MatchaFacts about Yelp are as of October 2026, from its store listings, help pages and blog, linked under Sources.
The short answer
Yelp is for finding a place you haven’t tried. As of October 2026, its App Store listing counts more than 199 million reviews, and you can book a table or order delivery in the app.
Matcha is for after you’ve eaten. You score each dish in a private journal on your iPhone, and over time it shows your best pizza, ramen or matcha latte across every city.
Use Yelp to find somewhere new and Matcha to remember which dishes were good.
How they rate
On Yelp you give the whole business 1 to 5 stars in a public review of at least 85 characters, and you need an account to post it (Yelp help). A business’s overall rating is the average of its recommended reviews (Yelp blog). Dishes show up through Popular Dishes, which Yelp builds from what reviewers mention and the photos they post. Yelp also uses AI, for example in Menu Vision, which shows dish photos when you point your camera at a menu (Yelp blog).
In Matcha you score each dish from 1 to 10 in half steps. Every food gets its own ranking, plus rankings by city, restaurant and year, so you can see whether the carbonara in Rome beat the one near home. Matcha uses no AI. More: how to rate food.
Lists, maps and friends
Yelp saves places in Collections, and your bookmarks go to one called Want to go. You can add a note to each business and make each Collection public or private (Yelp help). Its privacy policy says your reviews, photos, ratings, profile and friends list are public, though some of it can be limited in settings (privacy policy). You can follow reviewers and send them compliments.
Matcha has no account, no feed and no followers. Want to try places sit on your map as pink pins, with the dish to order if you know it. You share on purpose: a list through iCloud, where a friend’s score stays hidden until you’ve scored the dish, share cards of your top 5 or your #1, or a Send my places link (your friend needs Matcha). More: rate restaurants with friends.
Price and platforms
As of October 2026, Yelp is free on the App Store and Google Play with no in-app purchases listed, and its Google Play listing says it contains ads. It runs on iPhone and iPad (iOS and iPadOS 18 or later), Apple Watch, Android and yelp.com, and its App Store listing shows 19 languages.
Matcha is iPhone only (iOS 26 or later), in 9 languages, with no ads. It’s a free download with a 7-day free trial, then $9.99/year, or $0.99/week without a trial. Other plans may show in the app, and nothing is free after the trial (pricing).
On price, devices and languages, Yelp is ahead.
Moving from Yelp to Matcha
There’s no import from Yelp. Matcha imports only shared Google Maps lists, up to 3,000 places each (how it works), so places in your Yelp Collections that are also in a Google Maps list can come over that way. For a handful, search each one on Matcha’s map and tap Want to try.
Or keep both: find places on Yelp, save them to Want to try with the dish reviewers mention most, and score them after you go (restaurant wishlist app).
Sources
Checked on 16 October 2026.
