Strong vs Hevy: the best logger or the cheapest auto progression

Our bias, stated first

People also search this the other way round - Hevy vs Strong - and the answer does not change with the word order. If you want the wider six-app comparison including Fitbod, Jefit and Boostcamp, read best workout tracking app. If your deciding factor is specifically how each app handles adding weight, read progressive overload apps.

We make a competing app. Pocket Fit is ours, we sell a subscription, and we would obviously rather you used it than either app in this title. That is a good reason to read what follows sceptically, so here is the rule we set ourselves before writing it: Pocket Fit is not in the ranked comparison, it appears once near the end in a section you can skip, and the verdict recommends one of these two outright.

Everything factual about Strong and Hevy here comes from those two companies' own websites, help centres and App Store listings, checked in July and August 2026, and every source is listed at the end. We have not installed a review copy of either and pretended to a long term test we did not run. Where a number is a vendor's published figure rather than something we measured, we say so.

This article is the narrow head to head between the two loggers most lifters actually choose between. If you are torn between a logger and a programme generator, read Hevy vs Fitbod instead.

The short answer

Strong and Hevy are not competing for the same job, which is why the comparison feels slippery when you read the feature lists side by side.

Strong is the cleaner notebook. It logs what you decided to do, compares each set to the last time you did that exercise, and leaves every programming decision with you. After years of use it is still the app lifters recommend to other lifters when the question is purely "what is the best gym log."

Hevy is a logger that grew a programming engine. Pay for Pro and you get Hevy Trainer, which writes a programme and progresses your weights from a published rule. That makes Hevy the cheapest automatic progression on the market, not the best pure logger.

If you already know how you want to progress, buy Strong. If you want the app to tell you when the weight goes up, and you want to see the condition it used to decide, buy Hevy Pro.

The rest of this is the evidence, including the free tier limits that we think should change most people's answer before they open their wallet.

Price and what you actually get free

Both apps have a permanent free tier. Neither is a trial in disguise. That is the first thing worth knowing, and it is easy to miss because both show as "free with in-app purchases" on the App Store.

Strong's free plan gives you unlimited workouts forever. What it caps is custom routines: three of them on the free tier, unlimited on PRO. You also miss PRO features like supersets, custom exercises, CSV export and advanced charts. The logging itself is not capped.

Hevy's free plan also lets you log unlimited workouts forever. It caps routines at four, custom exercises at seven, and progress graphs at the last thirty days or three months. Hevy Trainer is Pro only. Hevy's own help centre is blunt about it: Trainer is a Pro feature.

On price, Hevy Pro is the cheaper subscription. Hevy lists Pro at $2.99 a month, $23.99 a year and $74.99 for lifetime access. Strong PRO is listed at $4.99 a month, with yearly tiers at $23.99 or $29.99 depending on your storefront, and a one-off PRO Forever purchase at $79.99 or $99.99.

The monthly gap is real. The yearly gap is smaller and sometimes zero, because both apps land around $24 a year on the cheapest annual tier. The lifetime gap favours Hevy again: $74.99 once against $79.99 to $99.99 once for Strong.

Neither company publishes one global price. Check the price your own store shows before you commit to anything, including ours.

For a lot of people the free tier alone settles it. Three custom routines on Strong is enough for a full body, upper lower or push pull legs split. Four routines on Hevy covers the same ground with one slot to spare.

The mismatch to avoid: buying Hevy's free tier expecting Trainer to progress you, or buying Strong expecting it to tell you what to lift next.

Progression: you decide, or Hevy publishes its rule

This is the section that separates the two apps, and it is not close.

Strong does not progress you. Its closest feature is Focus Metric, which lets you pick a metric per exercise so the app can compare today's set to the last time you performed that exercise. Strong's own help centre describes it as a comparison, and that is accurate. It shows you whether you beat last time. It does not tell you what to do about it.

If you already run double progression, or five by five, or a percentage based block from a coach, that is exactly what you want. Strong will never add five kilos to your squat because an algorithm thought you were ready. It will also never refuse to add five kilos because an algorithm thought you were not.

Hevy Trainer does progress you, and it publishes the condition. To get a weight increase on a lift, you have to hit the upper end of the prescribed rep range with a given weight on all of the prescribed sets. Hit that, Trainer raises the weight. Miss it, the weight stays.

You may think that rule is too conservative. But you can see it, which means you can predict it, and when it does not increase your bench you know exactly why.

When a lift stalls for three weeks, a visible rule tells you whether the app is refusing to progress you or whether you have stopped hitting the target. Strong leaves that entirely with you. Hevy Trainer fills the gap at a price Strong does not try to match.

Trainer is Pro only. Strong has no equivalent feature at any price. If automatic progression is the thing you are shopping for, Strong is the wrong app and Hevy is the cheaper right one.

Exercise library, platforms and the small stuff

Hevy's exercise library page puts the figure at 400+, with custom exercises on top and free form videos. Strong covers standard barbell, dumbbell and machine work, with custom exercises on PRO. For a barbell and dumbbell trainee, either library is already more than you will use in a decade.

On platforms, Hevy is broader. Hevy runs on iOS and Android, on Apple Watch and Wear OS, and in a browser at hevy.com. Strong runs on iOS and Android and supports Apple Watch. If you wear a Wear OS watch, that is decided for you.

The other Hevy feature worth naming is the social side. You can follow people, see their sessions and copy their routines directly. If you train with friends, that removes a genuine chunk of friction. Strong has nothing comparable, by design.

Strong's advantages on the gym floor are quieter: faster manual entry, cleaner charts, CSV export on PRO, and a muscle heat map for neglected body parts.

Strong vs Hevy side by side

Every figure here is the vendor's own published number as of July and August 2026, not something we measured. Prices vary by region and storefront.

Where the evidence and our claims run thin

There is no published head-to-head trial proving Strong, Hevy or Pocket Fit produces more muscle. Pricing and feature claims below come from each company's own materials at the time of writing, and those pages move. Our preference for published progression rules is a product philosophy, not a meta-analysis result. If you already progress yourself reliably from a notebook, a pure logger may be enough.

Who should buy which

Buy Strong if you already know what you are doing in the gym, or you are running a programme from a coach or a book, or you want the fastest manual logger with the cleanest charts, or you value a private log over a social feed. That is most experienced lifters. Strong PRO at $23.99 to $29.99 a year, or $79.99 to $99.99 once, is the better default for that group and we would tell a friend the same thing.

Buy Hevy if you want automatic progression at the lowest price, or you train with friends and want to copy their routines, or you are on Wear OS, or you are not yet sure how to add weight and want a published rule to follow. Hevy Pro at $2.99 a month, or $23.99 a year, or $74.99 once, is the cheapest route to a progression engine you can actually read.

Do not buy Strong expecting it to add weight for you. Do not buy Hevy's free tier expecting Trainer. Do not buy Hevy because you heard it is the best logger, because for pure logging Strong is still ahead.

Where a third option comes in

Skip this section if you have decided. We make Pocket Fit and this is the part where we are selling something.

Pocket Fit exists because of a gap neither app above is trying to fill. Strong and Hevy are both training apps, and a stalled lift is frequently not a training problem. It is under eating, or four hours of sleep, or a week of stress. Because Pocket Fit holds your training, your food and your sleep in one place, a plateau is diagnosable rather than mysterious, and our progression rule is published in the same way Hevy's is: reps first, then weight, and only off a confirmed plateau.

It costs $9.99 a month or $59.99 a year, with food logging included during launch. If you already have a programme you like and you just want the cleanest log, Strong is a better buy than us and we are not going to pretend otherwise. If you want the cheapest automatic progression and you do not care about food or sleep in the same app, Hevy Pro is a better buy than us for that specific job. Our pricing page has the current numbers.

Strong vs Hevy: common questions

Is Strong or Hevy better?

Neither is better in general, because they do different jobs. Strong is the better pure logger and the better choice if you make your own progression decisions. Hevy is the better choice if you want automatic progression from a published rule at the lowest price. If you have no strong preference, start with whichever free tier fits your split, because both are permanent and cost nothing to test.

Is Hevy Pro worth it compared to Strong PRO?

If you want Hevy Trainer's automatic progression, Pro is worth it at $2.99 a month or $23.99 a year, and the lifetime option at $74.99 is unusually good value. If you only want a better logger and you already know how to add weight, Strong PRO is the better purchase even though it costs more per month.

Does Strong automatically add weight like Hevy Trainer?

No. Strong logs your sets and its Focus Metric compares an exercise to the last time you performed it. Hevy Trainer, which is Pro only, is the feature that actually moves the weight when you hit the top of the rep range on all prescribed sets.

Is Strong actually free?

Yes, permanently, with limits. You can log unlimited workouts on the free plan indefinitely. You are capped at three custom routines, and PRO features like custom exercises, CSV export and advanced charts require a paid plan.

Can I use Strong or Hevy on Apple Watch and Android?

Both run on Apple Watch and both are on Android. Hevy also supports Wear OS and has a browser version at hevy.com. If you wear a Wear OS watch, Hevy is the only one of the two that fits.