Four cattle record-keeping apps set side by side on the same criteria: what they cost, what they record, what they do without a signal and what equipment they work with. Every statement about a competitor comes from its own official page.
There is no single winner for every farm. The choice depends on what you do each day and on the equipment already standing in your yard.
You keep the records, the reproduction and the treatments, with no budget for software.
Best fit: ViFerm
ViFerm is free in full, with no animal limit and no locked features. CowMaster asks for a subscription above five cattle.
You read the ear tag with a reader and the weight arrives on its own from the scales.
Best fit: iLivestock
iLivestock sells the reader and the weigh head and links them to the software. ViFerm does not connect to any reader or weigh head today.
You keep two species and want a single register for both.
Best fit: iLivestock
iLivestock keeps cattle and sheep. The other three are built for cattle only.
You want the milking, the rations and the costings in one place.
Best fit: CowMaster
CowMaster has ration preparation and feed stock in its multi-user plans. ViFerm has milk, but no feed and no rations.
You pay no subscription and want the screens in the language you read.
Best fit: ViFerm
ViFerm is free in full and available in 11 languages. CowMaster offers more languages, but its free plan stops at five cattle; above that a subscription is needed. iLivestock and My Cattle Manager run on a subscription.
The amounts are the ones each maker publishes, in its own currency. They are not converted: an exchange rate worked out by us would go stale without saying so.
No free trial announced
14-day free trial
No free trial announced
An ear tag reader or a weigh head costs more than a year of software. Put it in the sum from the start.
Prices, taxes and availability by country can change. Open the official source before you decide.
Thirteen criteria, the same for all four. Where a product's official source does not mention a feature, that is what it says — not that the feature is missing.
| Criterion | ViFerm | CowMaster | iLivestock | My Cattle Manager |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cost model | YesFree, with no paid plan and no locked features. | PartlyFree up to 5 cattle; above that an annual subscription, from 145 to 345 dollars. | No27.50 pounds a month or 300 a year, after a 14-day free trial. | No9.90 dollars a month or 99 a year. |
| Animal and user limits | YesNo limit on animals or on users. Tested on a herd of 1,602 head. | PartlyEach plan has its own limit, from 5 cattle up to unlimited; from one user up to 5. | YesThe official page announces no animal limit and says any number of users can be invited. | Not stated in the sources consultedNo mention found in the official sources consulted on 20 September 2026. |
| Reproduction | YesHeats, matings, pregnancy checks, calvings and weanings, with the relatedness check across 4 generations of ancestors before mating. | PartlyHeat and pregnancy tracking, stated on the official page. | PartlyReproduction notes, as part of the herd register. | YesMatings, pregnancies, calvings, abortions and pedigree line. |
| Health and treatments | YesObservations, cases, treatments with doses and procedures, with withdrawal periods for meat and milk; selling is held back while a withdrawal period runs. | PartlyVaccinations, diseases, treatments and parasite controls. The official source consulted does not state doses or withdrawal periods for meat and milk. | YesTreatment recording, stated on the official page. | PartlyHealth notes, alongside reproduction and growth. |
| Without internet | YesThe herd is read with no signal, and 11 kinds of entry go into a queue and are sent when the signal returns. | YesWorking without internet is stated on the official page. | YesWorking without internet is stated on the official page. | YesWorks without internet, and the data synchronises when the signal returns. |
| EID readers and scales | NoDoes not connect to ear tag readers or to scales. The RFID code is typed by hand on the animal's record. | Not stated in the sources consultedNo mention found in the official sources consulted on 20 September 2026. | YesEar tag reader and scales sold by the maker and linked to the software; the reader from 375 pounds, the weigh head from 425. | Not stated in the sources consultedNo mention found in the official sources consulted on 20 September 2026. |
| Import and export | YesThe herd is uploaded from a spreadsheet; the data comes out as CSV, as PDF and as a full copy of the farm. | Not stated in the sources consultedNo mention found in the official sources consulted on 20 September 2026. | PartlyReports can be exported, stated on the official page. | PartlyExport to PDF, Excel or CSV, stated in the app description. |
| Milk | YesMilkings, deliveries, tank stock and other uses. | YesMilk data tracking, stated on the official page. | Not stated in the sources consultedNo mention found in the official sources consulted on 20 September 2026. | YesDaily yield per cow and the highest-yielding cows. |
| Finances | PartlySales, payments, costs and margin per animal. It does not stand in for accounting. | YesIncome and costs, stated on the official page. | Not stated in the sources consultedNo mention found in the official sources consulted on 20 September 2026. | YesIncome and costs, stated on the official page. |
| Feed and rations | NoNo feed management and no ration formulation. | YesRation preparation and feed stock, in the multi-user plans. | Not stated in the sources consultedNo mention found in the official sources consulted on 20 September 2026. | Not stated in the sources consultedNo mention found in the official sources consulted on 20 September 2026. |
| Species | PartlyCattle only. | PartlyCattle only. | YesCattle and sheep. | PartlyCattle only. |
| Languages | Yes11 languages. | Yes24 languages, stated in the app store. | Not stated in the sources consultedNo mention found in the official sources consulted on 20 September 2026. | PartlyOne language announced in the app store. |
| Platforms | YesOpens in the browser and installs on the phone as an app, without a store. | YesPhone app, with a web part. | YesPhone app, with a web part. | PartlyPhone app. |
An annual subscription is easy to compare; what is hard to compare is what goes into it. With CowMaster the price rises with the herd: five cattle are free, and from there the plans step up in twenties, then in hundreds. With iLivestock and My Cattle Manager the amount is the same however many animals you keep.
With iLivestock, the software is the small part of the sum. The ear tag reader and the weigh head are bought separately, and each costs more than a year of subscription. If the equipment is the very reason you choose it, that is an outlay to count from the first day.
ViFerm has no paid plan. It is not an opening offer, and no paid plan opens up above a certain number of animals.
This is where the difference between noting what happened and knowing what comes next shows most clearly. All four hold the mating and the calving. What differs is whether the app works out the next job on its own from what was recorded.
In ViFerm a mating gives rise to the pregnancy check, the pregnancy to the calving window, the calving to the calf's record and its weighings. Before a mating, relatedness is checked across four generations of ancestors and the connection found is named, without claiming a genetic coefficient.
My Cattle Manager states matings, pregnancies, calvings, abortions and the pedigree line. CowMaster states heat and pregnancy tracking. With iLivestock, reproduction is one part of the herd register, not the main subject of its page.
Recording the treatment without its withdrawal period keeps the medical history, but it does not protect the farm from selling the animal too early. The difference shows on the day the animal goes to the abattoir.
ViFerm records the treatment, the dose, the person who administered it and the withdrawal periods for meat and milk; the animal cannot be sold until they expire. iLivestock states treatment recording. CowMaster states vaccinations, diseases, treatments and parasite controls, with notifications for them; its source does not state doses or withdrawal periods. My Cattle Manager keeps health notes alongside reproduction and growth.
All four say they work without internet. The useful question is a different one: with no signal, can you only read, or can you also write?
In ViFerm the herd is read from a copy held on the phone, and eleven kinds of entry — weighing, heat, mating, calving, treatment given, new animal and the rest — go into a queue and are sent on their own when the signal returns. Each carries a code of its own, so that a retry does not write the same event twice.
My Cattle Manager states the same thing: you work without internet and the data synchronises later. CowMaster and iLivestock state that they work without internet, without saying on the page consulted what can be written then.
This is the one criterion where ViFerm plainly loses, and it is better known beforehand than afterwards.
iLivestock sells the ear tag reader and the weigh head and links them to the software: you read the ear tag, the weight arrives on its own, the treatment is written on the animal standing in front of you. For a farm that weighs often, that changes the working day.
ViFerm does not connect to any reader or to any weigh head today. The RFID code is a field typed by hand on the animal's record, and the weight is entered from the keyboard. For CowMaster and My Cattle Manager we found no mention of equipment in the official sources consulted.
iLivestock is cut for the farm that works with equipment and that also keeps sheep. The software is the middle part; the end of it is the reader in your hand.
CowMaster is cut for the dairy farm that wants the milk, the rations and the costings in the same place, and that accepts the price rising with the herd.
My Cattle Manager is a phone app, in a single language, with a small subscription and wide coverage: reproduction, health, weights, milk, finances, photographs.
ViFerm is cut for the farm that keeps its own records, with no software budget and no equipment: free, in eleven languages, with the tasks worked out from what was recorded.
This comparison is made by the ViFerm team from the information published by the app makers. ViFerm is one of the products compared. We have not tested every competitor feature ourselves; what is said about them comes from the official sources listed. Prices and features can change.
“Not stated” means the official source consulted does not mention the feature — not that the feature is missing. The statements about ViFerm are checked in the app.
Write to contact@viferm.org and we will correct it, with the date of checking changed on the page.
The account is free. The animals are uploaded from a spreadsheet or added one by one.
Download the comparison reportPDF, the same data as the page