Hakan TEMUR
Sep 08, 2026
I've been logging workouts in Strive for about two weeks. The pitch is a proper gym log that stays free, one developer, no ads, and for the most part it delivers that. Getting started is quick. No account, no email, you open it and log. It works fully offline, which is the point for anyone whose gym has bad signal. The exercise library is large and filterable by muscle group and equipment, so building a routine is fast, and the custom number pad makes entering sets quick once you learn it. The dashboard is the strong part: an activity heatmap, per-exercise progress curves, volume and 1RM trends, and you can rearrange the widgets. The progress charts are better than what I've seen in paid apps. The rough edges are mostly polish. The rest timer stops making sound the second you leave the app, so if you switch to music between sets you miss it. There's no quick kg to lbs toggle. Moving your data to a new phone means exporting a backup file by hand, and that option is buried. A few users report upgrade popups showing up more often than the "no dark patterns" marketing suggests. And on a phone screen the logging and dashboard views try to show a lot at once. What I liked: - Free tier is genuinely usable, not a crippled demo - Fully offline, no account required - Large, well-tagged, filterable exercise library - Best progress charts and dashboard I've used in this kind of app - Developer is active and replies to almost every review What I didn't like: - Rest timer goes silent when the app isn't in focus - No fast kg/lbs switch - Backup and moving to a new device is clumsy and hard to find - Reports of upgrade popups despite the "no dark patterns" claim - No Apple Watch or Wear OS app, and people keep asking - Dense screens with small text on mobile - The website advertises 4.9 stars while Play Store is 4.3 with a large block of 1-star reviews The core works and the free promise looks real, not bait. If you lift and want a tracker you own instead of rent, it's worth trying. Around 4 out of 5, and the missing point is polish plus that timer.