Kroger's app has become one of the most-complained-about grocery apps in the US — crashes, disappearing carts, and slow performance dominate recent reviews. These grocery and retailer apps offer more reliable checkout, persistent carts, and in some cases better pricing.
Each app below addresses a specific gap in Kroger's offering. We picked them based on real user review patterns and feature differentiation.
Walmart's app has nearly 7 million ratings and is noticeably more stable than Kroger's in recent reviews. Grocery pickup, delivery, and in-store shopping all work in one app, and the checkout flow is significantly more reliable. Walmart also has stronger price-matching and the Walmart+ membership offers free delivery on grocery orders.
Explore Walmart data →Instacart actually delivers from Kroger, Safeway, Publix, Costco, and hundreds of other stores — without the buggy Kroger-branded experience. The app is polished, the cart persists reliably, and checkout is clean. A practical workaround if you want Kroger groceries without Kroger's app.
Explore Instacart data →Target's app is significantly more reliable than Kroger's, with the same core features — pickup, delivery, and in-store scanning — plus a strong loyalty program (Target Circle). Groceries are limited to Target's grocery section but the checkout experience is dramatically cleaner.
Explore Target data →Amazon Fresh delivery and Whole Foods grocery pickup both run through the main Amazon app, which has the most stable checkout flow of any retailer on this list. Prime members get free delivery thresholds, and the cart persistence and payment reliability are best-in-class.
Explore Amazon Fresh / Whole Foods data →ALDI's app supports pickup and delivery via Instacart partnership, and the app itself is noticeably more stable than Kroger's. ALDI's pricing is the main draw — often 20-40 percent cheaper than Kroger on comparable items — and the smaller SKU count makes for faster checkout.
Explore ALDI data →Costco's app has 1.2 million ratings and a 4.86 average — dramatically higher than Kroger's customer satisfaction. Member pricing, same-day delivery via Instacart, and the Costco Business Center are all accessible. The main catch is membership fees ($65/year), but for households that do big weekly shops the math usually works.
Explore Costco data →We found these alternatives by analyzing review patterns across grocery and shopping apps. The most common reasons users leave Kroger are persistent app crashes, cart-emptying bugs, slow performance, and login friction. Each alternative below addresses at least one of those friction points directly.
App crashes are the single largest complaint in Kroger reviews — 34 percent of users mention them specifically, most commonly when clipping coupons, loading the cart, or selecting a pickup time. Kroger has rolled out multiple updates in recent months but the crashes persist. Many users have moved to Walmart or Instacart specifically for reliability.
Yes — Instacart delivers from Kroger stores without requiring the Kroger app. You lose access to Kroger's loyalty rewards for items ordered through Instacart, but you keep the reliable cart and checkout experience. Kroger's web site is also more stable than the mobile app for some users.
Cart emptying is the second-largest complaint, affecting 21 percent of reviewers. It appears to be tied to session-management issues on Kroger's backend — when the app's authentication token refreshes, the cart sometimes gets wiped. There's no reliable workaround; the only fix is switching to a more stable app.
App Vulture uses AI-powered review intelligence to analyze what real users say about apps — their pain points, feature requests, and reasons for switching. We identified these alternatives by analyzing review patterns across grocery and shopping apps and validated each candidate against the source app's most common churn reasons.
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