Cookslate

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A self-hosted recipe manager with a modern, mobile-first UI. Replaces Mealie with something cleaner, warmer, and easier to use, especially on mobile while cooking. Runs on PHP + MySQL with a React SPA frontend.

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Cookslate

Your recipes. Your way.

A recipe manager that remembers how you cook, not just what you cook. Self-hosted on any PHP hosting, no Docker required.

Features

Free (open source):

  • Import recipes from any URL (auto-scrapes structured data)
  • Import from Mealie, Paprika, and Tandoor exports
  • Full-text search across titles, descriptions, and ingredients
  • Tags, favorites, and ratings
  • Cook Mode: step-by-step with timers, wake lock, and vibration alerts
  • Serving scaling: adjust servings and ingredients recalculate
  • Grocery lists with smart ingredient consolidation
  • Pantry tracking: mark always-stocked items, auto-detected on future lists
  • Shoppable quantities: converts recipe amounts to store-buyable packages
  • Recipe collections: organize recipes into named groups
  • Private recipes: mark recipes as only visible to you
  • Ingredient database with nutrition data and USDA lookup
  • Discover recipes from the web (search + import)
  • Cook logging and history
  • Calorie display on recipe cards
  • Dark mode & mobile responsive

Pro ($29.99 one-time – launch special $9.99 until July 1, 2026):

  • Meal planning with weekly drag-and-drop calendar
  • iCal export: sync meal plans to your calendar app
  • Grocery list generation from meal plans
  • Cook tracking stats, streaks, and forgotten favorites
  • Recipe annotations (margin notes)
  • Multi-user household support (up to 5)
  • Data export (JSON-LD, Cooklang)
  • PWA with offline support

Quick Start (Docker)

git clone https://github.com/frobinson47/cookslate.git
cd cookslate
docker compose up -d
Code language: PHP (php)

Visit http://localhost:8080 and run the install wizard to create your admin account. That’s it.

Quick Start (Manual)

  1. Clone the repo to your web server’s document root
  2. Copy api/.env.example to api/.env and configure database credentials
  3. Create a MySQL database and import database/schema.sql
  4. Run cd frontend && npm install && npm run build
  5. Point your web server to the project root (Apache with modrewrite, or Caddy)
  6. Visit your site and run the install wizard at /api/install.php
  7. Start importing recipes!

Requirements

Docker: Just Docker and Docker Compose.

Manual install:

  • PHP 8.1+ with GD, PDO MySQL, OpenSSL extensions
  • MySQL 8.0+
  • Node.js 18+ (for building the frontend)
  • Apache with modrewrite (or Caddy/Nginx with equivalent config)

Tech Stack

  • Backend: PHP (custom microframework, no dependencies)
  • Frontend: React 18 + Vite + Tailwind CSS 4
  • Database: MySQL
  • Icons: Lucide React

License

  • Free-tier code (api/, frontend/src/, excluding pro/ directories): MIT
  • Pro-tier code (api/pro/, frontend/src/pro/): BSL 1.1 — converts to MIT on 2029-03-24

Links

Frank Robinson

Frank Robinson

Systems Engineer at Knuckle Dust Chronicles

I’m Frank Robinson, a systems engineer, home lab addict, AI music nerd, mover of heavy ass weight and professional overbuilder of ideas.

Find Frank Robinson elsewhere
Tech Stack: MySQL PHP React Taliwind CSS
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