The actual difference
Fuelly has been collecting fuel logs since 2008 and its real asset is the database underneath: thousands of owners of your exact model, and what they average. That is a genuinely good reason to use it, and nothing built today can copy it.
The cost of that database is that your log has to live on their server. So there is an account, a sync, and a load spinner between you and typing three numbers while standing at a pump in the rain.
Gas Mileage Tracker made the other choice. No account, no server, no sync. The app opens instantly because there is nothing to fetch, and your fill-ups are on your phone. That buys speed and privacy and costs you the community benchmark and automatic cloud backup. Whether that is a good trade depends entirely on which of those you were actually using.
Side by side
| Gas Mileage Tracker | Fuelly | |
|---|---|---|
| Account required | No | Yes |
| Where the data lives | Your phone | Their server |
| Works offline | Fully | Partly |
| Community MPG database | No | Yes, and it is the reason to use it |
| Multiple vehicles | Yes | Yes |
| MPG per tank and running average | Yes | Yes |
| Cost per mile | Yes | Yes |
| Charts | MPG, monthly spend, price per gallon | Yes, plus site-wide comparisons |
| CSV export | Yes, one-time Pro purchase | Yes |
| CSV import | Not yet | Yes |
| Cloud backup | No, phone backup only | Yes |
| Web access | No | Yes |
| Price | Free, Pro is a one-time purchase | Free with ads |
Two of those rows are bolded against us on purpose. No import and no cloud backup are real limitations and you should know about them before you move a decade of records.
Stay on Fuelly if
- You use the community data to compare your car against other owners. There is no substitute.
- You have years of history and no appetite for retyping it.
- You want to see your log in a browser on a laptop.
- You want your data on a server so a lost phone is not a lost log.
Switch if
- You gave up on logging because the app took too long to open at the pump.
- You do not want a fuel-tracking account tied to an email address.
- You want the log for your own numbers, not to compare with strangers.
- You are starting from scratch anyway, so there is nothing to import.
If you are somewhere in between, run both for a month. It costs nothing and after four fill-ups you will know which one you actually open.
Gas Mileage Tracker is free on the App Store. Android is being built.