Beli vs Yelp: Why Diners Are Switching and Which to Use

Updated October 2, 2026 · by the Crumble team

Use Yelp to judge a place you have never been to, using thousands of strangers 1–5 star reviews. Use Beli to remember and rank the places you have been, and to see where your friends rate highly. They answer different questions, which is why plenty of people keep both, and why the younger crowd that moved to Beli often still checks Yelp for opening hours.

Beli sits closer to Letterboxd or Goodreads than to Yelp: a log of your own taste that friends can follow, rather than a public directory. Below: how the two rate restaurants, why diners are switching, how each one makes money, and where a third option, a food map shared with friends, fits if neither feels right.

Beli vs Yelp at a glance

What is the difference between Beli and Yelp?

Yelp is a public directory where strangers rate any local business from 1 to 5 stars; Beli is a restaurant-only app where you rank the places you have eaten and see how your friends ranked them.

Yelp has been around since 2004. Anyone can review anything, and the business page shows an average of those reviews. It is enormous: according to its Q4 2025 letter to shareholders, users added 22 million reviews in 2025, bringing the cumulative total to 330 million.

Beli, launched in 2021, is built around your own list. You log places you have eaten, rank them, keep a want-to-try list, and follow friends. In August 2025 the San Francisco Chronicle reported that young Bay Area diners were moving from Yelp to Beli; by July 2026 CEO Judy Thelen put Beli's total at over 120 million restaurant ratings, according to Founder Brew.

Those two totals are not like for like. Yelp's 330 million spans every business category and each review needs written text; a Beli rating is often a few taps that place a restaurant in your personal ranking, sometimes with no photo or note at all. Both are useful. They measure different things.

How do Beli and Yelp rate restaurants?

Yelp uses the familiar 1–5 star scale. Each reviewer picks a number of stars, and the business page shows the average. Automated recommendation software then filters what counts: in its 2025 Trust & Safety report, Yelp says that of about 22 million reviews contributed that year, 70% were recommended, 17% were marked "not recommended" and 11% were removed by its User Operations team. The result is a filtered crowd average of how a place generally performs.

Beli never asks you for a number. You say whether you liked a place, thought it was fine or didn't like it, answer a few "which was better?" comparisons, and Beli turns that into a score out of 10. Because every score is relative to your own history, it answers "what are my favourites?" better than "is this place objectively good?". Our restaurant ranking apps guide covers the mechanics and the apps that copy them.

A third style is an absolute score per dish: the ramen gets a 4.6, the gyoza a 3.2, and the place card remembers what to order next time. That is how Crumble works, and it is the usual reason people who like Beli's personal angle but dislike forced comparisons look further.

Should you use Beli or Yelp to find a restaurant?

Use Yelp, or Google Maps, to find a restaurant somewhere none of your friends have been; use Beli to choose between places you or your friends have already ranked. It depends on the question:

• "Where should I eat near this hotel tonight?" Yelp, or Google Maps. You need coverage of places nobody you know has visited, plus hours, menus and photos. Beli's suggestions improve as you and your friends rank more, so in an unfamiliar town Yelp's volume wins.
• "Which of the ramen places I have tried was the best?" Beli. A crowd average cannot tell you your own favourite; your ranking can.
• "What did my friend order at that place she loved?" Neither does this cleanly. Yelp is built around strangers reviews, and Beli ranks restaurants rather than dishes. A dish-level tracker shared with friends fits better.
• "I need a plumber." Yelp. Beli is food only.

If the diary side is what appeals, our guide on how to keep track of restaurants you have been to covers the habit, whichever app you choose.

Why are diners switching from Yelp to Beli?

Younger diners moved from Yelp to Beli mainly because Beli shows friends rankings instead of strangers stars, turns logging into a game with streaks and leaderboards, and builds a personal list rather than reviews written for others, according to 2025 coverage by the San Francisco Chronicle and YPulse. In detail:

• Friends over strangers. Patch, summarising the Chronicle, put it simply: Beli users only see reviews from their friends, while Yelp shows reviews from strangers. A friend whose taste you know is a better signal than a stranger's three stars.
• It is a game. Beli has city and app-wide leaderboards and streaks that nudge you to keep logging. YPulse called it "Letterboxd for lunch" and, citing The New York Times, reported that about 80% of its users are under 35.
• Lower stakes. A Berkeley user told the Chronicle that Yelp reviews come with pressure because owners and strangers read them, while Beli is mostly for friends. YPulse contrasted Beli's diary feel with "rant-heavy reviews" on Yelp.
• It is about you. A ranked list of everywhere you have eaten is your record; a Yelp review mostly helps other people.

How do Beli and Yelp make money?

Yelp makes most of its money selling advertising to local businesses, and reported a record $1.46 billion in net revenue for 2025 in its shareholder letter. Beli is free to download and earns from optional in-app purchases such as streak restores, the invite-only Beli Supper Club and creator subscriptions.

That shapes what each app is optimised for. On Yelp, the businesses are the paying customers. Yelp says its recommendation software treats reviews of advertisers and non-advertisers exactly the same and that there is no connection between advertising and how reviews are treated (Yelp Trust & Safety), but the incentive is worth knowing. Beli's paying customers are its own users; the Chronicle reported that the Supper Club, limited to New York City, "brings in cash for the company". Prices and the rest of Beli's model are in is Beli free?.

Can restaurants see or respond to Beli ratings?

Restaurant owners can see a Beli score the way any user can, but we found no way for them to reply to individual ratings, unlike on Yelp. The Chronicle described a chef downloading Beli to find his restaurant's 8.8 average across more than 4,000 reviews, and noted that most local owners it asked had never heard of the app.

That is by design. The Harvard Crimson put it this way: unlike Yelp, individual Beli reviews are not publicly accessible and are not meant as feedback for the restaurant; they are for friends and your future self. On Yelp, a business that has claimed its page can post a public reply under a review or send the reviewer a direct message, per Yelp's business help.

Which is more private, Beli or Yelp?

Yelp reviews are public by design and sit under your profile on the business page. Beli is social first: its privacy policy says parts of your profile and content can be visible to other users and the public, with some account settings you can make private; our Beli review quotes the policy and walks through what is visible.

Crumble goes further the other way: by default your reviews are visible only to accepted friends unless you share a link (your scores also count anonymously toward a place's overall Crumble average), and the only leaderboards are among your friends. More on that trade-off in our private restaurant list app guide.

When is Yelp the better pick?

• You are somewhere new and none of your friends have been there.
• You want hours, menus, photos and recent reviews for a place you have never heard of.
• You review more than food: contractors, salons, car repair.
• You want your review to help strangers, or to reach the business owner.

If you are leaving Yelp because the stars never match your own experience, our Yelp alternative guide goes deeper on what the star average actually measures. For the wider field, see our comparison of restaurant review apps, public and private.

When is Beli the better pick?

• Your friends already use it. Its value grows with the people you follow.
• You enjoy ranking and want a definitive personal top list.
• Leaderboards and streaks keep you logging rather than stress you out.
• You want restaurant recommendations shaped by your own and your friends taste.

Beli is a well-made app, rated 4.8 out of 5 from more than 17,000 ratings on the US App Store as of October 2026, and for many people it is simply the right answer.

Is there an app between Beli and Yelp?

Crumble is for people who like Beli's "my list, my friends" idea but want three things changed:

• Dish-level ratings instead of a ranking. Score each dish 0–5 to a tenth of a star, add notes and photos. Your history doubles as an ordering guide.
• A smaller circle. Accepted friends by default, and leaderboards only among friends. Your friends spots appear on your map, filtered to places you have not tried yet.
• Any device. It runs in any browser and installs to the home screen on iPhone and Android as a web app; a native iOS app is in development.

For a wider look at the options, see our Beli alternatives roundup, or Beli vs Google Maps if your list currently lives in saved pins.

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Frequently asked questions

Rate the dish, not just the place

Crumble is free and, by default, shared with the friends you pick. Open it in your phone's browser, add the last restaurant you loved and score what you ordered.

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