PlantNet
Free plant identification from your photos, built as a citizen science project for mapping wild flora
by CTRE COOP INTERNAT RECHERCHE AGRO DEV · listed Nov 2, 2026
Quick verdict
Worth installing if you are curious about the plants around you. It is free, accurate when you give it good photos, and your sightings contribute to real research.
Best for Walkers, gardeners and nature lovers who want a free, science-backed way to name wild plants
Reviewed by AppsPicks on Nov 2, 2026. How we review
PlantNet review
PlantNet (styled Pl@ntNet) identifies plants from photos you take with your phone. You snap a flower, leaf, fruit or bark, and it suggests likely species with a confidence score and reference images to compare against. It focuses on wild plants: trees, grasses, ferns, weeds in the vegetable patch and plants pushing through city pavements. Garden and park plants are covered too, but they are not the main goal. It suits walkers, gardeners, students and anyone curious about what grows around them.
In practice, results depend on what you photograph. A single wide shot of a whole plant often leaves it guessing, while close-ups of flowers, fruit or leaves, plus details like thorns or stem hairs, give much better matches. You pick a regional flora, compare the suggestions side by side, and can save your observations so they feed into a shared scientific dataset.
Why we picked it: It is a research-backed, genuinely free identifier with no subscription wall, and your sightings help scientists track plant biodiversity.
Watch out for: Treat suggestions as a starting point, not a final answer, and never rely on it to decide whether a plant is safe to eat.
What we like
- Completely free with no in-app purchases or subscription
- Backed by public research institutes and tied to a real citizen science project
- Lets you combine photos of several plant parts for better accuracy
- Regional floras keep suggestions relevant to where you are
- Available in many languages on both iPhone and Android
What could be better
- Accuracy drops with blurry or whole-plant-only photos
- Cultivated garden plants and houseplants are a secondary focus
- Shared observations contribute to a public dataset, which not everyone wants
- No plant care advice like watering or disease guides
Questions about PlantNet
Is PlantNet free?
Yes. It is free on both the App Store and Google Play, and Google Play lists no in-app purchases.
Which platforms does it run on?
It is available for iPhone and Android, and the project also offers a web version at plantnet.org.
What happens to my photos?
Observations you share are added to the project's scientific database to help researchers study plant biodiversity. Check the app's settings and privacy policy if you want to control what is shared.
Can I use it to check if a wild plant is edible?
You should not. Many plants look alike, and an automated suggestion is no substitute for expert confirmation before eating anything foraged.
How does it compare to apps like PictureThis or iNaturalist?
PictureThis leans toward garden and houseplant care behind a subscription, while PlantNet stays free and focuses on wild plants. iNaturalist covers all wildlife and adds community verification of sightings.
From the developer: how PlantNet describes itself
Pl@ntNet is an application that allows you to identify plants simply by photographing them with your smartphone. Very useful when you don't have a botanist on hand!
Pl@ntNet is also a great citizen science project: all the plants you photograph are collected and analysed by scientists around the world to better understand the evolution of plant biodiversity and to better preserve it.
Pl@ntNet allows you to identify and better understand all kinds of plants living in nature: flowering plants, trees, grasses, conifers, ferns, vines, wild salads, cacti (and many more).
Pl@ntNet can also identify a large number of cultivated plants (in parks and gardens) but this is not its primary purpose. We especially need Pl@ntNet’s users to inventory the wild plants, those that you can observe in nature, but also those that grow on the sidewalks of cities or in the middle of your vegetable garden!
The more visual information you give to Pl@ntNet about the plant you are observing, the more accurate the identification will be. There are indeed many plants that look alike from afar and it is sometimes small details that distinguish two species of the same genus.
Flowers, fruits and leaves are the most characteristic organs of a species and it is them that should be photographed first. But any other detail can be useful, such as thorns, buds or hair on the stem. A photograph of the whole plant is also very useful information, but it is often not sufficient to allow a reliable identification.
At present, Pl@ntNet makes it possible to recognize about 20,000 species. We are still a long way from the 360,000 species living on earth, but Pl@ntNet is getting richer every day thanks to the contributions of the most experienced users among you.
Don't be afraid to contribute yourself! Your observation will be reviewed by the community and may one day join the photo gallery illustrating the species in the application.
The new version of Pl@ntNet released in January 2019 includes many improvements and new features: -The ability to filter recognized species by genus or family. -The differentiated data revision that gives more weight to users who have demonstrated the most skills (in particular the number of species observed, validated by the community). -The re-identification of shared observations, whether yours or those of other users of the application. -The multi-flora identification that allows you to search for the photographed plant in all the flora of the application and not only in the one you have selected. Very useful when you are not sure what flora to look for. -The selection of your favorite floras to access them more quickly. -The navigation at different taxonomic levels in image galleries. -The mapping of your observations. -Links to many factsheets.
The web version of the application is also available at the following address: https://identify.plantnet.org/
Text from the app store listing, quoted for reference. Our own take is above.
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