Comparison · September 2026
What CellarTracker charges for, and what Barello gives away
Barello is a home cellar and bar app that tells you what to open tonight, what to keep, and what you can mix from what you have. CellarTracker is a wine cellar tracker with more than twenty years of members' tasting notes behind it, and an app on top. The cellar is where the two overlap, and so is the question of when to open a bottle.
CellarTracker's subscription is $7.99 a month for up to 100 bottles, rising with the size of the cellar to $69.99 a month, and it adds "drinking windows with enhanced coverage for nearly all of your wines", in its own words. In Barello the window is free, and it moves for where you keep the bottle.
The short answer
| Cellar | Barello | |
|---|---|---|
| Drinking windows | The subscription adds "enhanced coverage for nearly all of your wines", in its own words | Free, moved for where you keep the bottle |
| A fair price to pay per bottle | Subscription | Not offered |
| Where the window comes from | Set early: barrel samples, early bottles and informed speculation, in its own help pages' words | The grape and the style, then where you keep the bottle |
| Notes from other drinkers | Yes | No |
| Spirits and cocktails | Not in its listing | Yes, on the same shelf |
| One shelf for the whole house | Not in its listing | Yes |
| Price | Free to download, subscription $7.99 to $69.99 a month by cellar size, after a 14-day trial | Free |
CellarTracker's price was read off its own upgrade screen on an Australian account on 23 September 2026, and what a free account and the subscription each include comes from its subscription help page, read 27 September 2026. How its windows and drink-now list work comes from its own help pages. Its ratings, 841 in Australia, 12,942 in the US and 614 in Britain, come from the App Store the same day.
Barello starts from the grape, then looks at your house
Barello's window comes from rules for the grape and the style, so a Chianti Classico isn't read as a generic Sangiovese. Then it asks where the bottle lives.
Every published window assumes a cellar at about 13 degrees. Barello reads ten years of daily temperatures for your town and the room the wine's in, and moves the dates: ten good years in a cellar is about seven in a Melbourne cupboard and six in a Brisbane one. How that's worked out.
It never stretches a window, because the published dates already assume good storage. And when it can't place a wine, it says so rather than making a date up.
The spirits and cocktails sit on the same shelf, and the whole house shares it. More on keeping both in one place. It's free to use. Here's what joining early gets you.
See it against your own shelf. Takes about thirty seconds to join.
Join freeWhat CellarTracker does well
Notes from people who've opened the same wine. With more than twenty years of members' tasting notes behind it, a wine you're holding has probably been opened and described by someone else, many times over, and its drink-now list is built from what they did. For a cellar of wines other collectors hold too, that's a fair reason to use it.
What Barello doesn't do
No community notes and no scores from other drinkers. Barello's window is a rule applied to your house rather than a crowd's verdict on a particular bottle. There's no price guide either: a bottle's price is whatever you tell it you paid. If other collectors' notes on your exact bottle are the point, CellarTracker does that and this doesn't.
Questions people ask
Is CellarTracker free?
A free account tracks the cellar and reads members' notes and ratings. The subscription adds market prices, ready-to-drink alerts and "drinking windows with enhanced coverage for nearly all of your wines", in its own help page's words: $7.99 a month for up to 100 bottles, rising with the size of the cellar to $69.99 a month for more than 2,500, after a 14-day free trial. The price was read off its upgrade screen on an Australian account on 23 September 2026.
How does CellarTracker decide when a wine is ready?
Its help pages describe two things. Drinking windows, set early from barrel samples, early bottles and informed speculation, and a drink-now list built from what members open: a wine goes on it once members have drunk more than 85 per cent of the bottles they hold of it. Barello's window comes from the grape and the style instead, moved for where you keep the bottle.
Is there a free alternative to CellarTracker?
Barello, if the cellar belongs to a household rather than a collector. The drinking window is free, and it moves for where you keep the bottle, with the spirits and cocktails on the same shelf. There are no community notes, which is the trade.
Can Barello tell me what to open tonight?
Yes. Tonight's list is every bottle whose window is open in your house, next to the cocktails you can make from the bar, and it's the same list for everyone in the household.
See your own shelf do this. About thirty seconds to join, one photo per bottle, and it's free to use.
Join freeNot ready for that? The cocktail finder is free and needs no sign-up. Still weighing it up? There's a roundup of the best wine cellar apps, and Barello against Vivino, InVintory and OENO. What's free in Barello.