecast data. (Curious how much of a drop it takes? Here’s the research on the pressure threshold.)
• Best for the Apple ecosystem: Migra. Native Apple Watch app, widgets, on-device AI, integrates with Apple Health bidirectionally, designed iOS-first.
• Best for detailed multi-condition logging: Bearable. If migraines are one of several things you’re tracking (mood, sleep, supplements, hormonal cycle), this is the right tool.
• Best for the largest community + doctor recognition: Migraine Buddy. Millions of users; your neurologist most likely recognizes the name.
• Best for fast lightweight logging without paying for AI: MiG. Clean spreadsheet-style logging at a low price.
• Best for sharing reports with your doctor: Migra (one-tap MIDAS + HIT-6 PDF reports) or Migraine Buddy (clinical-quality exports). Both produce reports clinicians actually read.
• Best for users without an iPhone: Migraine Buddy or Bearable. Migra and Claru are iOS-only.
• Best for privacy: Migra. All AI processing happens on-device. No account required; no health data leaves your phone.

Migraine tracker vs. migraine diary: same thing?

Mostly, yes. “Migraine diary app” and “migraine tracker app” are the same category — the diary framing comes from the paper headache diaries neurologists have handed out for decades. Every app in this comparison is a migraine diary in that sense; the difference is what they do with the entries afterward (correlations, weather, reports). If your neurologist asked you to keep a headache diary and you’d rather not use an app at all, a free printable migraine diary template works too — the data matters more than the medium.

What actually matters in a migraine tracker

After ~400 of my own attacks logged across years and apps, four things turned out to actually move the needle:

1. Speed of logging during an attack. If logging takes more than 30 seconds while light hurts your eyes, you’ll skip days. Skipped days = useless data.
2. Quality of correlation insights. “You logged caffeine before this attack” is useless. “Across your last 30 attacks, the combination of less than 6 hours sleep + falling barometric pressure was present in 73%” is useful. (Not sure what to track? Start with the top 30 triggers ranked by frequency.)
3. Doctor-shareable reports. Your neurologist doesn’t have time to scroll your timeline. They need a 1-page PDF.
4. Privacy. Migraine data is sensitive. Most apps store it on a cloud you’ve never heard of.

Things that don’t matter as much as the marketing implies:

• Whether the app has a watch app (logging from wrist is useful only if you’re wearing one)
• “Beautiful design” — the app you’ll actually use is the one that’s fast, not the one that’s prettiest
• Number of fields per entry (more fields = slower logging = less data)

The deep dive

Migraine Buddy

The default. Largest user base. Has been around the longest, owns the SEO for “migraine tracker,” and is what your neurologist is most likely to recognize.

What it does well:

• Massive aggregate data → useful population trends
• Reports are clinical-quality
• Cross-platform (iOS + Android)

What it does badly:

• Cloud-based; your data lives on their servers
• Owned by Voluntis, a pharma-aligned company (note: not necessarily bad, but worth knowing)
• Insights are generic — it doesn’t learn your patterns deeply, it shows you population averages
• Heavy app, slow on older phones

Pick Migraine Buddy if: you want the biggest existing database, your doctor recognizes it by name, and you don’t mind cloud sync.

Bearable

The general symptom tracker. Best when migraines are one of several things you’re tracking — mood, sleep quality, energy, multiple medications.

What it does well:

• Tracks anything (mood, sleep, food, supplements, symptoms)
• Cross-correlation across all those dimensions
• Active development

What it does badly:

• Not migraine-first; the UI doesn’t optimize for fast attack logging
• Information density is high — overwhelming for a casual user
• No barometric pressure detection

Pick Bearable if: you have multiple chronic conditions or your migraines are likely connected to something larger (like POTS, fibromyalgia, hormonal cycles).

Claru

The newer AI-first entrant. Markets itself as “the AI migraine tracker that predicts your next attack.” Voice logging is the standout feature.

What it does well:

• AI voice logging — describe an attack out loud, the app transcribes and extracts severity, triggers, symptoms, and medications automatically
• 7-day risk forecast based on history, weather, sleep, and personal triggers
• Multi-variable trigger correlation with confidence scores
• Clean PDF doctor reports

What it does badly:

• Cloud-based — your AI processing and voice transcripts go to their servers, not on-device
• iOS-only
• Newest of the AI-focused trackers, so the prediction model has less population data behind it than Migraine Buddy
• Predictions over 7 days are a bold claim for a problem that even neurology hasn’t cracked; results may not match the marketing

Pick Claru if: voice logging is a must-have, you’re comfortable with cloud-based AI on health data, and you want a single-app experience where the AI does the work.

MiG (Migraine Tracker & Diary)

The lightweight option. Solo-developer app, very fast, no fluff.

What it does well:

• Fast attack logging
• Clean UI
• Good free tier

What it does badly:

• Limited insights — basically a spreadsheet
• No weather/pressure detection
• No clinical screening tools (MIDAS/HIT-6)

Pick MiG if: you just want a clean log, you’re not interested in deep correlation analysis, and you want the cheapest premium tier.

Migraine Monitor

Don’t. It still works, but the app hasn’t received a meaningful update since 2022. The dev team appears to have moved on. It’s a placeholder in App Store search results, not a real choice.

Migra (mine — be skeptical)

The on-device AI and barometric pressure-first option.

What it does well:

• iPhone has a built-in altimeter (since iPhone 6) — Migra uses it for real-time barometric pressure detection. No other major app does this.
• All AI processing happens on-device using Apple Foundation Models (iOS 26+). No data leaves your phone.
• Designed for use during an attack: Migraine Mode dims the screen and amplifies haptics. Logging takes 5–10 seconds.
• Generates MIDAS and HIT-6 PDF reports automatically.

What it does badly:

• Newest of the major options. Smaller user base = less aggregate data.
• iOS-only (no Android, no web)
• AI insights work best after 20+ logged attacks; first month is sparse
• I built it. I’m biased.

Pick Migra if: weather/pressure is a known trigger for you, you care about privacy, and you live in the Apple ecosystem.

What none of them get right (yet)

After all five, here are the gaps I’d love someone to fix:

• None of them integrate well with menstrual cycle tracking. Hormonal migraines are 60%+ of migraines in women, and stitching together a cycle app + a migraine app is awkward.
• None of them do “remediation tracking” well. What worked? What didn’t? You log “took sumatriptan” but no app systematically asks 4 hours later “did it work?”
• None of them help with the mental load of explaining migraines to non-sufferers. A “share my disability score with my partner” feature would be huge.

If anyone reading this is building one of those, get in touch.

How to actually pick

Don’t pick based on features. Pick based on which one you’ll actually log every attack into. The best tracker is the one that gets used. Try the free tier of two for a month, count how many attacks you logged in each, and keep the one with more.

Whatever you pick — log every attack. The patterns are buried in the data you don’t bother to write down.