Review Insights · App Store
CellarTracker: #1 Wine Tracker
CellarTracker · 11,398 ratings · ★ 4.9
4.9
★★★★★
11,398 ratings
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Top complaints - extracted from 23 negative reviews
Recurring phrases mined from 1-2★ reviews. The bigger the percentage, the more users have the same problem. Fix the top 2-3 in your version and you have product-market fit on day one.
1
"version"
8 negative reviews mention this · 35% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Used to be great. The old version was way more information rich and convenient. The new one is a tangle of links. Not possible to scan numbers like it was so convenient to do previously. App developer blew this assignment." - foolishlyhopeful
2
"bottle"
6 negative reviews mention this · 26% of all complaints
★★★★★ "So slow to use. I have used CT since 2011. I keep ~5k bottles. I have always supported the app, but they ask for $$$ that varies greatly with # of bottles. Storage is cheap. Processing is expensive. I don’t use the AI function because I have never gotten …" - DeeBomn
3
"update"
5 negative reviews mention this · 22% of all complaints
★★★★★ "UX Update Fail. Add back the vintage blocks when you first search a wine. New interface is much slower bc you have to click in to select vintage" - FrankSoup
4
"search"
5 negative reviews mention this · 22% of all complaints
★★★★★ "UX Update Fail. Add back the vintage blocks when you first search a wine. New interface is much slower bc you have to click in to select vintage" - FrankSoup
5
"wine"
5 negative reviews mention this · 22% of all complaints
★★★★★ "UX Update Fail. Add back the vintage blocks when you first search a wine. New interface is much slower bc you have to click in to select vintage" - FrankSoup
6
"click"
5 negative reviews mention this · 22% of all complaints
★★★★★ "UX Update Fail. Add back the vintage blocks when you first search a wine. New interface is much slower bc you have to click in to select vintage" - FrankSoup
7
"vintage"
4 negative reviews mention this · 17% of all complaints
★★★★★ "UX Update Fail. Add back the vintage blocks when you first search a wine. New interface is much slower bc you have to click in to select vintage" - FrankSoup
8
"cellar"
4 negative reviews mention this · 17% of all complaints
★★★★★ "So slow to use. I have used CT since 2011. I keep ~5k bottles. I have always supported the app, but they ask for $$$ that varies greatly with # of bottles. Storage is cheap. Processing is expensive. I don’t use the AI function because I have never gotten …" - DeeBomn
9
"trying"
4 negative reviews mention this · 17% of all complaints
★★★★★ "So slow to use. I have used CT since 2011. I keep ~5k bottles. I have always supported the app, but they ask for $$$ that varies greatly with # of bottles. Storage is cheap. Processing is expensive. I don’t use the AI function because I have never gotten …" - DeeBomn
10
"information"
4 negative reviews mention this · 17% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Used to be great. The old version was way more information rich and convenient. The new one is a tangle of links. Not possible to scan numbers like it was so convenient to do previously. App developer blew this assignment." - foolishlyhopeful
11
"find"
4 negative reviews mention this · 17% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Bad UX design-shame, shame, shame.. The CellarTracker app was obviously due for an update, but this is all form and no substance. Think about users using their phones with one hand. Having a search button at the bottom of the page, then a search bar all the way at the top, …" - Antiboolez
12
"wines"
4 negative reviews mention this · 17% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Bad UX design-shame, shame, shame.. The CellarTracker app was obviously due for an update, but this is all form and no substance. Think about users using their phones with one hand. Having a search button at the bottom of the page, then a search bar all the way at the top, …" - Antiboolez
📋 All 23 negative reviews
Every 1-2★ review we fetched. Use the copy button to grab them all for your own analysis (paste into ChatGPT/Claude with a prompt like "summarize core user problems, group by theme, ignore bugs, focus on missing features").
App is trash
App isn’t user friendly and premium features don’t work
Best app
It doesn’t let me sing up…
Rude Customer Service
I was trying out a couple of apps and decided to go with another one over this one. I requested to have my account deleted but my phone froze/glitched and I wasn’t sure it submitted so I completed the form again. I then receive the most rude customer service response I think I’ve received from any company (see quoted email below since it won’t let me upload a screenshot). Needless to say, I’m glad I didn’t want to keep this app in the first place because why would anyone want to support a company who employs people like this.
“You are purged. Why are you sending an account removal request again after 1 minute? We literally say "Thank for your patience. We will get back to you soon to remove your CellarTracker account."
It is Saturday night. It is done.
Amazing.”
“You are purged. Why are you sending an account removal request again after 1 minute? We literally say "Thank for your patience. We will get back to you soon to remove your CellarTracker account."
It is Saturday night. It is done.
Amazing.”
Bad UX design-shame, shame, shame.
The CellarTracker app was obviously due for an update, but this is all form and no substance. Think about users using their phones with one hand. Having a search button at the bottom of the page, then a search bar all the way at the top, I find myself scrolling up and down a lot needlessly-a problem I didn’t have with the old app. Also, where are the pro reviews? I can’t see whether Jancis or Decanter have reviews for relevant wines anymore, even though I subscribe and always want to know what they have to say, so now I have to do three separate searches. Such an incredible fail-as a longtime user, I’m just furious that you messed this up so badly, and hope you’ll fire the person in charge. Clearly didn’t take time to understand the nuances of how CellarTracker provided a good and worthwhile experience for users.
New and unimproved-garbage
If you want to do serious work on your cellar, get the legacy version!
Disappointing
I had good expectations, but: the interface is clunky and slow, you end up recording more bottles as you are not sure they were in the first time, then deleting it becomes a chore, as you need to do it one by one. The value calculations are wrong…. That is weird as it is a simple multiplication. My third bottle I tried to upload, it just sent an erro message saying “unable to upload” I had to delete them and redo it twice. Sorry, not a good experience for me. I was ready to pay the extra $ for the pro version but will certainly not do so now.
Backwards
They took and antiquated app and made it harder to use.
The old app may have been old but it did work. Now, it’s functionality worse.
Multiple screens and actions to consume a bottle.
Multiple screens to rate and find a wine in your cellar.
Used to be one screen.
And now ownership is having Apple delete multiple unfavorable reviews, instead of working with their loyal customers. Horrible. That’s unethical and nefarious. I am done with this company and filing a complaint with the BBB and Apple.
The old app may have been old but it did work. Now, it’s functionality worse.
Multiple screens and actions to consume a bottle.
Multiple screens to rate and find a wine in your cellar.
Used to be one screen.
And now ownership is having Apple delete multiple unfavorable reviews, instead of working with their loyal customers. Horrible. That’s unethical and nefarious. I am done with this company and filing a complaint with the BBB and Apple.
The app is too slow
I have to wait a second after every click in the interface of the app on iPhone 15 Pro
Not the answer
Tried the new app as a lover of the old CT. After trying literally everything else, legacy CT was the only option / service catered towards what I call the “Professional, or Power User”. Someone who cares about the content (words in review and database functionality), efficiency in the display of info, and someone who doesn’t care about the window dressing (bottle photos, “generated feed for you”, cool looking UI that wastes screen space). The bottom line is this new app is going to alienate a large portion of existing CT users - meticulous (not necessarily large) collectors and oenophiles who care as much about differences in vintage as they do parcel / plot / or producer.
This new version is very much a move in the direction of Vivino and muddies the way you can easily decipher between vintages of the exact same wine and cuts the info you get on screen by more than 50% (just a few examples). If I wanted a pretty looking gamefied wine experience, I’d use Vivino. The old CT was like Jane Anson’s “Inside Bordeaux” or Jasper Morris’ “Inside Burgundy” while this new app is a giant leap in the direction of becoming the app version of Molly Booker’s “Wine Folly”.
I think these guys received a VC investment in 2023 and are looking to commercialize. I fear that in the race for user growth, the quality of reviews will be severely simplified and diluted with time. This would be the biggest shame as CT is the only place where I truly believe the majority of reviews are coming from people who either are sommeliers or who have once thought of becoming one, and not two word reviews like “OMG, wow!”
I hope they keep an option to keep using the old website and old app. The moment they drop that…I’m out
This new version is very much a move in the direction of Vivino and muddies the way you can easily decipher between vintages of the exact same wine and cuts the info you get on screen by more than 50% (just a few examples). If I wanted a pretty looking gamefied wine experience, I’d use Vivino. The old CT was like Jane Anson’s “Inside Bordeaux” or Jasper Morris’ “Inside Burgundy” while this new app is a giant leap in the direction of becoming the app version of Molly Booker’s “Wine Folly”.
I think these guys received a VC investment in 2023 and are looking to commercialize. I fear that in the race for user growth, the quality of reviews will be severely simplified and diluted with time. This would be the biggest shame as CT is the only place where I truly believe the majority of reviews are coming from people who either are sommeliers or who have once thought of becoming one, and not two word reviews like “OMG, wow!”
I hope they keep an option to keep using the old website and old app. The moment they drop that…I’m out
Much worse than the old version
Where do I begin? For example: one of the most useful feature of the old version was to sort by community score and to see the score, perhaps 50 different wines at the time. Now? It gives a range. Why hide the details? If I want to ignore information, leave that to me. In fact, seeing the scores directly was a good part of the fun. It gives much details on each bottle, so you have to endlessly scroll. Why? I know my wines, and if not, I click on them. Very silly. However, the most important info is left out: the drinking range (and the score). Or, when going to an individual bottle, you cannot see all on one screen, but rather have to click on the various tabs. And so forth. A big step backwards. A very annoying change.
Shady subscription processing
Their subscription diverts me to their website as opposed to the AppStore. It gives me zero transparency about how my data is handled and how unsubscribing works. Also, the AppStore lists monthly options that are not available on their website. Shady!
Please Revert to Old App or Fix The New One
This new app is absolutely terrible. The old app worked smoothly and seamlessly. Trying to “drink” or “consume” using this new app is almost an impossibility. I can no longer use the app and must access Cellar Tracker using my computer.
UX Update Fail
Add back the vintage blocks when you first search a wine. New interface is much slower bc you have to click in to select vintage
Dec 2025 / Jan 2026 Update
One of the worst updates for a phone from the users POV. Thank god they added the search bar back to the top of the app.
When you search a wine, the small vintage blocks are gone. Bring those back. Also, when you click into a wine, you’re now given “Popular Vintages”. Who asked for this?! This appeals to a much smaller audience than, say, “Recent Vintages”. The UI for vintages was so much better before, please revert back…please.
When you search a wine, the small vintage blocks are gone. Bring those back. Also, when you click into a wine, you’re now given “Popular Vintages”. Who asked for this?! This appeals to a much smaller audience than, say, “Recent Vintages”. The UI for vintages was so much better before, please revert back…please.
So slow to use
I have used CT since 2011. I keep ~5k bottles. I have always supported the app, but they ask for $$$ that varies greatly with # of bottles. Storage is cheap. Processing is expensive. I don’t use the AI function because I have never gotten anything valuable from a prompt. The prices go up too fast for the number of bottles.
The new app is still harder to use than the old one. For example, if I have an active filter going (like Bordeaux with a certain price and vintage) and then my wife wants a Skipstone, so I want to search for her. Then I have to clear the filter which takes a few clicks. And then I’ve lost that filter.
1. Let us save the filters so we can get to active filters we use often
2. Just give me a quick search of my cellar without having to clear my filters for viewing my cellar.
I keep trying the new app and then go back to the old one.
The new app is still harder to use than the old one. For example, if I have an active filter going (like Bordeaux with a certain price and vintage) and then my wife wants a Skipstone, so I want to search for her. Then I have to clear the filter which takes a few clicks. And then I’ve lost that filter.
1. Let us save the filters so we can get to active filters we use often
2. Just give me a quick search of my cellar without having to clear my filters for viewing my cellar.
I keep trying the new app and then go back to the old one.
Used to be great
The old version was way more information rich and convenient. The new one is a tangle of links. Not possible to scan numbers like it was so convenient to do previously. App developer blew this assignment.
Recent update is a huge step backwards
I’ve been a happy customer of CellarTracker for years and had been happy with the older app. But the new updated app iworks completely differently than the website and is nearly unusable. I amusing the website in a browser rather than he app on my iPad because it’s so bad.
Counterintuitive
The UI isn’t intuitive. I find I’m frequently looking at a screen and have no option but to quit the app and go back to the OG version. For example, if you start to consume a bottle but change your mind, you can’t go back, or cancel, or exit the process. The only choice is to exit the app.
I get the idea… tabs for different activities, but to be real, I like the density of information and the associated efficiency of the OG app.
I get the idea… tabs for different activities, but to be real, I like the density of information and the associated efficiency of the OG app.
Should be more customizable
This app is a good idea but if you frequently drink from small wineries that they don’t have in their system then it’s really frustrating. You should be able to add your own wines to keep track of what you have.
Update: I got a response with an email to send my wines to in order to have them added to the system? There are hundreds of wineries in Napa Valley alone. This would be so tedious! Please just make it so that I can add my own wines in the app if you don’t have them.
Update: I got a response with an email to send my wines to in order to have them added to the system? There are hundreds of wineries in Napa Valley alone. This would be so tedious! Please just make it so that I can add my own wines in the app if you don’t have them.
New version of app is major downgrade of some key functionality and painful to use
I have been a paying customer of the freeware since 2006 and have found it very functional, if not elegant. Had high hopes for the new app now that they are making everyone pay, but have found it frustratingly worse than the old app on some basic functionality. A few examples:
- the Consumption Note used to auto-populate when you started typing with previously used content, so you could quickly fill it in and easily make consistent use of the same notes that are frequently used. Now you have to type out a new one each time which is more time consuming and results in less consistency of use of the same description because to check what you have used before you have to exit the entire consumption process and then try to find one that would have the same description. By the way, inexplicably there is no easy way to search on consumption note in the app - if you search for language you put in the consumption notes, it does not show up in the search.
- I store wine in multiple storage locations and homes. Previously if I had the same wine in multiple locations, if would force me to select which one I was consuming and if it existed in only in one location only then would it would automatically select the first one in the list. Now it just automatically selects the first one in the list, and doesn’t even show you from which location it is choosing - you have to click through to see if there are multiple locations to select from. Not knowing this, I have frequently selected the wrong location which has made a mess of my inventory.
- identifying the errors was made harder because now when you pick “Consumed” it shows you the list without indication the location from which it was consumed, so you have to drill down into each bottle to see where it was consumed from (I. The old app, it showed you both the location and the Consumption note in the list.
- when you select consume, it gives you an annoying reminder to go search for the wine and makes you click through it, rather than just taking you to the list of wines to search from. I know I need to search for which one I am consuming, but repeatedly assume that selecting the Consume button will take you to the next step of what you need to do, not give you instructions on what you should have done first instead.
There are a number of other things that are not intuitive or easy to accomplish. The new version is a total miss, and maddening to someone who has voluntarily paid all these years.
- the Consumption Note used to auto-populate when you started typing with previously used content, so you could quickly fill it in and easily make consistent use of the same notes that are frequently used. Now you have to type out a new one each time which is more time consuming and results in less consistency of use of the same description because to check what you have used before you have to exit the entire consumption process and then try to find one that would have the same description. By the way, inexplicably there is no easy way to search on consumption note in the app - if you search for language you put in the consumption notes, it does not show up in the search.
- I store wine in multiple storage locations and homes. Previously if I had the same wine in multiple locations, if would force me to select which one I was consuming and if it existed in only in one location only then would it would automatically select the first one in the list. Now it just automatically selects the first one in the list, and doesn’t even show you from which location it is choosing - you have to click through to see if there are multiple locations to select from. Not knowing this, I have frequently selected the wrong location which has made a mess of my inventory.
- identifying the errors was made harder because now when you pick “Consumed” it shows you the list without indication the location from which it was consumed, so you have to drill down into each bottle to see where it was consumed from (I. The old app, it showed you both the location and the Consumption note in the list.
- when you select consume, it gives you an annoying reminder to go search for the wine and makes you click through it, rather than just taking you to the list of wines to search from. I know I need to search for which one I am consuming, but repeatedly assume that selecting the Consume button will take you to the next step of what you need to do, not give you instructions on what you should have done first instead.
There are a number of other things that are not intuitive or easy to accomplish. The new version is a total miss, and maddening to someone who has voluntarily paid all these years.
Too many clicks and scrolls
If you like pictures, white space, scrolling, and clicking, use this new app. If like like efficient navigation, use the old app.
Still disappointing
I’ve had the old app for 8 years and am disappointed it’s taken this long to upgrade and more disappointed that the features are a bit lackluster compared to other apps on the market. As someone who’s sent them money for 8 years I was hoping for more. I’m not gonna pay the $160 they are demanding now. Will move to a new, more functional, more informational app with better optics.
Old version was better
Too much navigation to get the information I'm looking for. I'm going to the web version far more often than I used to.
Sentiment summary
99%
Positive (4-5★)
0%
Neutral (3★)
0%
Negative (1-2★)