Strongbro vs Strong (2026): Voice Logging vs the Classic Log

Strong has been the default answer to "which workout tracker" for over a decade. It earned that: it is fast, it is tidy, and it does not get in the way. Strongbro is a different bet on the same problem, so this page is less about which app is better and more about which one fits the way you train.

The verdict

Strong is for the lifter who already has a logging habit and wants the most mature version of it: templates, supersets, set tags, a watch app that works without the phone, Apple Health sync and a cloud account that follows them from iPhone to Android. Its App Store listing describes itself as "The most intuitive workout and exercise tracker for any fitness routine", and the numbers back the claim: 4.9 stars from about 109,000 US ratings.

Strongbro is for the lifter whose logging habit keeps dying. You tap the mic, say "bench 80, three sets of ten", and the sets appear for review. There is no account, no server holding your history, and the price is a fraction of Strong's. What you give up is the watch, Health sync and Android.

How we compared

Every Strong fact on this page comes from Strong's own website, US App Store listing, help center or privacy policy, fetched on 11 September 2026. Where their documentation says nothing, the table says "unverified" instead of guessing. Strongbro facts come from our own feature pages. Prices are US App Store prices on the fetch date.

Feature table

A fair reading of that table: Strong wins on ecosystem, Strongbro wins on input and ownership. Neither column is padded.

Pricing

Strong's App Store listing shows nine in-app purchases, including duplicate entries at different prices. The headline offer in its description is "$4.99/month or $29.99/year". We list what the store shows.

Two honest notes. First, Strong's free tier is genuinely generous: its help center says your workout data "will always be available whether you are a Strong PRO user or not", and the only hard cap is the three templates. If you never want to pay, Strong is the better deal. Second, Strong's paid tier is where the gap opens. A year of PRO costs twice a year of Strongbro, and its lifetime purchase costs four to five times Strongbro's. What PRO buys, according to Strong's own list, is unlimited templates, body-part measurements, all charts, a plate calculator, a warm-up calculator and custom icons and themes. Strongbro includes records, insights, body tracking and the physique scan in one price.

Privacy and where your data lives

This is the sharpest difference between the two apps, so we quote rather than characterise.

Strong requires an account. Its help center: "All users will be prompted to sign up for an account before using Strong." The privacy policy, last updated 21 May 2026, adds: "You are required to provide basic personal information such as Name (Optional) and Email Address in order to create a Strong Account."

Where that data goes, from the same policy: "We store user information on servers located in the United States and other countries. This means that information may be processed, stored, and used outside of the country in which you are located." And on retention: "We retain your data indefinitely in order to provide the Services. However, you can delete your data via the steps below." Deletion is available in-app under Profile, and the policy says it removes the account and all related data.

One line worth knowing before you commit to an email address: "If you lose access to your email or third party login, you will lose access to your Strong account. We cannot restore or change email addresses for security reasons."

Strong's App Store privacy card lists Health & Fitness, Purchase History, Email Address, User ID, Device ID, Crash Data and Other Data Types under "Data Linked to You", for the purpose of app functionality. Apple notes this information is not verified by Apple. On analytics, the policy states: "We use Fathom for tracking website traffic. We use Sentry for bug tracking and debugging. In both cases, we do not send personal information to these services." That is a reasonable stack, and Strong says plainly it shows no ads.

Strongbro's model is simpler to describe. There is no account and no server holding your log. Workouts, records and scans are stored on your iPhone; body data can sync through your own iCloud. Voice audio and physique photos are sent to an AI model through our proxy for processing and then discarded, and nothing is saved until you tap Done. Delete a scan or a workout and it is gone. The trade-off is real: with no cloud account there is nothing to hand off to an Android phone or a second device.

Who should pick Strong

• You train with an Apple Watch and want to log from the wrist, with or without the phone in the gym bag.
• You move between iPhone and Android, or want your history in a cloud account by design.
• You want Apple Health to carry workouts, rings, bodyweight and body fat to other apps.
• You follow a barbell program with templates, supersets and set tags, and like editing all of it by hand. Strong's listing says it is optimised for routines such as Starting Strength or StrongLifts 5x5.
• You want a free tier with unlimited workouts and never intend to pay.

Strong's own positioning is "Think less. Lift more." and "Everything you need. Nothing you don't." For the manual-entry lifter, that holds.

Who should pick Strongbro

• You have abandoned more than one tracker because typing between sets became a chore. Saying "squats five by five at a hundred" is the whole log; see voice logging for what the model actually parses.
• You train in a language other than English, or in a mixed gym vocabulary. Strongbro's interface ships in 31 languages, and voice input handles exercise names in any major one, including slang like "deads" and "OHP" and plate maths like "two plates".
• You want personal records and estimated 1RM tracked without marking anything, and included in the price rather than behind a PRO tier. The mechanics are on the personal records page.
• You do not want an account, and you want your training history to stay on the device you hold. If you are weighing how much of a log you actually need, our guide to a simple workout log is the honest starting point.
• You would rather pay $14.99 a year, or $19.99 once, than $29.99 a year.

Strongbro also has a physique scan and a 14-rank ladder earned by sessions logged. Strong's site, listing and help center mention neither an AI physique feature nor ranks, though we mark that as unverified because absence in documentation is not proof of absence in the app.

What Strong does better, plainly

Because a comparison from the smaller app is only worth reading if it concedes what it should:

• Scale and trust. Strong has been on the App Store since 15 September 2011 and holds a 4.9 from around 109,000 US ratings. Strongbro cannot match that track record yet, and we do not pretend otherwise.
• The watch. A standalone Apple Watch app with Live Sync, Handoff and Live Activity rest timers is years of work. Strongbro has none of it.
• Integrations. Full Apple Health sync on iOS and Google Fit or Health Connect on Android.
• The exercise library. Over 200 built-in exercises with video illustrations, against Strongbro's catalog of nearly 100 with image-based form guides.

Where Strong's documentation is thin, the table says so rather than filling the gap with a guess. Its features page on strong.app was password-protected on our fetch date, and the privacy policy linked from the App Store description has been deactivated in favour of the help-center version, so we have cited the pages that actually load.

For a longer look at Strong on its own terms, read the Strong review.

The bottom line

Strong is the mature, well-loved notebook: manual entry done properly, a real watch app, Health sync, a cross-platform cloud account and a free tier that never locks you out. It costs $29.99 a year for PRO and asks for an email address and a server-side account before you log a set.

Strongbro replaces the typing with your voice, keeps the log on your iPhone, and charges $14.99 a year or $19.99 for life after a 3-day trial. It has no watch app, no Health sync and no Android version.

If your problem is the watch or the second platform, choose Strong. If your problem is that you stop logging, choose Strongbro.

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.