Hevy Review 2026: A Free Gym Log With a Feed You Can't Hide

Hevy is the workout log most lifters have heard of, and the numbers explain why: free to download, no ads, an average of 4.9 from about 92,000 US App Store ratings, and a homepage claiming more than 16 million athletes. This review reads Hevy on its own terms, using only what Hevy publishes on its website, App Store listing, help center and privacy policy, fetched on 11 September 2026. Anything those sources do not settle is marked unverified.

What Hevy is

Hevy is a tap-based gym logger and routine planner from Hevy Studios S.L., registered in Girona, Spain, founded in 2019 by Guillem Ros and Desmond McNamee. It runs on iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Android, Wear OS and as a web app, with a public API linked from the site footer. A second product, Hevy Coach, lets personal trainers assign programs to clients. The current iOS build is version 3.1.13, released 9 September 2026, requiring iOS 15.1 or later, at 288.5 MB.

The company's stated philosophy is hands-off: it does not tell athletes how to train. The features page names three pillars, workout logging, progress tracking and socialising, and the third is what separates Hevy from a plain logbook.

Pricing, as listed

The app is free, monetised by in-app purchases. The US App Store lists four purchases: Hevy Pro - Monthly at $2.99, Hevy Pro - Yearly at $23.99, Hevy Pro - Lifetime at $74.99, and a second Hevy Pro - Monthly at $3.99. Pro can also be bought on the web.

Hevy's own free-versus-Pro table is unusually clear. Free gives you up to four routines, seven custom exercises and three months of data history. Measurements on free are body weight and waist circumference only; body fat, neck, bicep and the rest are Pro. Advanced tracking, meaning the muscle-distribution chart, exercise leaderboard, monthly report and set counts per muscle group, covers main exercises on free and everything on Pro. The warm-up calculator and Hevy Trainer are Pro-only.

Before you pay: all workouts and routines carry a 150-set limit, even on Pro. No free trial is mentioned anywhere; the description instead states a 14-day right to withdraw from an initial subscription. A 50 percent first-year sale runs a few times a year, lifetime is never discounted, and the subscription is not part of Apple Family Sharing. Downgrading keeps routines and custom exercises above the free cap but blocks creating new ones.

What is genuinely good

The logging is complete. Sets can be marked as warm-up, normal, drop, failure or superset, with RPE, previous-workout values, automatic rest timers, a warm-up calculator, a plate calculator and exercise notes. You start from an empty workout, a saved routine, or a copy of a past or another user's workout.

The library is deep. More than 400 exercises with animations, instructions and per-exercise history, plus custom exercises. The routine and program library holds 26 pre-built programs across seven categories: at home, travel, dumbbells only, band, cardio and HIIT, gym and bodyweight.

Records are thorough. Heaviest weight, best estimated 1RM, best set and session volume, longest distance and time, a one-rep max for all strength exercises, and live PR notifications mid-workout.

The analytics are broad. Per-exercise graphs of volume, best weight and total reps, a seven-day body heat map, set counts per muscle group, a muscle-distribution chart, a monthly report, a year in review and a streak.

The platform story is the best in the category. A standalone Apple Watch app with routine sync, live iPhone sync, heart rate, complications and offline workouts; Wear OS; an iPad app; a web app; Live Activities, widgets and dark mode. Workouts export to Apple Health through HealthKit; Strava, MyFitnessPal and Google Fit connect through Health or Health Connect. Garmin, by Hevy's own account, is not possible yet.

Cloud backup is real. A reinstall or a new phone brings everything back on login, and workouts and measurements export to CSV from settings.

What is weak or missing

No voice logging. Hevy's logging is tap entry in all three of its documented forms. Nothing on the features page, the App Store description or in the help center mentions voice or dictation, and a help-center search for “voice” returns no articles. For a lifter with short rests, that is the whole cost of the app: typing between sets.

The feed cannot be fully removed. Hevy's help article on privacy walks through making your profile private and switching on Hide Suggested Users, then says plainly that the Discover feed will remain on the Home screen and that, as of now, there is no way to remove it. If you came for a logbook, you still get the shop window.

An account is mandatory, and the data lives elsewhere. Sign-up is by email and password, Apple or Google. The help center says your information is stored to your profile on Hevy's servers, not to your device, and that the only data ever stored on the device are workouts not yet saved. Convenient for backups; a real dependency for everything else.

Phone offline logging is undocumented. The only offline claim in Hevy's materials is for the watch. There is no help article on offline use of the phone app, so behaviour in a gym with no signal is unverified either way.

The free tier has walls you will hit. Four routines and three months of history suit a beginner on one program. A lifter on a push, pull, legs split with accessory days, or wanting last winter's numbers, is a Pro customer.

Import is narrow. Hevy imports only CSV files from the Strong app, in English. Coming from anything else means starting fresh.

Body tracking is manual. Measurements and progress photos are supported; there is no body-composition estimate or scored physique assessment. Hevy Trainer explicitly does not rely on AI, which is honest, and it means the AI features amount to sending a finished workout to ChatGPT or Claude plus a HevyGPT item on the features page. At 288.5 MB, the app is also a large install for a logbook.

Privacy, in Hevy's own words

Hevy's privacy policy is hosted on iubenda, embedded at hevyapp.com/legal/privacy-policy, and was last updated on 4 June 2026. The controller is given as “Hevy Studios S.L. Pinetell 10, 17252, Calonge i Sant Antoni, Girona, Spain.”

On what is collected: “Among the types of Personal Data that this Application collects, by itself or through third parties, there are: Trackers; Usage Data; first name; username; gender; date of birth; various types of Data; email address; password; general activity data; payment info; Contacts permission.” The Contacts permission is described as “Used for accessing contacts and profiles on the User's device, including the changing of entries.”

On where the data lives: “Some of these services work through geographically distributed servers, making it difficult to determine the actual location where the Personal Data are stored.” And: “Depending on the User's location, data transfers may involve transferring the User's Data to a country other than their own.” Named third-party processors include Adjust GmbH for advertising, Amplitude Inc. for analytics, Google Analytics and TestFlight.

The App Store privacy card, developer-declared and not verified by Apple, lists purchase history, email address, name, contacts and product interaction as data linked to you.

Two fair points on the other side. Hevy's website banner states that it does not use cookies to display personalised advertising or build advertising profiles, and account deletion is self-service with a documented tutorial.

Who Hevy suits

Hevy is the right choice for a lifter who trains with friends or wants a community around the log; who uses Android, an Apple Watch or a Wear OS watch, or moves between devices; who wants a large library of programs and exercises on day one; who values cloud backup over local storage; and whose program fits inside the free tier, or who will pay $23.99 a year.

It is a poorer fit for someone who wants the fastest possible logging, a log that never shows anyone else's training, or workout data kept off third-party servers.

How it compares to Strongbro

Strongbro is the narrower product. Its primary logging path is voice: one sentence describes the session, the parsed sets are shown for review, and nothing saves until you tap Done. It has no feed and no accounts; workouts, records and measurements stay on the iPhone with optional sync to your own iCloud. Body tracking adds an AI physique scan that scores a single photo from 0 to 100 and tracks the trend. It costs $14.99 a year or $19.99 for lifetime after a 3-day trial, against Hevy's $23.99 and $74.99.

What Strongbro lacks, Hevy has: an Apple Watch app, Apple Health export, Android and web versions, a program library and a community. If those matter to you, Hevy is the better app. The full side-by-side, with feature and pricing tables, is in Strongbro vs Hevy.

The bottom line

Hevy earns its ratings. The logging is thorough, the library is deep, the watch and platform support is the best in a gym app, and the free tier is generous enough that many lifters never pay. Its limits are choices rather than mistakes: tap entry only, a required account, history on Hevy's servers, and a Discover feed that stays on the Home screen after you have asked it to go. If a social, cross-platform log is what you want, Hevy is the obvious pick. If you want a quiet log that lives on your phone and costs one sentence per session, it is the wrong tool, and Pro will not change that.

Get Strongbro on the App StoreFree for 3 days. $19.99 once for lifetime.

Get Strongbro on the App StoreFree for 3 days. $19.99 once for lifetime.