CNET’s top picks for food delivery apps are here to satisfy your cravings, whether it’s ramen from a local Japanese spot or a custom pasta order. Gone are the days when pizza was the only delivery option — these services bring your favorite meals straight to your doorstep, often within an hour.
With so many apps like Postmates, GrubHub and DoorDash, figuring out which one to use can be tricky. That’s why we’ve evaluated each based on ease of use, restaurant selection, delivery fees and estimated delivery times. We tested deliveries from restaurants located about 5 miles from a suburban area and compared costs and delivery times for urban locations, too.
After thorough testing, we’ve narrowed it down to the best apps for seamless food delivery. Download your favorites from the Apple App Store or Google Play and get your next meal delivered hassle-free.
Note: Your experience will likely vary depending on your location, dietary restrictions, the time of day you order and any available promotions.
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Angela Lang/CNET
Uber Eats and Postmates are great options for people who want the most food options and the fastest delivery and don’t mind paying for it. Uber bought Postmates in 2020, so both apps are very similar. The main difference is that you can order an Uber in Uber Eats, not Postmates. But you can order food, groceries and even pharmacy items through both apps. Each app also has over 80 food categories you can choose from, including halal and gluten-free.
Uber Eats and Postmates make navigating and ordering from your restaurant easy. When you open the app, there’s a search bar near the top of the home screen. You can search for a type of food or a specific restaurant. Menus are also searchable, so you don’t have to scroll through the menu, potentially miss what you want and have to scroll through the menu again.
The restaurant cards also show you information, like delivery fees and estimated delivery times, before you checkout, making it easy to see which restaurants will get your food quickly without breaking the bank. Both apps work with over 825,000 restaurants across, according to Business of Apps, which is the most number of restaurants a food delivery service on this list works with.
When we ordered from a suburban area, our expected delivery time for both apps was faster than any of the other apps on this list, at 25 to 40 minutes. However, the apps also charged a combined $9.49 for delivery and service fees for my order, the highest of any other apps on this list.
When we ordered from an urban area, our expected delivery time was between 10 to 15 minutes for a restaurant nearby or 35 to 50 minutes for a restaurant about 25 minutes away. The service fees were $3.75 across the board, making these orders cheaper than orders to our suburban location.
With Uber Eats/Postmates you’ll have a wider array of food options that will likely be delivered quicker, but you might have to pay more if you live in a suburban area.