The best Hevy alternatives in 2026

Hevy is a genuinely good lifting tracker, and if it does everything you need, keep using it. This is not one of those pages that pretends a popular app is secretly terrible. Hevy earned its user base with a fast logger, a friendly social feed, and one of the cheaper Pro subscriptions in the category.

But people do go looking for a Hevy alternative, and it is usually for one of three concrete reasons: the free tier caps how much you can build, your training has grown beyond pure lifting (runs, classes, nutrition, recovery), or you want your workout data somewhere it can never be held hostage behind a subscription. This guide walks through all three, compares the realistic alternatives in depth, and ends with an exact, step-by-step migration path that brings your whole Hevy history with you.

What Hevy gets right

Credit first, because it explains why so many lifters use it. Hevy nails the core loop of logging a strength workout:

• A fast, clean logger. Sets, reps, weight, RPE, warm-up and drop-set tags, and rest timers with very little friction.
• Supersets as a first-class feature. Link exercises into a superset or circuit and the app handles rest timing sensibly.
• A built-in plate calculator. Tell it your target weight and it shows you what to load on the bar.
• Watch apps. Companion apps for both Apple Watch and Wear OS let you log from your wrist.
• A real community. The social feed is active, and following friends and commenting on workouts genuinely helps some people stay consistent.
• Clean data export. Your workouts export to CSV with sets, reps, weights, supersets, notes, and RPE intact. This matters more than most people realize, and Hevy deserves credit for not locking it away.

If your training is lifting, only lifting, and the free limits below do not bother you, Hevy is a fine place to stay.

Why people switch away from Hevy

The free-tier squeeze

The free version of Hevy currently caps you at 4 workout routines and 7 custom exercises. Four routines sounds fine until you run an upper/lower split plus a deload variant, or keep a home-gym version of each day. Seven custom exercises sounds fine until your gym has a few machines the built-in library does not cover. Hevy Pro removes the caps for roughly $24 per year (with a monthly option around $3 and a lifetime purchase around $75). That is honestly cheap for the category, but it means the app quietly stops being free right around the point you get serious. Limits and prices change, so check hevy.com/pricing for the current numbers.

The lifting-only ceiling

Hevy is deliberately a strength app. There is no GPS tracking for runs or walks, no route maps, no nutrition or calorie logging, and no meal or recipe features. If you lift three days and run two, you end up running Hevy plus Strava plus MyFitnessPal, three apps, three accounts, and none of them share data. For a lot of people that juggling act, not any flaw in Hevy itself, is the real reason to look around.

Data portability as a principle

Years of PRs and volume trends are the most valuable thing you own in any tracker. Hevy exports cleanly today, which is great, but some people simply want their history in a place where portability is the founding principle rather than a settings-menu feature. Whatever app you move to, apply the same test: be suspicious of any tracker that cannot export everything you put into it.

Quick comparison

App	Free tier	Price to unlock	Best for	Weak spot
JustGains	Everything free during open alpha	Free (alpha)	All-in-one: lifting, GPS runs, nutrition, AI plans, social	Newer app, smaller community so far
Strong	3 routines, solid logger	~$5/month or lifetime	Minimal, distraction-free logging	Lifting only, social features are thin
JEFIT	Full logger with ads	~$70/year for Elite	Huge exercise database, ready-made plans	Dated interface, ads on free
Fitbod	Trial only	~$80/year	Auto-generated workouts that adapt	Subscription required, less manual control
FitNotes	Fully free	Optional donation	Bare-bones logging on Android	Android only, no sync or social

The alternatives in depth

JustGains: the all-in-one option

JustGains started because we were juggling a lifting tracker, a running app, and a nutrition app, and none of them talked to each other. The lifting side keeps everything a Hevy user expects: a fast set-by-set logger, routines and multi-week programs, supersets and circuits, a plate calculator, an exercise library with videos and step-by-step instructions, estimated 1RM tracking, and per-muscle fatigue and recovery modeling that tells you what is actually recovered before you train.

Then it covers the rest of your week. GPS run and walk tracking with routes, replays, segments, and leaderboards. Nutrition logging with recipes, macro goals, and a fasting timer. Goals, daily tasks, and streaks with freezes so one missed day does not wipe out months of momentum. A social feed with squads, DMs, and leaderboards. And an AI chat that can generate workouts around your equipment and schedule, or log your food from a plain-English description. You can even connect it to ChatGPT or Claude and ask about your own training data. It runs on iOS, Android, and the web with full sync, and everything is free during the open alpha.

The trade-off is honest and simple: JustGains is newer. The community is smaller than Hevy’s, and some conveniences are still being built. If a big established feed is the main thing keeping you in Hevy, weigh that seriously. Everything else, including your entire Hevy history, comes with you (more on that below).

Strong: the minimalist notebook

Strong is the app Hevy was most obviously inspired by, and it is still excellent at its one job: fast, distraction-free set logging. If Hevy’s social feed feels like noise to you, Strong’s deliberate quiet is a feature, not a gap. The interface has barely changed in years, which its fans consider a compliment.

The catch is that Strong shares Hevy’s two structural limits and adds a tighter one: the free version caps you at 3 routines (one fewer than Hevy), and there is no cardio, nutrition, or programming layer at all. Strong Pro runs about $5 per month, with a lifetime option. Switching from Hevy to Strong mostly means trading a social feed for a slightly more minimal logger while keeping every other limitation. It suits lifters who want less app, not more.

JEFIT: the database veteran

JEFIT has been around far longer than Hevy and it shows in both directions. The good: a massive exercise database with animations, a deep catalog of ready-made routines, and detailed analytics. The free tier is generous in scope, you can log full workouts without hitting a routine cap, which already beats Hevy’s free version on paper.

The bad: the free experience is ad-supported, and the interface carries a decade of accumulated menus that feels dated next to Hevy’s clean design. The Elite subscription that removes ads and unlocks advanced charts costs more than Hevy Pro. JEFIT suits lifters who value breadth of content over polish and do not mind ads. If you are leaving Hevy because of the free-tier caps, JEFIT solves that specific problem, but most people find the day-to-day logging slower.

Fitbod: the algorithm-first coach

Fitbod is a different philosophy rather than a direct Hevy replacement. Instead of you building routines, it generates each workout based on your equipment, recovery state, and history. For people who do not want to think about programming at all, that removes real friction, and removing friction keeps people showing up.

The trade-offs: there is no meaningful free tier (a short trial, then roughly $80 per year), and lifters who follow structured programs end up fighting the algorithm instead of benefiting from it. Interestingly, Hevy itself now sells an adaptive Trainer feature inside Pro, so if generated programming is what tempts you, compare Fitbod against Hevy Pro too. Fitbod suits beginners and busy generalists with a budget; it frustrates program purists.

FitNotes: the free spreadsheet with a UI

FitNotes is a small, genuinely free Android app that has quietly served lifters for a decade. No accounts, no ads, no subscription, no caps. It logs sets and reps, charts your progress, and exports to CSV. For a certain kind of lifter, that is the whole wishlist.

The limits are structural: Android only, no cloud sync (back up your own files), no iOS or web version, no social features, and development moves slowly. It suits solo Android lifters who want a permanent free notebook and are comfortable managing their own backups. If you ever switch phones to iOS, you will be migrating again.

Hevy vs JustGains, feature by feature

Since most people reading this are weighing these two directly, here is the honest side-by-side:

Feature	Hevy	JustGains
Set-by-set logging	Excellent, fast logger	Excellent, fast logger with rest timers and set types
Routines & programs	Routines (4 on free), Trainer programs on Pro	Unlimited routines and multi-week programs, free
Supersets & circuits	Yes	Yes
Cardio & GPS	No GPS, lifting focus	GPS runs and walks, routes, replays, segments, leaderboards
Nutrition	None	Food logging, recipes, macro goals, fasting timer
AI features	Adaptive Trainer (Pro)	AI chat that generates workouts and logs food, plus ChatGPT and Claude integration
Social	Large, active feed	Feed, squads, DMs, leaderboards (smaller community so far)
Muscle recovery insight	Muscle charts	Per-muscle fatigue and recovery modeling
Watch apps	Apple Watch and Wear OS	Native Apple Watch app (set logging, rest timer, heart-rate zones, phone-free runs); no Wear OS yet
Platforms	iOS, Android, web dashboard	iOS, Android, full web app
Price	Free with caps; Pro ~$24/year	Everything free during open alpha
Data import	Imports Strong CSV	Imports Hevy, Strong, Fitbod, StrengthLog, Caliber CSV
Data export	CSV export	CSV export, portability is a founding principle

How to move your Hevy history to JustGains

This is the part that usually stops people from switching anything: nobody wants to abandon years of logs or, worse, re-type them. You do not have to. The whole migration takes a few minutes and your Hevy account is not affected.

1. Export from Hevy. Open Hevy and go to your Profile tab, then tap the settings cog in the top right. Choose Export & Import Data, then Export Workouts. Hevy generates a CSV of your complete workout history. (Menu names can shift between versions; look for Export under settings.)
2. Get the file onto any device. The export arrives as a CSV file. Save it anywhere you can reach it, phone or computer both work since the importer runs on the web too.
3. Upload it to the importer. Go to the free importer and drop the file in. It auto-detects the Hevy format, no settings to configure.
4. Review the dry run. The importer shows you exactly what it found, every workout, exercise, set, rep, weight, and note, before anything is written to your account.
5. Import. Confirm, and your entire history lands in JustGains on the correct dates.

What carries over: every set, rep, weight, and note from every workout you ever logged in Hevy. What gets rebuilt on top: your PRs are re-detected, your estimated 1RM curves are recalculated across your whole history, and your volume trends continue from your very first Hevy session instead of starting at zero. Exercises are matched to the JustGains library automatically, so your bench press history is one continuous line, not two apps stitched together.

What JustGains does not do yet

Fair is fair. JustGains is a newer app: the community is smaller than Hevy’s multi-million-user feed, there is no Wear OS app yet (the native Apple Watch app shipped, but Android wrists are still waiting), and we ship fast, which means the occasional rough edge alongside the new features. If Wear OS logging or a huge existing social graph is essential to your training, Hevy currently serves those better. Our bet is that one app that understands your lifting, your cardio, your food, and your goals together is worth more than a bigger feed, but that is a call only you can make.

The honest bottom line

If all you want is a polished barbell logger with a social feed, and the 4-routine limit does not bother you (or $24 a year feels fair to remove it), Hevy remains one of the best pure lifting apps available. Strong suits you if you want even less app, JEFIT if you want a huge database and tolerate ads, Fitbod if you want the app to do the programming, FitNotes if you are on Android and want free-forever simplicity.

If you want one app for everything you train, lifting, runs, food, goals, and friends, with a free tier that is not squeezed and data that moves with you, that is exactly the gap JustGains is built to fill. Export your Hevy CSV, run it through the importer, and judge it with your own history on screen rather than anyone’s marketing, including ours.