Where should your lab results live? Portals, phone apps, trackers, and spreadsheets compared
If you want to keep your own lab history, you have more choices than you did a few years ago, and they are not interchangeable. Some are free and live on your phone. Some are subscriptions that keep your data on their servers. Some only exist to sell you a blood draw. This post sorts them by what they actually do with a lab result, so you can pick the one that fits how you get care.
We make HealthViewer, so read the last section with that in mind. Everything else is our best reading of each product’s own documentation as of late September 2026. Prices and features change, so check before you buy.
Four questions that decide it
- Which devices do you use? Several of the best options are iPhone-only or Android-only. Only a few run on a Mac, and fewer on Windows.
- Where do you want the data to live? On your device, or in a company’s cloud behind an account? Apps outside your doctor’s office are usually not covered by HIPAA.
- How do results get in? From a connected patient portal, from a PDF you upload, or by typing them. Most free options only do the first.
- What does it cost over five years? A $99-a-year subscription is $495. A one-time purchase is what it says.
Your patient portal
MyChart, the Oracle Health portal, and the rest show you the results that one health system produced. They are free, they are the source of truth, and they now show results quickly because of the federal information-blocking rules.
Their limit is scope. MyChart’s Happy Together feature can pull in records from other organizations that also use Epic, but Epic’s own FAQ says test results are not yet available from linked organizations on non-Epic systems. A portal cannot take a PDF from an independent lab, and it cannot show you a trend that spans the hospital you left in 2021 and the clinic you use now.
Portals are excellent at giving you your data. They are not built to hold your whole history. See How to download your lab results from MyChart for getting it out.
Phone platform health apps
Apple Health on iPhone has had Health Records since 2018. It connects to participating US, UK, and Canadian providers, stores everything on the device with end-to-end encrypted iCloud sync, and charts labs over time. It is free. It has no Mac app and no Windows anything, and today it cannot import a lab PDF. Apple announced in September 2026 that a redesigned Health app arriving later this year will let people upload lab results and order a $119 Quest panel, on newer iPhones, in the US first.
Google Health, launched in May 2026 as the successor to the Fitbit app, syncs medical records for US adults on Android and iOS. Records are stored with your Google Account. Google’s help pages note that provider connections can expire after a day or a week and need to be reconnected. There is no PDF import and no desktop app.
Samsung Health added Health Records in late 2024 through the b.well network, for Galaxy devices. Same pattern: portal connections only, phone only.
These are good choices if you live on one phone platform, all your providers are connected, and you never get paper or PDF results. If any of those is false, you need something else.
Cloud lab trackers
This is the crowded category. The apps below parse lab PDFs, chart trends, and keep your data on their servers behind an account.
- Guava Health (web, iOS, Android, Mac) is the most complete. Portal sync to Epic, Cerner, athenahealth, and eClinicalWorks is on the free plan. Automatic parsing of uploaded lab PDFs is on the $78-a-year Premium plan.
- Ornament and Health3 are photo-and-PDF scanners with large biomarker libraries. Both are subscription first. Health3 also sells a $149 lifetime license.
- KeepMD is the outlier on storage. It keeps records encrypted on your device, and its $59.99-a-year Plus tier adds provider connections and unlimited scanning. It is a general health record app for phones and the web rather than a lab-trend specialist.
- Carrot Care is iPhone-only, stores data locally, scans PDFs, and charges a subscription.
- A wave of small web tools (bloodtesttracker.ai, Vyvio, Soka, BloodTrack, and others) do AI parsing for a few dollars a month. None connect to portals.
Ask each one the storage question. Most of these are not HIPAA-covered entities, so what happens to your data is governed by their privacy policy and the FTC, not by the rules that bind your doctor.
Lab-testing memberships
Function Health ($365 a year), Superpower ($349 a year), InsideTracker, SiPhox, and OneTwenty all let you upload past lab PDFs and will chart them. That feature exists to get you into their own testing programs. They are fine products for people who want the testing. As a home for results from your regular doctor, they are expensive, cloud-based, and gone the moment you stop paying.
Open source and self-hosted
Fasten Health was the best-known open-source personal health record with a one-time-purchase Mac app. In February 2026 it removed direct record retrieval from health systems, and the project archived its repository in July 2026. The Mac App Store listing is still there at $49.99 but has not been updated since mid-2024.
Mere Medical is a free, offline-first web app maintained by one developer. It connects to Epic, Cerner, athenahealth, the VA, and others, keeps data in your browser, and added lab trending in August 2026. It does not import PDFs, and running it yourself means running a server. It has carried a “pre-release” label since 2022.
CommonHealth is a free, on-device records app for Android from a nonprofit. It holds records and vaccination cards but does not chart labs.
If you are comfortable with Docker and never get paper results, Mere Medical is the one to look at.
A spreadsheet
A spreadsheet is free, private, and yours. It works for people who are disciplined about entering every result the same way. The failure mode is the same as always: the sheet stops being updated the month life gets busy, and units and test names drift until the charts lie. How to track your lab results over time covers the method if you go this route.
Side by side
| Devices | Data lives | Results get in by | Cost | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Patient portal | Web, phone | Health system | That system only | Free |
| Apple Health | iPhone, iPad | On device | Connected providers (PDF upload coming late 2026) | Free |
| Google Health | Android, iPhone | Google Account | Connected providers | Free, $99/yr premium |
| Guava Health | Web, phone, Mac | Guava cloud | Portals free; PDF parsing $78/yr | Free to $78/yr |
| KeepMD | Phone, web | On device | Portals and scanning on Plus | $59.99/yr |
| Function, Superpower | Web, iPhone | Their cloud | Upload, plus their tests | About $350/yr |
| Mere Medical | Browser, self-host | Your browser | Portals | Free |
| Spreadsheet | Anything | Your file | Typing | Free |
| HealthViewer | Mac, Windows | Encrypted file on your computer | PDF, CSV, MyChart export, or portal connection | $24.99 once |
Where HealthViewer fits
HealthViewer is for people who want one history, on their own computer, from every source. It imports lab PDFs, CSV files, and MyChart downloads, and connects directly to Epic, Cerner, athenahealth, and eClinicalWorks systems. Everything goes into one encrypted file with no account and no server, for a one-time price. It charts any test with the reference range, marks medication changes and journal notes on the same timeline, and prints a summary for your next appointment.
It is not the right choice for everyone. There is no phone app. Portal connections are US-only and depend on your practice having enabled patient apps. It does not track vitals or wearable data. If you only ever see one Epic health system and you are happy on your iPhone, Apple Health or MyChart will serve you well for free.
If your results come from more than one place, or arrive as PDFs, or you use Windows, or you would rather not hand a decade of bloodwork to a startup’s servers, that is the gap HealthViewer was built for. Getting Started walks through the first import.