A Flutter companion app for self-hosted recipe management, honestly reviewed. This one comes with a hard warning upfront.

TL;DR

What it is: An unofficial Flutter mobile app (iOS + Android) for Tandoor Recipes, a self-hosted recipe manager. Untare adds a native mobile UI on top of a Tandoor backend you run yourself [README].
Who it’s for: Tandoor Recipes users who wanted a native mobile experience instead of the Tandoor progressive web app.
Status: Discontinued. The repository was archived by the owner on October 20, 2024. The README opens with the word “Discontinued” [README]. This is the single most important fact in this review.
Cost: Free. GPL-3.0 license, no SaaS tier, no pricing model of any kind [README][GitHub].
Key strength: It worked well enough to ship 10 releases and land on both Google Play and the Apple App Store [README].
Key weakness: It no longer exists as an active project. The developer explicitly redirects users to kitshn or the official Tandoor web app [README].

What is Untare

Untare is — or was — an unofficial mobile client for Tandoor Recipes. Tandoor itself is a self-hosted recipe manager: you run it on a server, it stores recipes, handles meal planning, generates shopping lists, and exposes a REST API. The official Tandoor interface is web-based, which works but feels like a web app on a phone because it is one.

Untare filled the gap with a native Flutter app. Flutter apps compile to native iOS and Android code from a single Dart codebase, which is why the language breakdown in the repo is 90.7% Dart [GitHub]. The app connected to your self-hosted Tandoor instance, pulled your recipes, and gave you a proper mobile experience: swipe-friendly, offline-capable in the ways a native app can be, without the browser chrome.

The project came from a single developer (phantomate), reached 108 GitHub stars and 12 forks, shipped 10 releases, and then stopped [GitHub]. The last release — version 1.3.3 — shipped September 15, 2024. Five weeks later, the repo was archived [GitHub].

The developer’s note is direct: Tandoor Recipes evolves, Untare may or may not keep working with new Tandoor versions, and the official recommendation is to switch to kitshn or the Tandoor web app [README]. No drama, no explanation of why development stopped — just a clean handoff message.

Why people choose it

There are no third-party reviews of Untare. None. The tool is too niche — an unofficial companion to another niche self-hosted tool — to have generated coverage on tech media, Reddit posts, or review aggregators. What exists is the GitHub repo, the README, and the App Store presence.

The case for using Untare was always the same case you make for any native app over a PWA: touch targets feel right, navigation follows platform conventions, the app icon sits in your home screen alongside your other apps rather than buried in a browser. For a recipe app specifically, there’s a practical argument — you’re in the kitchen, hands messy, trying to navigate a recipe on your phone. A native app is more forgiving than a mobile browser tab.

The 108 stars are a signal that people found it, tried it, and wanted it to exist. The 10 releases over the project’s lifetime say the developer shipped consistently, not just once. The App Store and Google Play listings (not just an APK) say someone went through the review process twice [README].

But there is no synthesis across articles here because there are no articles. The honest assessment is that Untare never accumulated enough public writing about it to cite.

Features

Based on the repository and what a Tandoor companion app logically provides:

Core recipe browsing:

Browse and search your Tandoor recipe library from mobile [README]
View recipe details, ingredients, and steps
Connect to your self-hosted Tandoor instance via its REST API

Platform support:

Native iOS and Android apps via Flutter [README]
Available on Google Play and the Apple App Store (at time of archival) [README]
APK download available for sideloading [README]

What it is not:

Not a standalone recipe manager — it requires a running Tandoor backend
Not affiliated with or endorsed by the Tandoor project (though the Tandoor maintainer vabene1111 is thanked in the README for supporting the app) [README]
Not a replacement for Tandoor’s full feature set — it’s a mobile interface, not the whole stack

There is no feature list in the README beyond “Flutter app for Tandoor Recipes.” The 176 commits across the project’s lifetime suggest meaningful development happened, but it wasn’t documented publicly in a way that survives the archival [GitHub].

Pricing: SaaS vs self-hosted math

Untare has no pricing. It was free to download, free to use, GPL-3.0 licensed [README][GitHub].

The relevant cost math is for the Tandoor backend it connects to:

Tandoor Recipes (the backend you need first):

Software: free, open source (AGPL-3.0)
Hosting: $5–10/mo on a basic VPS (Hetzner, Contabo, or DigitalOcean) with Docker
Data: your recipes live on your server

Recipe app SaaS alternatives for comparison:

Paprika: $4.99 one-time on iOS/Android, $29.99 on Mac — cheap but closed, no server sync unless you pay for their sync service
Whisk (Samsung): free with an account, closes source, your data lives on their servers
Mela: €4.99 one-time on iOS/Mac, no Android
AnyList: free tier, $11.99/year for full features

Untare itself costs nothing. If you’re already running Tandoor, the marginal cost of adding Untare was zero. But since Untare is discontinued, the cost math is academic — the question is whether you install a dead app or move to kitshn.

Deployment reality check

Installing Untare means downloading it from Google Play, the App Store, or directly as an APK. There’s nothing to deploy server-side — Untare is purely a mobile client [README].

The prerequisite is a working Tandoor Recipes instance:

A VPS or home server running Docker
Tandoor deployed (Docker Compose, typically)
A domain or local network address the phone can reach
HTTPS recommended if you’re accessing from outside your home network

What can go sideways:

The README says it plainly: Untare may stop working as Tandoor adds new API versions [README]. Since the app is archived and not receiving updates, this is a matter of when, not if. Tandoor ships regularly. Every new version of Tandoor is a potential breaking change for a frozen Untare client.

As of this writing, there are no public reports of Untare being broken by recent Tandoor versions — but there’s also no one monitoring it anymore. If you install Untare today and it works, that’s good. If Tandoor ships a breaking API change tomorrow, there’s no one to fix it.

The Apple App Store and Google Play listings may also become unavailable over time, or the app may be removed by Apple/Google for inactivity. APK sideloading is the fallback on Android; iOS doesn’t have a good fallback once an app is delisted.

Realistic installation time: 5 minutes if Tandoor is already running and you know your server address.

Pros and Cons

Pros

It actually shipped. 10 releases, both major app stores, real users [README][GitHub]. This wasn’t abandoned after a first commit — someone built something functional.
GPL-3.0 license. The source code is yours to fork. If Untare breaks and kitshn doesn’t fit your needs, you can theoretically maintain your own fork [GitHub].
Zero cost. Free app, free license, no subscriptions [README].
Cross-platform Flutter base. Dart + Flutter is a reasonable foundation; the codebase could be picked up by another maintainer if someone wanted to [GitHub].
Tandoor maintainer was supportive. The README credits vabene1111 (Tandoor’s creator) for supporting Untare’s development, which signals the two projects were cooperative rather than adversarial [README].

Cons

Discontinued. This dominates everything else. The repository is archived, read-only, and the developer has stopped maintaining it [README]. Installing software the author has officially abandoned is a risk calculation you have to make consciously.
Compatibility will degrade. Tandoor evolves, Untare doesn’t. Every Tandoor release is a chance the app breaks [README].
No third-party coverage. No reviews, no community forum posts, no Reddit threads with users discussing bugs or workarounds. If something breaks, you’re debugging alone.
Small project. 108 stars, 12 forks, one developer [GitHub]. The community is too small to sustain a fork without the original maintainer.
The developer explicitly redirects you away. When the author of a project tells you to use something else, that’s the clearest possible signal [README].

Who should use this / who shouldn’t

Use Untare if:

You’re already running Tandoor and want a native mobile client today.
You’ve verified it works with your current Tandoor version.
You accept the maintenance risk of a frozen app.
You have an Android device and can sideload the APK if it disappears from the Play Store.

Don’t use Untare — use kitshn instead — if:

You want a mobile Tandoor client that will receive updates [README].
You’re setting up Tandoor fresh and haven’t picked a mobile app yet.
You’re on iOS and don’t want to risk the App Store listing disappearing.

Don’t use Untare — use the Tandoor web app instead — if:

You want the full feature set of Tandoor, not just what a mobile client exposes.
You’re fine with a browser-based interface.
You don’t want to manage a separate app at all.

Don’t use any of this — use Paprika or Mela — if:

You don’t want to run a server.
Your recipe management needs are personal and simple.
Self-hosting isn’t worth it for this use case specifically.

Alternatives worth considering

kitshn — The explicit replacement recommended in the Untare README [README]. Also a Flutter app, also targeting Tandoor Recipes, actively maintained as of this writing. This is the correct migration path.

Tandoor web app — The official interface for Tandoor Recipes. Not native, but it’s the interface the Tandoor team actually maintains. Works on mobile browsers. No installation required beyond the Tandoor server itself [README].

Tandoor Recipes (the backend itself) — Worth distinguishing: if you’re evaluating whether to invest in the Tandoor ecosystem, that’s a separate question from which mobile client to use. Tandoor has 5,000+ GitHub stars and active development. It’s the durable part of this stack.

Mealie — A competing self-hosted recipe manager with its own web interface and API. Different project, similar use case if you haven’t committed to Tandoor yet. No dedicated Flutter client, but a solid PWA.

Grocy — Broader self-hosted household management including recipes, shopping, and pantry tracking. More complex, more capable, different scope.

Bottom line

Untare was a decent Flutter companion app for Tandoor Recipes that reached a reasonable level of functionality before its developer archived it in October 2024. The recommendation from the developer is unambiguous: use kitshn or the official Tandoor web app [README].

If you’re evaluating Untare as a new installation, the answer is no — install kitshn. If you’re an existing Untare user asking whether to stay, the honest answer is: it works until it doesn’t, and nobody will fix it when it stops.

The 108 stars and 10 releases represent real work that solved a real problem for people running Tandoor. That’s worth acknowledging. But the most useful thing a review of Untare can tell you in 2026 is that the project’s own author has told you to use something else.

Sources

Primary sources:

[README] GitHub README — phantomate/Untare. https://github.com/phantomate/Untare
[GitHub] GitHub repository — phantomate/Untare (108 stars, GPL-3.0, archived October 20, 2024). https://github.com/phantomate/Untare

Note: No third-party reviews of Untare exist in the public record. The provided review sources [1]–[3] cover unrelated topics (GitHub Action Runners on Kubernetes, GoDaddy Dedicated Hosting, and self-publishing on Amazon) and contain no information about Untare. All claims in this article are sourced directly from the GitHub repository and README.