Whether you are curious about the flora around you, or have recently gotten into gardening and want to learn about the new plants and how to take care of them. But identifying them can be confusing unless you are a botanist. That’s why I set out to test the best plants identifier apps available for Android and iPhone, and tried them out on real plants to see which one is actually worth using. Here are my picks for 2026.
Overview of the Best Plants Identifier Apps in 2026
Here’s a quick overview of the best apps you can use to ID plants by photo, and identify them quickly.
| Plants Identifier App | Limitations | Pricing |
|---|---|---|
| Flora Incognita | Less informative for non-flowering stages of some plants | Free |
| PlantSnap | Can only identify 5 plants per day in free version | Limited free trial/ Offers in-app purchases |
| Plantify | Slow identification and can sometimes provide wrong details | Free/ Offers in-app purchases |
| Seek by iNaturalist | Limited functionality offline | Free |
| Blossom | Tends to over generalize some rare species of plants | Free/ Offers in-app purchases |
| PlantNet | Can only identify 20,000 species compared to other apps | Free |
| PlantCam | Can confuse some common species of plants and flowers | Free |
| PlantApp | Even more limited database of only 3000 species of plants and has paid features | Free/ Offers in-app purchases |
| LeafSnap | Some necessary features require payments | Free/ Offers in-app purchases |
| NatureID | Most of its features are locked behind the premium paywall | Limited free trial/ Offers in-app purchases |
Best Plants Identifier Apps Compared for Young Botanists
While there are plethora of plants identifier apps flooding the app stores, I have summed this list into the 10 best options. This includes both paid and free apps that can ID the plant by photo. Some of them can also help you learn more about the species of plant, and how to look after it.
1. Flora Incognita – Best Overall Free Plants Identifier App
Developed by scientists from the Technical University of Ilmenau and the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena, Flora Incognita is a free plants identifier platform that lets you identify plants by image or a photo without any ads.
This plant ID app is free to use since it is part of a scientific research project aiming to improve nature conservation. Flora Incognita was also awarded as an official project of the UN Decade of Biodiversity. As far as the accuracy goes, I have noticed that it is very accurate and gives promising results. It can provide details like taxonomy, Scientific names, Common names, and more.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Identify plants for free without ads | No plant diagnosis option available |
| Clean and simple interface | |
| Detailed insights about plants |
Pricing: Free
2. PlantSnap – Popular Platform to Identify Plants by Image
PlantSnap is essentially the Instagram for plants. It boasts a massive catalog, which can ID over 600,000 types of plants with a photo. It is one of the leading plants identifier apps with a large community of over 50 million users worldwide sharing their findings and data on the app. PlantSnap shows detailed information, including how big the plant can grow both outside and inside your home, which can be quite insightful for young gardeners.
PlantSnaps’s explore tab is where you can discover the existence of identified plants anywhere in the world, too. Snapchat users can use PlantSnap’s Lens to identify plants right from the Snapchat camera. This is a neat Snapchat trick you can use when you are in the middle of snapping or texting friends. It is probably the best plants identifier with fast recognition and reliable accuracy. However, to use most of its features, you’ll have to subscribe to its premium subscription.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Visually pleasing interface | Just 5 daily plants identification in free version |
| Just 5 daily plant IDs in the free version | Reliable and accurate with a vast database |
| Snapchat integration | Most features locked behind premium plan |
Pricing: Limited free trial; Offers in-app purchases
3. Plantify
Apart from being an excellent app for ID plants with a photo, Plantify doubles as a reminder app to care for your precious green buddies. As a result, you can create tasks to water, add fertilizer, prune, or harvest your plants. The app can also diagnose the plant’s condition and help you nurture it back to health, making you a pro at gardening.
Of course, it can identify plants by image, and give you information about them, including the botanical name, common name, genus, common problems you might face when growing them, how much Sunlight needed, and more. This makes it a perfect companion app if you are new to growing plants.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Extremely accurate scanning | Takes a while to identify plants |
| Vast database | |
| Plant care tips and reminders |
Pricing: Free; Offers in-app purchases
4. Seek by iNaturalist
Seek is another great plants identifier app that I have tested out for this list. To use it, all you need to do is launch the app, open the camera viewfinder, and point it at the plant. The app will automatically identify and give you a snippet of information about the plant from Wikipedia, including the taxonomy and seasonality.
It suggests similar species to explore in case the plant you want to grow is not available in your region, which I also admire. It offers in-app badges for completing challenges to encourage the discovery of more fauna around you. Seek is backed by iNaturalist, a joint initiative of the California Academy of Sciences and the National Geographic Society, making it a must-have for plant lovers.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Exceptional accuracy | No cloud sync to transfer data |
| In-app challenges to promote exploration | Doesn’t properly recognizes plants |
| Easy to navigate interface |
Pricing: Free
5. Blossom – Top Plants Identifier App for Complete Care of Flora
If I had to give an award for the best-looking UI among any of these plants identifier apps, Blossom would win it hands down. The app looks visually pleasing and is packed with features to help you get the most out of it. Blossom positions itself as a complete solution for all your plant-related needs. It creates a personalized experience for you based on how skilled you are at working with plants.
With Blossom, you can identify plants, set reminders to nurture them, learn how to care for them, and organize all your plants in the in-app garden. While the free version is sufficient for most people, you get added perks like unlimited plant identification, reminders, and a light meter to measure the light levels in the premium subscription.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Clean and soothing interface | Limited database |
| Plant diagnosis and caring advice | |
| Measure light intensity | |
| Unlimited plant identification |
Pricing: Free; Offers in-app purchases
6. PlantNet
PlantNet is a plants identifier app that can help you recognize different types of plants without much effort. It is capable of recognizing over 20,000 plant species in the world. You can use the PlantNet app to identify flowering plants, trees, grasses, conifers, ferns, vines, wild salads, and even cacti.
When you scan a plant using this app, it identifies it and shows results that include a common name and a botanical name for the plant. The results come with a metric of confidence in accuracy because of the app’s crowdsourced database. Which means that you can contribute to it. This is why it stands as a good option to ID plants with a photo, but it looks very old and clunky in terms of UI.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Identifies over 20,000 species | Some results could be incorrect |
| Crowdsourced database with option to contribute | Results provide quite basic information |
| Get background information about plants |
Pricing: Free
7. PlantCam
Then there is PlantCam, which covers over 12,000 different species across the globe. The plants identifier app is a little slow when it comes to scanning the plants, but its information is mostly accurate. It gives you a detailed description of the plant, but also lets you know about other necessary conditions for it to survive.
You can set a reminder to get alerts when you need to water your plant. PlantCamalso does a health checkup during the scanning process, letting you know whether your plant is healthy or not. However, there are some limitations in terms of features that can be lifted by subscribing to the pro membership.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Quite accurate at recognizing plants | Slow at scanning plants |
| Diagnosis plant health during scanning | Some features hidden behind the Pro susbscription |
| Offers detailed insights related to the plant |
Pricing: Free
8. PlantApp
PlantApp is a pretty useful app that can identify over 3000 species of plants with an image with over 88% accuracy. This might seem limited compared to the top five apps in this list; however, the results were mostly on point for me. Like Plantify, this app also gives you tips on taking good care of your plants with timely reminders.
Another thing I liked about PlantApp is the fact that it doesn’t skim out the details and includes information like toxicity, care requirements, propagation, and FAQs. This can be a good alternative to Plantify, or if you want a plants identifier app for serious gardeners.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Shows detailed information | Has a limited database |
| Plant diagnosis and care reminders | Pretty aggressive to promote its premium version |
| Quite fast at identifying plants | Can misidentify plants at times |
Pricing: Free; Offers in-app purchases
9. LeafSnap
Apart from being a decent app to identify plants, LeafSnap can also be used as a reminder app to take care of your plants. It gives you step-by-step instructions on how you can look after the plant and nurture it properly. As a result, you can create tasks to water, add fertilizer, prune, or harvest your plants. The app gives you tips that will help you grow plants better.
Speaking of plant identification, you can press the “Identify” button on the app’s home screen to capture a plant’s picture. Within a few seconds, the app will recognize the plant for you and show the botanical name, common name, genus, and plant family. Its only major issue is that it will show you an ad after every two actions that you take on the app.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Free unlimited plant IDs | Too many ads |
| Easy to use experience | |
| Plant care tips and reminders |
Pricing: Free; Offers in-app purchases
10. NatureID
Capable of recognizing over 10,000 plants with up to 95% accuracy, NatureID is our next pick. What makes NatureID unique is its ability to recognize mushrooms. Moreover, it can also identify insects if you find a unique one in your garden. The good things about NatureID don’t end there.
In addition to all these features, you can also use the app to diagnose whether your plant or insect is poisonous. But what irks me is the fact that most of its features are locked behind the premium paywall. Even the plant identification feature requires you to pay up to learn more about the plants, which some other apps in this list can do for free.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Can help identify plants, fungi and insects | Pricey subscription |
| Plant diagnosis | Essential features locked behind subscription |
| Recognize if plant or insect is poisonous | Interface is pretty basic |
Pricing: Limited free trial; Offers in-app purchases
If you don’t want to install a separate plants identifier app, you can use your Android phone’s Google Lens or iPhone’s Visual Lookup features instead. All you have to do is point the viewfinder at the plant and tap the shutter button to search. It will then perform an image search and show you reliable results. The results, though, might not be quite accurate, so keep that in mind.
