KOVA
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Hevy alternatives, compared honestly

Hevy’s free tier caps you at four routines, seven custom exercises and three months of graph history. Plenty of apps remove those caps. Far fewer remove the account, the subscription and the copy of your training history sitting on someone else’s server. Here are nine alternatives compared on the axes that actually decide it — including the several where KOVA is the wrong answer.

Updated 29 September 2026 · 9 apps compared · Written by ravvdevv, who makes KOVA

What actually pushes people off Hevy

Not the interface. Hevy is one of the best-designed logs on either store, and its free tier is one of the more carefully built paywalls in the category. What pushes people out is arithmetic:

  • Four routines. Comfortable for one programme. Tight the moment you run a mesocycle and want the old one kept.
  • Seven custom exercises. Enough to get started, gone as soon as you start naming your own variations.
  • Three months of graphs. Progress is precisely the thing that takes longer than three months to become visible.
  • $2.99/month, $23.99/year, or $74.99 once to lift all three.
  • An account. Which means your training history is on a server, and leaving means an export.

Most alternatives fix the first three. A few fix all of them. Fixing the account and the server is rarer, and that is the axis most comparison tables skip — so it is the one this page leads on.

The comparison

Figures from each developer’s own website or store listing, September 2026. These change without notice. Where a developer does not publish something, the cell says so rather than guessing.
App Free tier Account iPhone Offline Network permission Exercises
KOVA this page’s bias Everything, forever. No paid tier, no caps. None Not yet — in development Yes. The INTERNET permission is never declared. Never requested shown in the app’s own manifest 500+ animated
Hevy 4 routines, 7 custom exercises, 3 months of graphs. Pro $2.99/mo–$74.99 once. Required Yes Not published Not published ~400
Strong Unlimited workouts, 3 custom routines. Pro $4.99/mo–$99.99 once. Required Yes Not published Not published ~300
JEFIT Ad-supported, loose caps. Elite around $7/mo. Required Yes Not published Not published 1,300+
Fitbod 3-workout trial, then paid. Elite around $13/mo. Required Yes Not published Not published Not published
FitNotes Everything free. No ads, no paid tier, no caps. None No Yes — local storage only Not published ~250
openGym Free, no subscription, no telemetry. Self-hosting is optional. None profiles only if you self-host Yes Yes — local by default No telemetry SDK sync is opt-in and self-hosted 1,324
Iron Log Free forever, no ads, no caps. None No Yes — the developer states zero network permissions None claimed developer’s own statement 200+
GYMPLY Free, open source, no ads. None No Yes — local only Not published 4,000+
Kilo Free forever, no backend to pay for. None No Yes — local-first SQLite Not published ~870

Sources: each developer’s own site or store listing, read 29 September 2026 — gymnoteplus, Ellim, openGym, Iron Log, GYMPLY, Kilo, F-Droid. Two caveats worth stating plainly. First, the Hevy and Strong free-tier numbers come from third-party comparisons citing store listings, not from Hevy or Strong directly, and those vendors have changed their tiers before. Second, a store listing and a website are both marketing; where a claim matters to you, read the source or the app’s manifest.

Six of these are also honest no-account options

If your reason for leaving is the account rather than the caps, the list shortens fast. FitNotes, KOVA, Iron Log, GYMPLY, Kilo and openGym all open and start logging with no sign-up step. That single fact removes the export panic, because there is no account to lose and no server to be migrated away from.

Where KOVA is the wrong choice

This is the section most alternative pages leave out. If any of the following is true of you, pick something else from the table and ignore everything else on this page.

  • You need an iPhone today. KOVA is Android-only. iOS is in development, which means “soon” and not a date. Hevy, Strong, openGym and Let’s Workout all ship an iPhone app now.
  • You want a big exercise library. KOVA has 500+, and they are animated. On raw count, GYMPLY lists 4,000+, JEFIT 1,300+, openGym 1,324 and Kilo about 870. KOVA wins on instruction quality per exercise, not on volume.
  • You want an Apple Watch app. Strong has the most mature one in this table, by a distance. KOVA has no watch app; Wear OS 3+ is in progress.
  • You want other people in the app. Hevy has a social feed, JEFIT has community routines. KOVA is deliberately single-user and quiet. There is nothing to follow and nobody to cheer.
  • You want food logged in the same place. Fitbod, wger and the newer AI-coach apps do nutrition. KOVA does not, and adding it is not on the roadmap.
  • You want someone else’s programming handed to you. Boostcamp and Caliber ship programmes you follow. KOVA makes you build the session — though you can export your exercise list, paste it into any AI tool and import the routine back.
  • You want a support team behind the app. KOVA is one person and a Ko-fi link. That is an upside for a project free of commercial pressure and a downside if you need someone to answer an email. Any single-maintainer app, GPL or not, can stop being maintained. Export before you would care.
On the “no internet permission” claim

KOVA never declares Android’s INTERNET permission, so there is no code path in the app that could open a connection at all. Iron Log makes a similar claim about zero network permissions, and at least two other apps in this space make a works offline claim that is weaker than it sounds — caching some data and syncing later still leaves a server round-trip in the middle.

None of these claims mean much on their own, including ours. A manifest line is evidence, not proof, and it costs nothing to write. What makes it checkable is the licence: KOVA is GPL-3.0 and Iron Log publishes its source, so the claim is one search away from being verified. If a privacy claim is the reason you are choosing, pick the one where you can read the code that would have to lie.

Pick by what you actually need

No account, no subscription, ever
FitNotes, KOVA and Kilo. All three are Android-only.
Verify the privacy claim yourself
KOVA (GPL-3.0) or Iron Log. Read the manifest, then read the code.
An iPhone, and it must work today
Strong, or Hevy’s own capped free tier. openGym also ships both platforms.
Apple Watch logging
Strong. Nothing else here is close.
The deepest exercise library
JEFIT, GYMPLY or openGym — all 1,300 or more.
Build the session from a body map
KOVA. Tap a muscle, get a session. Nothing else here does this.
Self-host the server, keep the source open
openGym. It also reads your history over MCP.
Bring your Hevy history with you
Almost all of them. KOVA imports Hevy, Strong, Lyfta, FitNotes and openGym, plus any CSV.
Nutrition in the same app
Fitbod, or wger. Not KOVA.
Never think about this again
Hevy Pro, once, at $74.99, and move on. That is a legitimate answer too.

Questions people actually ask

Is KOVA a good alternative to Hevy?

It is if the reason you are leaving Hevy is the account, the subscription, or the fact that your training history sits on someone else’s server. KOVA removes the routine cap, the custom-exercise cap and the graph-history cap entirely, requires no account, never declares the Android INTERNET permission, and imports your existing Hevy history from a CSV. It is not the right answer if you use an iPhone, want an Apple Watch app, or want a bigger exercise library.

What is the best free alternative to Hevy?

It depends on which Hevy limit is actually annoying you, and on your phone. On Android with no interest in an account, FitNotes and KOVA are the two that are genuinely free with no caps at all. If you are on iPhone, the realistic free options today are Hevy’s own capped tier or Strong’s three-routine tier, because most of the alternatives in this table are Android-only.

Which workout trackers need no account?

Of the apps compared here: FitNotes, KOVA, Iron Log, GYMPLY, Kilo and openGym all work with no account at all. Hevy, Strong, JEFIT and Fitbod require sign-in.

Is there a Hevy alternative that works with no internet at all?

Several work offline in some sense, but very few can be certain of it. KOVA ships without the Android INTERNET permission declared, so there is no code path that could open a connection, whether or not you have signal. Iron Log makes a similar claim about zero network permissions. Both claims are only worth what the source code is worth, so both are published under a licence you can read.

Can I import my Hevy workouts into KOVA?

Yes. KOVA imports workouts and bodyweight from Hevy, Strong, Lyfta, FitNotes and openGym, and reads any CSV you can get out of the app you are leaving. It also re-imports its own ZIP backups unchanged, media included.

Is KOVA really free, or is there a paid tier?

There is no paid tier. No subscription, no ads, no analytics SDK and no account. KOVA is funded by donations and released under GPL-3.0, so the source that ships is the source you can read. It is also a one-person project, which cuts both ways: it can change direction quickly, and if it stops being maintained there is no company behind it.

Does KOVA have an iPhone app?

Not yet. KOVA is Android-only today, with iOS 15 and later in development. If you need an iPhone app today, Strong, Hevy, openGym or Let’s Workout are the options in this table that ship one now.

What is the best Hevy alternative for Apple Watch?

Strong, and it is not close. Strong has the most mature Apple Watch logging of the apps compared here. KOVA has no watch app; Wear OS 3 and later is in progress.

If the account is the problem, that’s the whole pitch

KOVA has no subscription, no paid tier, no ads and no sign-up step. It ships without the Android INTERNET permission, reads your history from a Hevy CSV, and gives the whole thing back to you in a ZIP you can re-import on any device.

Get KOVA

Android 7.0+ · GPL-3.0 · com.kova.app · how the offline claim works