Today vs Noom.
Noom is a behavioural-change app for losing weight, with mini-psychology lessons and a traffic-light food system. Today is not that. If you've been looking for something that doesn't assume weight loss is the goal, here's the difference, plainly.
What each app is for.
Noom is built around weight loss. Its thesis is that weight loss is a behaviour-change problem, and it tackles that with daily psychology-style lessons, a colour-coded food system (roughly: green = low calorie density, yellow = medium, red = high), human coach messaging, and a streak-style engagement loop.
Today makes no assumption about whether you want to lose, maintain, or gain weight. There is no coach. There are no lessons. Food is never categorised — your lunch is a sentence, not a colour. The product thesis is the opposite: many people don't need a plan; they need someone to notice what's already happening in their body across weight, cycle, mood, and food, and show it back to them.
At a glance.
| Today | Noom | |
|---|---|---|
| Primary job | Notice cross-domain patterns | Behaviour-change for weight loss |
| Prescribes a weight goal | No | Yes, core |
| Human coach | No | Yes, via messaging |
| Daily mini-lessons | No | Core feature |
| Food categorisation | None — anti-moralising by design | Green / yellow / red system |
| Menstrual cycle awareness | Yes — core feature | No |
| Streaks | None | Yes |
| Daily notifications | None | Yes, default |
| AI partner | Yes — Anthropic Claude, terse | Some AI features alongside human coach |
| Pricing | Free in beta; modest subscription planned | Premium subscription |
| Platform | iOS, Android | iOS, Android |
Pick Noom if…
You want an explicit weight-loss program with a structure, a coach, and daily content you're expected to engage with. You find the green/yellow/red food system useful rather than moralising. You respond well to streaks and a plan.
Pick Today if…
You don't want a weight-loss plan. You want to understand your own body over a few months — including how your cycle moves your scale and your mood — without a coach, without a food colour system, without streaks, and without daily homework.
The honest bit.
Noom is effective for people who want what Noom offers — a structured, coached, behaviour-change program. It's not the right answer for someone who doesn't want a program in the first place. Today is explicitly for that second person: you're not a project, you're not a target weight, and you don't need a plan before you're allowed to understand what's going on in your body.
The two essays most relevant here: The problem with streaks and What tracking means, if it's not for optimising.
Today is a quiet AI health partner that correlates your weight, cycle, and mood — without a coach, without a plan, without a score.
Join the beta →Noom is a trademark of its respective owner. This page is editorial comparison content; Today is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or partnered with Noom. Feature claims reflect publicly documented behaviour at the time of writing — please verify current details on the official site.