Is Hevy or Strong better?

They are close enough that interface preference should decide it. Hevy has a more active social layer and a more modern feel; Strong is longer established with a reputation for staying out of the way. Both log sets fast, which is the only thing a set logger has to do well.

Which lifting app has the best free tier?

Both offer usable free tiers with limits on routines or history, and both push toward a subscription for full features. Check the current limits directly — pricing and tier structures in this category change often enough that any figure quoted here would age badly.

Do Hevy and Strong track cardio?

Both can record that a cardio session happened. Neither models endurance load, prescribes sessions against a threshold, or changes any lifting recommendation because of your running volume — they are resistance training logs and do not claim otherwise.

Should I switch from Strong to Hevy?

Probably not for features. Your training history has real value and switching restarts your per-exercise records unless you export and import carefully. Switch if the interface actively annoys you, not because a comparison table has one more row on one side.

What is the best workout log for someone who also runs?

Either of these for the lifting half, plus something that reads both training loads if you want the interaction. The choice between Hevy and Strong does not affect that gap in any way, which is the useful thing to know before spending an evening comparing them.

Hevy vs Strong: Which Lifting Log, and Does It Matter?

Where they genuinely differ

Social layer. Hevy has an active one — followers, shared workouts, a feed. Strong is quieter by design. This is the largest real difference and it is entirely a matter of what you want from an app.

Feel. Hevy is more modern-looking and has moved faster on features. Strong has a longer history and a philosophy of staying out of the way. Reasonable people prefer either.

Ecosystem. Both have web components, both sync, both export. The details differ and they change.

That is close to the whole list. Both log sets fast, both have comprehensive exercise libraries, both handle plate maths and rest timers, both store per-exercise history, and both support an effort rating.

Both are resistance training logs, which is the correct scope for what they are and the boundary that matters if you do anything else.

Neither models endurance load. A week with four hard runs and a week with none produce the same picture, the same volume recommendation and the same read on your fatigue.

Neither has a nutrition layer. Nothing computes your maintenance, your surplus or today's target.

Neither can read fatigue across disciplines. If your bad squat session was caused by Saturday's long run, nothing in either app can suggest that.

For a lifter who does incidental cardio, none of that matters. For someone where both halves are real training goals, it is where all the problems come from.

The RIR question, which is the one functional difference worth checking

Both support an effort rating. What matters is whether the progression logic consumes it.

A rep-only progression rule cannot distinguish two opposite situations:

Log entry	Meaning	Correct response
225 × 12, RIR 0	Genuine ceiling	Add load, reset the range
225 × 12, RIR 4	The load was far too light	Add load immediately, and more of it

Those look identical to a rule that reads only reps. Storing an RPE value and displaying it back in history is not the same as a rule that says add load now because the number says the load was light.

Check this in whichever app you use. It is the difference between a log that progresses you and a log that records you.

Why switching is usually the wrong call

Your per-exercise history has real value, and it is the thing switching costs you.

An e1RM trend needs several sessions to have a slope. A per-exercise history needs months to answer "is this plateau real or is it one bad session in a rising line". Both restart when you move, unless you export and import carefully — and the import path between these apps is rarely as clean as the export page suggests.

Switch if the interface genuinely annoys you day to day. Do not switch because a comparison table has one more row on one side.

What the choice does not affect

Worth stating plainly, because a lot of time gets spent on this decision.

The three questions a hybrid athlete cannot answer from either app are unchanged by which one you pick:

Is my surplus real? Needs intake, weight trend and endurance volume together. A trained lifter's usable surplus is about 179 kcal a day and a 40-minute run costs 400 to 500, so this is not a small question. The arithmetic.
Should I deload? Needs lifting fatigue, endurance load and recovery markers together.
Were my easy runs easy? Needs a threshold and the last four sessions graded against a band. Why this is the most common failure.

Every one of those requires data from at least two sources, and none of it is hard arithmetic. It is just arithmetic nobody is doing, in a spreadsheet, on a Sunday, until they stop.

The honest recommendation

If lifting is your training: pick either, quickly, and spend the time you saved training.

If you also run or ride seriously: pick either for the lifting, and understand that the gap you will eventually run into is not between these two apps. What sits in that gap.

What to do next

Whichever you use, check whether RIR feeds the progression rule or is merely stored. That single question is worth more than the rest of this comparison, and it takes two minutes to answer inside the app you already have.