The best Brew Timer alternative for better coffee.
Brew Timer is a capable manual timer with community recipes. Filtru measures the brew instead of pacing it: fourteen scale brands, live graphs, espresso instruments, and a scanner.
Available for iPhone and iPad. Free to download.
Brew Timer : Make Great Coffee, on the App Store
First, some honesty.
Brew Timer earns its 4.4 stars: fourteen brew methods including Turkish coffee, thousands of user-created recipes to explore, an audio assistant, and a brew log with ratings.
It's all manual, though. The pour-rate tracker paces you rather than measures you, there's no Bluetooth scale support, no espresso instruments, no bag scanning, it's English only, and it hasn't shipped an update since July 2025. Filtru does the measured version of the same idea, and keeps shipping.
Filtru vs Brew Timer,
feature by feature.
Based on each app’s public App Store listing and documentation, as of July 2026.
| Feature | Brew Timer |
 Filtru
★ Recommended
|
|---|---|---|
| Guided step-by-step brew timers | Yes. Timed steps + audio assistant | Yes. Guided timers for 15 methods |
| Brew methods covered | Yes. 14 methods incl. Turkish | Yes. 15 methods incl. Turkish |
| Community & shared recipes | Yes. Thousands of user recipes | Yes. Community recipes on every brew method |
| Bluetooth scale support | No. Not advertised | Yes. 14 brands with live weight + flow rate |
| Live brew graphs (weight + flow) | Partial. Pour-rate pacer; no scale data | Yes. Measured weight + flow from your scale |
| Espresso tools | No. Not advertised | Yes. Dial-in, shot recording, TDS + extraction |
| Coffee journal | Yes. Log, rate, and note brews | Yes. Tasting notes with customisable bag styles |
| AI bag scanning | No. Not advertised | Yes. AbolBuna, on-device, 50,000+ bags |
| Languages | Partial. English only | Yes. 14 languages |
| Price | Yes. Free · Premium $0.99/mo | Yes. Free · optional PRO from $3.49/mo |
| Actively maintained | Partial. Last updated July 2025 | Yes. Updated continuously since 2016 |
| Track record | Yes. 4.4★ from 24 US ratings · est. 2023 | Yes. 4.8★ from 11,914 ratings · est. 2016 |
“This has become an essential companion for my daily routine as I prefer to brew coffee with a pour over method.”— App Store review of Filtru
Why people switch from Brew Timer to Filtru.
Measured beats paced.
Brew Timer's pour-rate tracker tells you roughly how fast to pour. Filtru connects to your scale and shows you exactly what happened: live weight, flow rate, and a brew print of every cup.
Espresso has instruments here.
Fourteen manual methods stop at the espresso machine. Filtru adds dial-in, shot recording, an extraction calculator, and TDS support.
An app that's still moving.
Brew Timer last shipped in July 2025. Filtru has shipped every year since 2016, most recently the on-device AbolBuna bag scanner and four new scale brands.
What you get when you switch.
Works with serious coffee scales
Acaia, Timemore, Felicita, Decent, DiFluid and more. Live weight and flow-rate feedback with automatic pairing. See supported scales →
Guided brewing for fifteen methods
AeroPress, V60, Chemex, French press, Turkish coffee, espresso, and more. Each has a baseline recipe and a guided timer that keeps pace with you. See every brew method →
Accessibility is a feature, not a checkbox
Filtru works properly with VoiceOver, including live spoken readouts of your scale's measurements while you brew, as often or as rarely as you like. And you can switch the whole app to fonts like OpenDyslexic, Lexend, or Atkinson Hyperlegible.
The answer is YES
Switching from Brew Timer? These all have the same answer:
- Can I brew Turkish coffee with a guided timer in Filtru? Yes
- Can I follow other people's recipes in Filtru? Yes
- Can I see my actual pour rate in Filtru? Yes
- Does Filtru work with VoiceOver? Yes
- Is Filtru free to try? Yes
Filtru is free to download and works with the gear you already own. No subscription needed to start brewing.
Compare Filtru with more coffee apps.
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Brew Timer is a trademark of its respective owner; Filtru isn’t affiliated with or endorsed by it. Feature and pricing information comes from public listings and documentation as of July 2026. Spotted something out of date? Tell me and I’ll fix it.