Stay Fit vs Hevy (2026): Free Alternative Comparison

Hevy did something smart when it launched: it took Strong's minimal logging model and added a social feed on top, then priced its free tier more generously than Strong's. For a while, that made it the obvious pick for anyone who'd hit Strong's routine limit.

The generosity has limits, though. Once your account is a year or two old, you start bumping into the 7-custom-exercise cap or the analytics window trimming your own history. Here's the actual comparison, not the app store pitch.

Price and the fine print on "free"

Hevy's free plan is real — you can log unlimited workouts forever. What it doesn't include: more than roughly 4 saved routines, more than 7 custom exercises, and full analytics history (trimmed to about 3 months). Hevy PRO removes those limits for $2.99–9.99/mo, $23.99/yr, or a $74.99 lifetime purchase.

Stay Fit skips this entirely — there's no PRO tier to grow into.

Hevy's web app and cross-platform reach are real advantages if you train from more than one device or want a browser view of your history. Stay Fit is Android-only for now, so if that flexibility matters more to you than the price, Hevy earns its keep.

The social feed: feature or distraction

Hevy's feed lets you follow other lifters, comment on their sessions, and share your own. For some people this is genuinely motivating — public accountability works. For a lot of solo lifters, it's a feature they never open, sitting on top of an app they only wanted for logging.

Stay Fit doesn't build a feed at all. There's no profile to maintain, no one to perform consistency for. Your streak is visible to you, on your home screen, and nowhere else.

Where the free-tier caps actually bite

The 4-routine limit sounds generous until you're running a push/pull/legs split with separate deload variants, or coaching yourself through multiple training blocks a year. Add a program change and you're deleting an old routine to make room for a new one, or paying.

The bigger issue is the ~3-month analytics window. Progressive overload tracking gets more useful the longer your history runs — a 3-month trim means you lose the ability to compare this January to last January without upgrading.

Stay Fit's reports run on your full history from day one: weekly, monthly, and longer-period overviews, muscle-balance insights, and a year-long heatmap, all included at no cost.

Hevy Trainer and AI programming

Hevy has been building out Hevy Trainer, an algorithm-based programming feature, as a differentiator from Strong. It's a real feature, but it sits behind the paid tier — free users are still logging manually or following their own routines, same as with Stay Fit.

If AI-generated programming is what you actually want, that's a different comparison entirely (see Fitbod), not a reason to pick Hevy over Stay Fit specifically.

Who should pick Hevy

Anyone who wants the social feed, needs a web dashboard, or trains across iOS, Android, and Apple Watch and wants one account tying it together. The free tier is workable for casual use; PRO makes sense once you outgrow it.

Who should pick Stay Fit

Anyone on Android who wants unlimited routines, full analytics history, and goal tracking without a ceiling — and who was never going to use the social feed anyway.