5 best plant identification apps on Android in 2024

For nature lovers and botany enthusiasts, recognizing different types of plants can have serious applications in daily life, both for understanding what you are looking at and assessing whether it is dangerous. Googling useful information on the fly using our bargain Android phones is almost second nature these days, basically having the entire internet at our disposal wherever and whenever we need it. Plant identification apps take this one step further, capable of identifying plant life via simple observation through your device’s camera.

It’s always great to be curious, and in this roundup of the best plant identification apps, our picks ensure that you have everything you need to explore, observe, categorize, and stay safe.

1 PlantNet

PlantNet is an app that places you into a thriving community science expedition, capturing and categorizing the bio-diversity around them and sharing it with the collective. Any discoveries you make develop the accuracy of the knowledge provided by the app, meaning there’s always something new to learn upon startup. Said observations can be made easily by viewing a plant of interest through your camera and taking a photo. The app can provide useful information about the plant, as well as note anything unique that you find.

PlantNet capitalizes on the convenience of Android users’ ability to capture the world around them; whipping out your phone and contributing to an online encyclopedia with a casual picture feels really cool, which is where PlantNet shines.

2 Plantix

The on-call plant doctor you always needed

​​​​​​​Plantix 

Publish date

June 4, 2015

In-app purchases

None

ChromeOS support

No

App Publisher

Plantix

Categories

Education

Plantix is a plant identification app tailored to larger crop maintenance, providing features to detect potential threats like disease, decay, and parasitic influence on your produce. The app covers a variety of common crop choices for indoor and outdoor cultivation, asking you what your crop is immediately upon startup. You scan the relevant plants with your phone camera and receive an AI-generated diagnosis of the affliction, along with useful tips on how to treat it.

Plantix’s features are prepped to help with various vital aspects of plant health, including a farming-savvy weather forecast, a detailed fertilization calculator, and a direct line to a community of experienced farmers who can provide handy tips.

3 Planta

Tend your garden with confidence

Planta

Publish date

February 12, 2020

In-app purchases

Yes $7.99 – $36.99 per item

ChromeOS support

Yes

App Publisher

Planta AB

Categories

House & Home

Planta is a great example of how versatile plant identification apps can be, giving you the tools to provide excellent plant care. The app offers features for identifying plants using your device’s camera, detailing what they are and what steps can be taken to maintain them. This information includes troubleshooting potential health warning signs like brown leaves or drooping and tutorials on what levels of light are best for helping a particular sprout bloom. So, if you lack a green thumb, Planta to the rescue.

The Planta app has been around for a while, proving its usefulness, and its intuitive interface design, plus a plethora of handy features ensure it remains one of the top choices for plant identification. It’s a great app for aspiring botanists.

4 PlantIn

Great if you’re green

PlantIn

Publish date

March 17, 2021

In-app purchases

$4.49 – $89.99 per item

ChromeOS support

Yes

App Publisher

PlantIn

Categories

Education

We recommend PlantIn to anyone who has just gotten into plant care or observation, as it caters to those with minimal experience with features like care notifications, designed to keep you from forgetting the simple things like watering your plants. The camera scanning features give you the option to check for specific diseases on your plants, in addition to uploading an existing photo saved to your device. The latter can be useful if you enjoy taking pictures of plant life in places with no internet.

You also get access to a query feature for email correspondence with a qualified botanist, which is handy if you discover something new that the app doesn’t recognize. If plant identification apps are something you just started getting into, PlantIn is a great place to start.

5 RHS Grow

Get a head start on your next project

RHS Grow

Publish date

March 13, 2023

In-app purchases

None

ChromeOS support

No

App Publisher

Royal Horticultural Society

Categories

Lifestyle

RHS Grow is a versatile plant identification app, equally equipped to accommodate food growth, even for wildlife, with plenty of info that covers gardening for gardening’s sake, providing useful tips for all your outdoor gardening project concerns. After registration, you’re immediately asked what kind of gardener you are, what level of expertise you have, and the location of your garden. You get a certain amount of helpful gardening tips each month, providing useful info for your garden that goes beyond how wet the soil should be.

You also get access to a detailed chatbot designed to answer all of your questions concerning botany, providing a great range of advice and helpful links to exterior sources for you to study. RHS Grow is a good plant identification app for planning a big garden redesign or starting a new one from scratch.

Help your garden thrive

Samsung’s latest and greatest smartphones gain in utility with each passing day, and plant identification apps are a prime example of what the Play Store’s best apps can achieve. You get a botany encyclopedia, on-the-fly plant identification, useful tips and tricks for nurturing your own plant life, and access to dedicated communities of experienced gardeners, all in a single app. Give one a try and discover a whole new reason to explore the world around you.