Hevy vs Strong: Which Workout Tracker Fits Your Program?

Want a program run for you? Hardy runs 5/3/1 and nSuns for free, and the 531 app page shows a whole cycle.

Is Hevy free? What the free tier allows

Both apps let you log as many workouts as you like for free; the cap is on routines. Hevy's free tier stops at 4 routines and 7 custom exercises and only shows the last 3 months in its graphs. Strong's free tier stops at 3 custom routines. For a lifter running one program with three or four training days, either free tier is enough, and the difference only appears when you keep several programs or need a year of charts.

When you do pay, Hevy is cheaper on every term: $2.99 a month against $4.99, $23.99 a year against $29.99, and a $74.99 lifetime purchase against Strong's $99.99 "Forever". Strong's six-month option ($19.99) has no Hevy equivalent. Both refund or cancel through the app stores; Hevy also states a 14-day refund window on its pricing page.

Platforms

Strong runs on iPhone, Android and Apple Watch. Hevy adds Wear OS and a web app at hevy.com where you can build routines and review history on a desktop; the subscription follows the account across platforms. If you train with an Android watch or plan routines at a keyboard, that settles it for Hevy. If you are on iPhone with an Apple Watch, both are equal.

Building and editing routines

The routine model is the same in both: exercises in order, each with a number of sets, and each set a target weight and reps. Both pre-fill the next session with what you logged last time, so a plain linear program ("add 2.5 kg when you get all your reps") is something you do by hand each session in either app. Hevy organises routines into folders and lets you share a routine by link; Strong lists supersets and RPE among its features. Neither lets you write a set as a percentage of a training max, which matters for the programs in the last section.

Progression: what changes on its own

Strong has no automatic progression. It shows you charts, personal records and an estimated 1RM per exercise, and you decide the next weight. Its warm-up calculator and plate calculator, both inside the app, are the tools that make that decision faster at the bar.

Hevy's answer is Hevy Trainer, a Pro feature. It generates a program from your goals and equipment, then "automatically adjusts your working weights": when you hit the upper end of the rep range with a weight on all prescribed sets, the next session prescribes more. You can add, remove, swap or reorder exercises in a generated workout, and a swap can be permanent or for one session. What Trainer does not do, according to Hevy's own feature page, is take a program you already follow and progress it; it progresses the programs it writes. An ordinary Hevy routine behaves like Strong's: it pre-fills, it does not decide.

Taking your history with you

Both export your full history as CSV. Only Hevy imports: its settings have an "Import Strong CSV" option that takes a direct Strong export (the export must be in English). So a move from Strong to Hevy keeps your history, and a move from Hevy to Strong keeps a spreadsheet. This asymmetry is the main reason long-time Strong users try Hevy rather than the other way round.

Strong vs Hevy: which one should you pick?

• Pick Strong if you want the least app between you and the bar, keep one to three routines, and like an in-app plate calculator.
• Pick Hevy if you want a web app or Wear OS, keep many routines, want a generated program that progresses itself, or are moving from Strong and want your history to come along.
• Pick neither for a percentage-based program. If your program says "3 sets at 65, 75 and 85% of your training max, last set as many reps as possible", both apps make you calculate and type every weight, every session.

If you want to run a specific program

This is where Hardy fits, and it is a narrower job than either app above does. Hardy's routines carry the program's rules, not just its sets. In the 5/3/1 Boring But Big routine every set is a percentage of a Training Max you enter once; each session shows the weight already worked out and rounded to your plates; the AMRAP set is logged as reps; and after the last week of the cycle Hardy proposes the next cycle's Training Max (+2.5 kg for bench and press, +5 kg for squat and deadlift) for you to accept, adjust or decline. The 531 app page walks through a whole cycle with screenshots.

What Hardy does not have: a social feed, a Wear OS app, and an import from Strong or Hevy. If those matter more than the program running itself, one of the two apps above is the better choice. Hardy is free on iPhone and Android, and every official routine is free to follow; the free plan includes three routines you build yourself.

Looking past these two? The best workout apps list compares five apps for lifting weights.