Three Apps, One Question: Which Is Actually Worth It?
Hevy, Fitbod, and Soma are three of the most talked-about gym apps right now. All three have serious followings, all three promise to make your training smarter, and all three are positioned as premium options in a crowded market.
But they're built for very different goals. Choosing the wrong one means paying for features you don't use while missing the ones you actually need.
Here's a direct comparison — no fluff — so you can pick the right one the first time.
The Short Version
| Feature | Hevy | Fitbod | Soma |
|--------|------|--------|------|
| Workout tracking | ✅ Excellent | ✅ Good | ✅ Excellent |
| AI workout generation | ❌ | ✅ Core feature | ✅ Core feature |
| Calorie tracking | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
| Photo calorie logging | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
| RPE tracking | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ |
| Social / leaderboard | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ |
| iOS + Android | ✅ | ✅ | iOS only |
| Price (monthly) | ~$10/mo | ~$13/mo | $11.99/mo |
| Free tier | Generous | Limited | Yes |
If you want the full picture, read on.
Hevy: The Workout Logger Built for the Community
Hevy is a workout tracking app first and foremost. It's clean, fast, and extremely good at what it does: logging your lifts, tracking progress over time, and seeing how you stack up against others.
What Hevy does well:
- Slick, intuitive workout logging interface
- Huge built-in exercise library with instructional videos
- RPE tracking on individual sets
- Social features — you can follow friends, share workouts, react to their sessions
- Detailed strength progress charts per exercise
- Solid free tier with most core features unlocked
What Hevy doesn't do:
- AI-generated workout plans. Hevy is a blank canvas — you build your own programmes or use community routines. If you want the app to tell you *what* to do, you'll need to look elsewhere.
- Nutrition tracking. No calories, no macros, no integration with food databases. What you eat is your problem.
Who Hevy is for: Intermediate to advanced lifters who already know their programming and want a clean, social platform to log and review their sessions. You're the coach — Hevy is the clipboard.
Fitbod: The AI Coach That Builds Your Programme
Fitbod takes the opposite approach to Hevy. Its core promise is that you never have to think about programming again. Tell the app what equipment you have, what your goals are, and how much time you've got — it generates your next workout automatically.
The AI accounts for muscle fatigue, recovery, and progressive overload between sessions. Train on Monday and Fitbod knows your chest and triceps are cooked by Wednesday, so it'll emphasise legs or back. In theory, it's a personalised coach running in the background.
What Fitbod does well:
- Genuinely intelligent workout generation based on muscle recovery
- Large exercise library with animated demonstrations
- Clean interface, fast to log
- Available on both iOS and Android
- Adapts to gym, home, or bodyweight setups
What Fitbod doesn't do:
- Nutrition tracking. Like Hevy, Fitbod is purely a training app. If your goal involves weight loss or building muscle through careful eating, you'll need a separate app.
- RPE-based training. Fitbod's AI operates on volume and recovery, but doesn't use RPE as a primary input — the autoregulation is handled by the algorithm rather than your perceived effort.
- Social features. Fitbod is a solo experience. No friends, no leaderboards, no community element.
- Affordable free tier. The free plan is heavily gated — you get a limited number of workouts before hitting a paywall. It's essentially a trial.
Who Fitbod is for: Newer gym-goers who want expert-level programming without learning how to write it themselves, and experienced lifters who want to offload programming decisions to an algorithm. Best suited to people training without a personal coach.
Soma: The App That Covers Both Sides
Soma was built around a specific insight: most people who train seriously also care about what they eat, and managing training and nutrition across two separate apps creates friction that leads to quitting.
The result is an app that does both — AI workout planning and calorie tracking — in a single, unified experience.
What Soma does well:
- AI-generated workout plans based on your goals, schedule, and equipment
- Calorie tracking with photo food logging — take a photo of your meal, AI estimates the macros
- RPE tracking on individual sets, feeding back into the AI's programme adjustments
- Social leaderboard — compete with friends on training volume and consistency
- 4.8★ App Store rating with over 450 reviews
- Solid free tier before committing to premium
- AI coach for form tips, advice, and answering training and nutrition questions
What Soma doesn't do (yet):
- Android. Soma is iOS only for now, which is a dealbreaker for some.
- The social network is smaller than Hevy's established community.
Who Soma is for: Lifters who want their training and nutrition in one place, who value AI-driven programming that adjusts based on performance, and who want the social accountability of a leaderboard without juggling multiple apps.
Head-to-Head: The Key Comparisons
If you only care about workout tracking:
Hevy wins. It's the most polished pure workout tracker available, and its free tier is more generous than its competitors. The social layer is a genuine bonus.
If you want AI to write your programme:
Fitbod vs Soma. Fitbod's AI is sophisticated and has a longer track record. Soma's AI is newer but benefits from RPE feedback loops and integrates with nutrition data — meaning the programming can account for whether you're in a deficit or surplus. It's a closer call than it used to be.
If you care about nutrition:
Soma, no contest. Neither Hevy nor Fitbod tracks calories or macros. If eating to support your training is part of the plan, Soma is the only option that covers this.
If you want the best free experience:
Hevy. Its free plan is the most functional of the three. Fitbod's free tier is essentially a trial. Soma's free tier is genuine but more limited than Hevy's.
If you're on Android:
Hevy or Fitbod. Soma is iOS only.
What Most People Actually Need
Here's the honest take: if you're serious about training, you eventually need to pay attention to both what you do in the gym *and* what you eat outside it. The gap between training hard and making no visible progress is almost always nutrition.
An app that only tracks workouts solves half the problem. Soma was built to solve both halves — AI programming that adapts to your performance, nutrition tracking that's fast enough to actually use, and a social layer that makes consistency feel like a game rather than a chore.
For Android users or people who already have a solid nutrition strategy, Hevy or Fitbod are excellent choices for their specific roles. But if you want one app that handles everything, Soma is the only option in this comparison that actually does.