Looking for a Strong or Hevy alternative that picks the workout too?

Written by Kronos editorial team · How we write and check these guides

Updated September 5, 2026

Strong and Hevy are very good apps. Clean, fast, and built around one job: recording what you lifted so you can beat it next time. If you love the logbook, the rest of this page is not for you. Keep the one you have.

The people who go looking for an alternative usually have the opposite problem. The logging is fine. It is the deciding that wears them down: opening the app and having to program the day before they can even start.

What a logbook is built to do

Strong and Hevy are trackers, and good ones. You build a routine or pick a template, enter the exercises, and log each set as you go. Strong documents supersets, custom exercises and CSV export; Hevy adds a social feed and a community around the numbers. The history is the product: last week’s lifts, your PRs, the chart that ticks up. For a lifter who already knows what they are doing on a given day, that loop is hard to beat.

The catch is the flip side of the strength: the app records what you decided. It does not decide anything for you. On the day you are tired, short on time, or just out of ideas, a routine you have to pick and a page you have to fill are exactly the things that get you to skip.

The question that actually decides it

It is narrow: do you always know what you are going to do when you walk in, or do you sometimes need the workout handed to you?

If you always have a plan, a logbook is the right tool and you should keep one. If the deciding is the part you keep avoiding, you do not need a better spreadsheet. You need something that picks a sensible session for the time and equipment you have today, and still keeps a record of the lifts you care about.

What changed: Kronos logs now, without becoming a spreadsheet

Kronos started on the other side of this. It picks the workout: tell it your time, equipment, and mood, and it builds today’s session, strength and conditioning both, then counts you through it.

Now it logs too, and the design is deliberately light:

• Star your main lifts. Those are the ones it tracks and brings back, so the numbers actually mean something over time. Everything else keeps rotating for variety.
• Your PRs get a home. Records keeps your biggest lifts with an estimated 1RM trend, and the log exports to CSV whenever you want your data elsewhere. Logging and export are free; the free plan shows your three biggest records and Pro shows the whole wall.
• Logging that pre-fills itself. Kronos remembers what you lifted last time and drops the number in. You confirm with one tap or nudge it if today was heavier. No keyboard mid-set.
• Off is a real setting. Don’t want to log? Turn it off and you will never see a weight field. A swipe is still enough feedback to shape the next workout.

The point is not to out-log a logbook. It is to give the people who liked tracking just enough of it, without the homework of programming and recording every session by hand. Your Strong or Hevy history will not import automatically, so if years of records are the point, that is a real cost to weigh.

Strong, Hevy, and Kronos at a glance

Different jobs. Strong and Hevy are for people who want to own the programming and live in the numbers. Kronos is for people who want the session decided and their main lifts tracked, without running both jobs themselves.

Who should stick with Strong or Hevy

Plenty of people, honestly:

• You run your own program and just need somewhere to record it.
• You want every set of every accessory logged and charted, forever.
• You are chasing specific powerlifting or bodybuilding numbers, and the detailed history is the whole point.

That is real, and a dedicated tracker does it better than anything trying to also pick your workout.

Where Kronos fits

Kronos is for the lifter who wants to get stronger but is tired of being their own programmer. It decides the workout, runs a proper strength day when you ask for one, straight sets and proper rest included, and quietly keeps a record of the lifts you starred. It also ships in nine languages with every exercise name translated, where most logbooks stop at the menus. Log when you want the numbers, skip when you don’t.

The interval timer is free and ad-free, no account. A free account adds five generated workouts, day 1 of any program, and three Library or self-built runs a month. Pro lifts the caps. The free-plan guide has the exact lines.

We checked Strong’s and Hevy’s own sites, linked above, on 5 September 2026. We make Kronos, so read the comparison with that in mind.