How Milpa compares to other garden planners
Several garden planners do things better than Milpa does, and they're named below. Only Milpa shows you where every number came from, and it keeps your rotation history when you rearrange the garden, which most planners don't.
Last checked against each product’s own pages on September 30, 2026.
This comparison was last checked more than two months ago. Competitors’ features and prices change, so read the claims below as a snapshot from September 30, 2026. The lasting ones (a larger database, a longer history) age more slowly than any price.
Almost every comparison page in this category is written by the product it crowns. This one starts with what the others do better. Every claim here is checked against the other product's own pages, and dated.
What other planners do better
Each of these is something a competitor did better than Milpa when we checked their own pages on September 30, 2026. Milpa carries 129 plants, fewer than the incumbents, and the next section says what it offers instead. Under each concession is where Milpa stands on it: the gaps we are closing, and the ones we have decided not to chase, with the limit stated plainly.
- GrowVeg and The Old Farmer's Almanac
- The most mature product in the category: a much larger plant database, a planner that syncs across computer and tablet, and a real editorial team behind the advice. It is also the only big planner that already promotes its advice as evidence-based and written by people. Where Milpa stands: The database gap is deliberate. A plant joins Milpa only when its numbers can be sourced and read by a person, so the list grows steadily and will never grow at import speed. The app stays on the web and installs straight from the browser. There is no app store listing.
- Seedtime
- Calendar-first onboarding that gets a beginner from nothing to a planting schedule faster than Milpa does, and phone apps in both app stores. Where Milpa stands: That's fair. We time our own first-run path, so the slow parts can be found and shortened. The starting point stays the same. Your schedule is built from your own frost dates.
- Planter
- Simpler and gentler for a first single raised bed, with less to learn before the first seed goes in. Where Milpa stands: Milpa keeps a small start small, up to a point. Even a single first bed here gets real sources behind its advice and a growing history that survives your next redesign. We won't strip those out to look lighter.
- Leaftide
- Whole-garden planning that already spans perennials and an orchard, with care reminders that learn from each plant over the years, and a larger plant list than ours. Where Milpa stands: Milpa has caught up on part of this. It now plans seven tree, shrub, cane and vine plantings and a patch of perennial vegetables. The plant list still grows at the speed its sources can be read, the same deliberate limit as the database gap above.
- Rhubarb
- One of the most ambitious of the recent newcomers, pairing the planner with an AI helper and a community of local gardeners inside one app. Where Milpa stands: Milpa has no public community inside the app. A feed has to be tended like everything else here, and we would rather have none than an untended one. There is no AI helper here either, on purpose: an answer Milpa can't source is one it won't give.
What sets Milpa apart
Every number shows its work
Each rule carries a plain-language confidence and the sources behind it, and the numbers Milpa is unsure of are published on their own page. You can check any of it yourself. As the market fills with confident, unsourced, AI-written plant data, none of the others offers a corpus you can audit.
Rotation history stays with the ground
Milpa attaches growing history to the ground itself, so the rotation record survives when you rearrange the yard. Most planners tie history to the bed and lose it the first time you redesign, which leaves them good for one season at a time. A few keep it by area of the map; Milpa keeps it on the ground itself, whatever the beds become.
What it costs
Everything Milpa does today is free, and it stays free for anyone using it. If a paid tier ever comes, it will only add new things.
How we keep this comparison fair
This page is checked against each product's own pricing and feature pages, and the date above is when it was last done. Prices and features move, so if that date looks old, treat the comparison with suspicion and let us know. Every change to it is dated and kept in the project's history, the same standard Milpa holds its own numbers to.