Point your camera at a mystery plant and three apps dominate the results you'll be offered: PictureThis, PlantNet, and Seek by iNaturalist. All three can name a plant from a photo. They differ enormously in what they cost, where your photos go, and what happens after the identification — which, if you're a gardener rather than a hiker, is the part that matters.
The three apps in brief
PictureThis — the polished subscription app
PictureThis is the most commercial of the three: fast identification, an attractive interface, care guides and disease diagnosis. The trade-offs are the business model and the data practices. Full use requires a paid annual subscription (with a free trial that many reviewers note converts to paid easily if you forget to cancel), and your photos are processed on the company's servers. It's a good product — you just pay for it, in more ways than one.
PlantNet — the citizen-science workhorse
PlantNet is a free research project rather than a business. Identifications feed a global biodiversity database, accuracy on wild and regional flora is excellent, and there's no upsell anywhere. The interface is functional rather than pretty, it needs an internet connection to identify, and it's noticeably weaker on cultivated varieties — it can tell you that's a hydrangea, but it has no opinion on which cultivar the nursery sold you.
Seek by iNaturalist — the free explorer
Seek runs its identification on your phone, which makes it private and usable offline — and its gamified badges make it the best of the three for kids. The on-device model trades some precision for that independence: it often lands at genus level ("a maple") where the server-based apps name a species. For casual "what is that?" moments on a trail, it's hard to beat at the price of free.
Head to head
| PictureThis | PlantNet | Seek | GardenPin | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | Paid subscription (free trial) | Free | Free | Free to try |
| Works offline | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Photos stay on your phone | No — server processed | No — shared with the project | Yes | Yes |
| Care guidance | Yes, extensive | Minimal | Minimal | Per-plant notes & reminders |
| Remembers where each plant is | No | Observation map (public science data) | No | Yes — private GPS garden map |
| Printable labels | No | No | No | Yes — QR labels |
| Best for | Houseplant owners who want polish | Wild flora, botany nerds | Hikes, kids, privacy | Gardeners tracking their own plants |
Details current as of August 2026 — app pricing and features change; check each app's listing before deciding.
What all three are missing
Here's the thing you notice after a season of using any of them in a garden: identification is a moment, but gardening is a record. You identify the plant, feel satisfied, close the app — and six months later you're standing over a dormant clump asking the same question again.
None of the big three is built to answer the gardener's real questions: What did I plant here? When? Where exactly is the one that did well? PlantNet's map exists for science, not for you; PictureThis and Seek don't tie identifications to places at all. The ID is the start of the job, not the end of it.
Where GardenPin fits
GardenPin starts with the same camera-point-and-identify step — running on-device, so it works offline and your photos never leave your phone — but treats the identification as the beginning of a record. Each plant becomes a pin on your private garden map, with photos, notes, and an optional printed QR label in the soil that links back to it. It's not trying to out-encyclopedia PictureThis or out-science PlantNet; it's for the plants you actually own.
Identify it once. Remember it forever. 🌿
- On-device plant ID — works offline, 100% private
- Every plant pinned on a GPS map of your garden
- Photos, notes, and care reminders per plant
- Printable QR labels that link to each plant's record
- Free to try