Real-time, photo-based meal and macro logging built with Gemini
Secure out-of-the-box app infrastructure with Firebase Auth
Rapidly test and iterate on new features with Remote Config
Built a top 10 Google Play app with a 2-person engineering team
Support features for over 400k subscribers
MacroFactor uses Firebase, Flutter, and Gemini to scale its top-rated nutrition app to 400k+ users and deliver trusted, AI-powered food logging.
MacroFactor uses Firebase, Flutter, and Gemini to scale its top-rated nutrition app to 400k+ users and deliver trusted, AI-powered food logging.
Finding agile technologies to redefine macro management
Contrary to the information spread by diet fads or public advice, there is no one-size-fits-all solution to fitness. Dietary recommendations should be tailored to help people reach their individualized fitness goals. Smart macro tracker and nutrition coach app, MacroFactor, is built for people who want to get serious about their fitness through rapid food logging and intelligent fitness recommendations.
The MacroFactor team knows that habit formation is a key ingredient in helping users reach their diet and fitness goals, and one of the most important parts of habit formation is ease. The team saw an opportunity for a new kind of fitness app, one that could promise that if users log their food and weight consistently, they would take care of the rest for them. “Our goal was and continues to be to blend speed and substance,” says Rebecca Kekelishvili, MacroFactor co-founder. “This meant choosing technologies that would help us iterate quickly and deliver an MVP without accumulating structural debt.”
The team started a search for an easy-to-use and scalable solution that they could stand up and test quickly. They found a combination of the backend support from Firebase and the simplicity of Flutter for client side needs provided the structure they required to deliver their fitness vision to market.
Firebase gave us the foundation we needed and Flutter gave us velocity. The combination allowed us to focus on what our users care about most: adaptive coaching algorithms and fast product workflows that translate science into user outcomes.
Rebecca Kekelishvili
Co-founder, MacroFactor
“Firebase gave us the foundation we were looking for with authentication, data sync, analytics, and safety rails. Flutter gave us velocity on the client side—one codebase, rapid iteration, and UI parity across platforms from day one,” she adds. “The combination allowed us to focus on what our users care about most: adaptive coaching algorithms and fast product workflows that translate science into user outcomes.”
Building a foundation for the future of fitness
Using Firebase and Flutter, the team launched their app quickly, moving from a proof of concept to a feature rich, production-grade solution in record time. “We were able to go from idea to one of the top nutrition apps on the market as a lean development team with only two engineers to start,” says Kekelishvili. With Firebase and Google Cloud, the company has a flexible but resilient infrastructure to support its rapidly growing user base and suite of features. For example, Cloud Functions provides a serverless framework that lets MacroFactor automatically run backend code in response to events, so the app can scale without requiring additional engineering support.
With Firebase and Flutter, we were able to go from idea to one of the top nutrition apps on the market as a lean development team with only 2 engineers to start.
Rebecca Kekelishvili
Co-founder, MacroFactor
With Firebase Auth, users’ app data and metadata are secure while still being shared across end-users’ devices, meaning MacroFactor and its users can trust their data is safe. Beyond security, the MacroFactor team can further refine their user experience with Remote Config. The team can A/B test app behaviors and appearances across both Android and iOS without pushing a full update. By decreasing the time and resources required to test, the team can adapt to meet its users needs even faster. Once the app is ready for an update, Crashlytics helps the team detect and resolve issues across new releases.
All of this background support powers the app’s frontend, built with Flutter. The MacroFactor team chose Flutter because it allowed them to ship a single codebase to both Google Play and the App Store, so Android and iOS users receive updates at the same time, ensuring a consistent user experience for 400k+ active users. “If we didn’t have Firebase + Flutter, our first release would’ve been sequestered to only one platform, either Android or iOS, but not both,” Kekelishvili adds.
Creating an AI-driven fitness app ecosystem
Faced with a wave of AI-first (and AI-only) nutrition apps flooding the market, MacroFactor wanted to provide fast and deep information for their users with MacroFactor AI. “With our goal in mind, we built MacroFactor AI with Gemini because we trust Google Cloud for its speed and strong privacy and compliance posture,” says Kekelishvili.
With MacroFactor AI, users can log a meal by taking a photo. This automates the bulk-search process for complex dishes and makes it easy for users to build food logging habits. The system stores data in Cloud Storage, then MacroFactor uses Firebase AI Logic to prompt Gemini 2.5 Flash directly from the app using Dart. This allows meals to be broken down to ingredient level data without writing backend code. Every user has instant access to transparent, editable nutrition information. “We say that MacroFactor is driven by science, and feels like magic—and Firebase + Flutter are part of that ‘magic layer,’ “ Kekelishvili says. “Delivering AI capture and classification that complements our rigor gives users the simplicity of AI without trading away trust or end-user control.”
We say that MacroFactor is driven by science, and feels like magic—and Firebase + Flutter are part of that “magic layer.” Delivering AI capture and classification that complements our rigor gives users the simplicity of AI without trading away trust or end-user control.
Rebecca Kekelishvili
Co-founder, MacroFactor
As the company looks forward, they plan to provide additional, evidence-based programming for strength training with MacroFactor Workouts. “We plan to keep our focus on expanding the AI feature-set within our products by leveraging the seamless integration between Firebase and Vertex AI,” Kekelishvili says.
The joint results of Google Cloud, Firebase, and Flutter help MacroFactor craft the most eagerly requested features from their “MFer” superfans. “We know that working with Google Cloud means we can ship features fast in a dynamic development environment and keep our MFers happy,” Kekelishvili shares. “We’ve grown a lot since our first subscriber to more than 400,000 MFers, and Google will be with us every step of the way.”
MacroFactor is an AI-powered macro tracker and nutrition coach app built for people who want to get serious about their fitness via rapid food logging and intelligent fitness recommendations.
Industry: Technology
Location: United States
Products: Cloud Run, Cloud Storage, Google Analytics, Firebase Authentication, Firebase Crashlytics, Firebase Remote Config, Firestore, Gemini 2.5 Flash, Vertex AI with Firebase AI Logic, Flutter
