Vanilla Cookbook
Recipe manager designed with complexity under the hood, keeping the user experience as uncluttered, simply vanilla as possible.
Activity has dropped noticeably. Check the repository before committing to it.
Commit activity more than 54% of tracked projects; popularity more than 9%. How this is calculated.
Commits, last 11 months
| Stars | 156 |
|---|---|
| Latest release | v1.5.15 · 6 Sept 2026 |
| Repo updated | 6 Sept 2026 |
| Licence | GPL-3.0 |
| Built with | Docker, Nodejs |
Is Vanilla Cookbook actively maintained?
Development is ongoing. The repository recorded 323 commits over the same window, and the last three months alone account for 2 of them.
Activity is cooling: commits are down 97% against the previous quarter. One slow quarter is normal; two in a row is a signal.
The most recent tagged release, v1.5.15, shipped within the last month — a current, installable version exists today.
Vanilla Cookbook ranks #7 of 11 in Recipe Management, placing it mid-table for maintenance activity.
What Vanilla Cookbook actually does
Vanilla Cookbook is a self-hosted recipe management system that provides a clean user interface while handling complexity behind the scenes. It allows you to store, organise, and view your culinary instructions through a web browser. The project is distributed under the GPL-3.0 licence.
Best fit: It suits home users who want a straightforward, self-hosted web interface to manage personal recipe collections without unnecessary visual clutter.
Worth knowing: With a slowing maintenance trajectory and a modest community following, you may encounter unresolved bugs or lack rapid support for new feature requests.
Deployment notes
As a Node.js application packaged for Docker, you will typically need to configure persistent storage volumes for your recipe data and place it behind a reverse proxy to handle TLS termination.
Links
Alternatives to Vanilla Cookbook
Projects in the same categories, ordered by health score.
Material design inspired recipe manager with category and tag management, shopping-lists, meal-planner, and site customizations. Mealie is focused on simple user interactions to keep the whole family using the app.
A recipe keeper, meal plan organizer, and shopping list manager that can import recipes directly from any URL.
Django application to manage, tag and search recipes using either built-in models or external storage providers hosting PDFs, Images or other files.
Command-line tool for automating meal planning and shopping with Cooklang recipes, scriptable for UNIX workflows, includes web server.
Manage your home bar while adding your ingredients, searching for cocktails and creating custom cocktail recipes.
Recipe manager web app with a built-in collection of recipes. Organize by favorites and categories, create shopping lists, and plan meals.