Chowdown vs Tandoor Recipes
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted recipe managers options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Tandoor Recipes
Recipe manager for organizing and planning meals
| Feature | Chowdown | Tandoor Recipes |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Read-the-docs project | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 73 · Good | 92 · Excellent |
| Category | Recipe Managers | Recipe Managers |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Language | HTML | HTML |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 64 MB | 512 MB |
| Deployment | bare-metal, source | docker, bare-metal, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 669 | ★ 8,625 |
| First released | 2014 | 2020 |
| Replaces | Paprika, BigOven | Paprika, Plan to Eat |
What are Chowdown and Tandoor Recipes?
Chowdown
Chowdown is a simple, open-source recipe site generator built on Jekyll. Recipes are stored as plain-text Markdown files and rendered into a clean static website.
- Markdown-based recipes
- Static site output
- No database required
- Simple and minimal design
Tandoor Recipes
Tandoor is a self-hosted application for managing recipes, planning meals, and creating shopping lists. It supports recipe scaling, meal plans, and ingredient-aware grocery lists.
- Recipe import and scaling
- Meal planning calendar
- Smart shopping lists
- Cookbook organization
Chowdown vs Tandoor Recipes: key differences
Both projects are written in HTML. Licensing differs — MIT for Chowdown versus AGPL-3.0 for Tandoor Recipes. Chowdown is the lighter option, starting around 64 MB of RAM against 512 MB for Tandoor Recipes. Chowdown is the more established project (first released 2014), while Tandoor Recipes arrived in 2020. Tandoor Recipes has the considerably larger community, at 8,625 GitHub stars versus 669. Tandoor Recipes lists first-class Docker deployment; Chowdown does not.
Why pick each one
Choose Chowdown if…
- Extremely lightweight
- Easy to host anywhere
Watch out for
- No interactive features
- Manual recipe entry
Choose Tandoor Recipes if…
- Powerful planning features
- Good multi-user support
Watch out for
- Configuration can be complex
- UI has a learning curve
Frequently asked questions
Is Chowdown or Tandoor Recipes better?
Neither is universally better. Tandoor Recipes has the larger community, while Chowdown is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Chowdown and Tandoor Recipes free and open-source?
Yes. Chowdown is licensed under MIT and Tandoor Recipes under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Chowdown and Tandoor Recipes with Docker?
Chowdown: check the project docs for container support. Tandoor Recipes: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Chowdown or Tandoor Recipes?
Chowdown has the smaller minimum footprint at 64 MB of RAM, compared to about 512 MB for Tandoor Recipes. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.