Try Dry keeps a diary; NHS Drink Free Days keeps a pledge

At a glance

We are not affiliated with Alcohol Change UK or the NHS. Dry January and Try Dry are trademarks of Alcohol Change UK.

The account and the privacy label point in opposite directions

You might expect the app with no account to be the one that collects less. On the App Store listings we read on 5 October 2026, it is not that simple. Try Dry asks you to sign up, and its privacy label lists contact details as linked to you, with nothing declared as used to track you. Drink Free Days asks for no account and keeps your progress on the phone, but its label declares identifiers used to track you, and the NHS privacy policy lists device details, IP address and optional analytics.

Neither of these is alarming for a free public-health app. It is worth knowing which trade you are making before you choose on the word "account" alone.

Choose Try Dry if

Try Dry is the Dry January app from the charity Alcohol Change UK, and it works all year. Each day you record whether you stayed dry, drank, or drank as planned. It tracks units, calories and money against a baseline you set, awards badges (84 were added in 2025), runs missions and keeps dry streaks. It is entirely free, with no ads, but you have to create an account. Everything is built around UK units and the 14-unit week.

Pick it if you want to see what your drinking adds up to, or if you are doing Dry January and want the official app with its badges and missions. The "drank as planned" option also makes it usable when the aim is to cut back rather than stop. Skip it if you do not want to create an account. More on the Try Dry page at Alcohol Change UK.

Choose NHS Drink Free Days if

With Drink Free Days you pledge at least three drink-free days a week and tick them off. It does not ask what you drank on the other days. There is no account and your progress stays on the phone, although the NHS privacy policy still lists device details, IP address and optional analytics, and the App Store privacy label declares identifiers used to track you. It is free and aimed at England.

Pick it if the only change you want is more days without a drink, and you would rather not log every glass. It asks very little of you, which is the point. Skip it if you need to know how many units the other days come to, because it will not tell you.

Where Modraly sits

Modraly, which we make, overlaps with neither completely. Like Try Dry it counts what you drank, in units, calories and money. Like Drink Free Days it has no account. Unlike both it is not free in full, has no badges or pledges, and only runs on Apple devices.

Modraly is a private drink counter for people who still drink. It counts units, spend and calories and shows your week next to the official guideline for your country, in that country's own unit, for nine countries and in 13 languages. Nothing leaves the device: there is no account, no Modraly server, no ads and no tracking, and its App Store privacy label reads “Data Not Collected” on free and Premium alike. Logging is free and unlimited, with the full month calendar; stats and history cover the last 7 days and you get two favourites. Premium adds unlimited history, widgets, tonight's count on the Lock Screen, custom date ranges, CSV export and alternative icons, by subscription or as a one-time purchase. It is built for Apple devices: iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch, with free logging from Siri, Shortcuts, Control Center, the Lock Screen, a long press on the app icon and the watch, plus an App Clip that shows an example week without installing. It has had seven releases in the four weeks since it launched on 6 September 2026. Modraly has no coaching, no streaks and no Android version.

If free is the requirement, one of the two apps above is the better choice. The comparison has the rest.