Alpha Progression vs. Hevy: Which Workout App Is Better in 2026?

Alpha Progression and Hevy are two popular apps for strength training, muscle building, and tracking workouts. Both let you create routines, log sets and reps, track your progress, and use personalized training programs.

The biggest difference is how far each app goes beyond recording your workouts.

Hevy has also become considerably more capable as a programming app with the introduction of Hevy Trainer. Trainer generates personalized programs and automatically progresses your working weights.

So this is no longer a comparison between an app that programs your training and one that only records it. Both can do both. The more useful question is how their approaches differ and which one fits your training better.

Alpha Progression vs. Hevy at a glance

Prices and features were checked in September 2026 and may vary by country or platform.

What is Alpha Progression?

Alpha Progression is a gym workout planner and tracker built specifically for strength training and muscle building.

You can create your own training plan from scratch or let the plan generator build one around your goal, experience, available equipment, training frequency, workout duration, and muscle priorities.

Once you start training, Alpha Progression uses what you actually lift to recommend a precise weight, rep count, and RIR target for every set.

The idea is simple: a workout logger should not only remember what you did. It should help you decide what to do next.

Its main features include:

• A personalized strength and muscle-building plan generator
• Weight, rep, and RIR recommendations for individual sets
• Full-featured workout logging with a clean, streamlined interface
• RIR tracking
• Mesocycles, periodization, and deloads
• Supersets, dropsets, warm-up sets, and other set types
• 795 exercises with real demonstration videos
• Exercise evaluations for muscle building
• Detailed progress charts, personal records, streaks, and achievements
• Warm-up and plate calculators
• Multiple gym profiles with different equipment and available weights
• Unlimited workout logging in the free version

What is Hevy?

Hevy is a gym workout tracker and planner with a particularly strong social component.

It lets you create routines, log workouts, review previous performance, track statistics, and follow other lifters through profiles and a social feed.

Hevy also has broad platform support, including iOS, Android, Apple Watch, Wear OS, and the web.

With Hevy Trainer, the app now also generates complete personalized programs based on information such as your training goal, experience, equipment, frequency, workout duration, and muscle priorities.

Trainer assigns exercises, sets, rep ranges, rest periods, and starting weights when sufficient training history is available. It then uses your performance to progress your working weights.

Its main features include:

• Full-featured workout logging
• Custom routines
• Hevy Trainer for personalized programming
• Automatic weight progression
• 400+ exercises
• RPE tracking
• Detailed training statistics
• Apple Watch and Wear OS apps
• Web access
• Social profiles, feeds, leaderboards, comments, and workout sharing
• Unlimited workout logging in the free version

Workout logging

Both Alpha Progression and Hevy are highly capable workout loggers.

With either app, you can create your own routines, enter weights and reps, see previous performances while training, use rest timers, track effort, create custom exercises, record different set types, and review your training history afterward.

Alpha Progression was designed so that its programming features sit directly on top of a fast and clean workout logger. You do not need to use generated plans to use the app: you can build your training entirely from scratch and use Alpha Progression as your regular gym log.

Hevy similarly provides a polished logging experience and has spent years developing features around routine creation, workout history, statistics, and workout sharing.

For pure workout logging, there is no reason to choose one simply because the other lacks core logging functionality. Both cover the important features well.

The more meaningful differences are what surrounds the logger.

Alpha Progression adds more detailed programming and progression guidance. Hevy adds a social network, dedicated smartwatch apps, and browser-based workout logging.

Training plans: Alpha Progression vs. Hevy Trainer

Both apps can generate an entire training program for you.

Hevy Trainer asks about your goal, experience, equipment, workout frequency, workout duration, and muscle emphasis before generating a program with exercises, sets, rep ranges, rest periods, and recommended starting weights where enough previous data is available.

Alpha Progression uses similar personal inputs, but its programming system goes further into the details of how the program develops over time.

The plan generator is closely connected to Alpha Progression's progression system, RIR targets, periodization features, deloads, available weight increments, and exercise selection.

That allows the app to do more than create a suitable list of exercises and rep ranges. It can guide how hard individual sets should be, how loads and repetitions should progress, and how training variables change across a training cycle.

You can still customize anything. Generated exercises, sets, reps, and other program variables can be edited, or you can create the entire program yourself.

Progressive overload and weight recommendations

This is one of the biggest differences between the two systems.

Hevy Trainer uses a straightforward rep-range progression model. According to Hevy's documentation, you need to reach the upper end of the prescribed rep range on all sets with a given weight before Trainer increases your working weight.

That is a common and effective way to implement progressive overload.

Alpha Progression's recommendations are more granular.

For every working set, the algorithm can recommend:

• A specific weight
• A specific number of reps
• A specific RIR target

Those recommendations are calibrated to your actual performance rather than only to a generic strength level.

Alpha Progression can also work around the weights that are actually available in your gym. If an ideal calculated load cannot be assembled from the plates or dumbbells available to you, the recommendation can account for the available increments.

This matters because real progression is not always as clean as moving from the top of one rep range directly to the next weight.

For example, you might have improved enough to justify a progression but not enough to maintain the same repetitions after your gym's next available weight jump. Alpha Progression can combine changes in both weight and repetitions rather than relying on weight progression alone.

Effort is part of the recommendation

Alpha Progression also incorporates RIR directly into its training system.

RIR means "reps in reserve": how many additional clean repetitions you estimate you could have completed before failure.

This means the recommendation is not only "lift 80 kg for 8 reps." It can also tell you how hard that set is intended to be.

Hevy lets you optionally record RPE for individual sets, which is useful for tracking effort. Alpha Progression goes one step further by making effort a prescribed part of the progression system itself.

Periodization and deloads

Progressive overload does not have to mean trying to beat the previous workout in exactly the same way forever.

Alpha Progression includes explicit tools for organizing training into mesocycles, changing training variables over a cycle, using RIR targets, and planning deloads.

These features are particularly relevant to experienced lifters whose training requires more structure than simply increasing a weight whenever they reach the top of a rep range.

Hevy Trainer also offers different approaches to program structure. Its current settings include focused six-week blocks, repeating the same training continuously, or using more variation with some exercises changing from week to week.

So Hevy Trainer is not a static routine generator.

However, Alpha Progression exposes a broader set of periodization variables and integrates them more deeply with its progression recommendations.

Exercise library and exercise guidance

Alpha Progression currently includes 795 built-in exercises.

Every one has a real demonstration video filmed in a gym, together with instructions covering setup, execution, and common mistakes.

You can filter exercises by muscle group, equipment, and other criteria, and add your own custom exercises.

Alpha Progression also evaluates exercises for their suitability for muscle building based on factors such as range of motion and stability. These evaluations can help when choosing between several exercises for the same muscle group.

Hevy currently offers more than 400 exercises. Exercises include written instructions, and most include demonstration animations.

Hevy also supports custom exercises and lets you add your own image, video, or GIF.

For users who frequently want help selecting exercises or checking their execution, Alpha Progression's larger library and real demonstration videos are a meaningful advantage.

Progress tracking and analytics

Both apps provide detailed ways to see whether your training is actually moving forward.

Hevy tracks metrics including exercise performance, estimated one-rep max, training volume, muscle distribution, sets per muscle group, workout consistency, body measurements, and personal records.

Alpha Progression includes charts for metrics such as weight, strength rating, volume, and other training data, together with personal records, streaks, and achievements. Raw training data can also be exported as CSV.

The main distinction is again how the data is used.

Both apps show you what happened.

Alpha Progression additionally feeds your performance back into its progression algorithm to generate targets for upcoming sets.

Free versions

Both apps provide genuinely useful free workout logging.

Alpha Progression Free includes:

• Unlimited workouts
• Manual plan creation
• The complete library of 795 exercises
• Real demonstration videos for all built-in exercises
• Body measurement tracking

The plan generator, progression recommendations, detailed charts, and advanced programming tools require Alpha Progression Pro.

Hevy Free also includes unlimited workout logging, but some features have limits. At the time of writing, free users can create up to four routines and seven custom exercises, and graph history is limited to three months.

Hevy Trainer requires Pro.

So if you only want to log workouts without paying, both apps are viable long-term options.

Social features

This is Hevy's clearest advantage.

Social functionality is a central part of the app. You can:

• Follow other lifters
• See workouts in a social feed
• Like and comment on workouts
• Discover other athletes
• Use leaderboards
• Share routines
• Upload training photos and videos
• Share workouts to Strava

Alpha Progression lets you share training plans, but it does not have an equivalent built-in social network.

If the social side of training is important to you, Hevy is the better choice.

Apple Watch, Wear OS, and web support

Hevy also has the advantage if you want to log workouts without using the phone app.

It supports both Apple Watch and Wear OS and has a web version.

Alpha Progression is available on iOS and Android but currently does not offer an equivalent dedicated watch app or complete browser-based workout logger.

If smartwatch or browser-based logging is a must-have feature, Hevy is the better fit.

Pricing

Hevy is substantially cheaper at standard US pricing.

Prices were checked in September 2026 and can differ by country, currency, platform, or promotion.

The difference reflects somewhat different product propositions.

Hevy Pro unlocks Hevy Trainer, removes limits, and adds advanced functionality at a notably low subscription price.

Alpha Progression Pro is more expensive and puts much of its value into the personalized programming system: the plan generator, set-by-set progression recommendations, RIR and periodization tools, detailed analytics, multiple gym profiles, and other advanced training features.

If price is the deciding factor, Hevy has the clear advantage.

Where Hevy has the advantage

Social and community features

If you want your workout app to function partly like a social network for lifting, Hevy is the obvious choice.

Following friends, sharing workouts, comments, leaderboards, and athlete profiles are all core parts of the experience.

Smartwatch and web support

Hevy supports Apple Watch, Wear OS, and browser-based access.

Alpha Progression currently focuses on its iOS and Android apps.

Price

Hevy Pro costs considerably less and even offers a lifetime purchase.

For users who want its Pro feature set at the lowest possible price, that is a significant advantage.

Where Alpha Progression has the advantage

More sophisticated training recommendations

This is the biggest reason to choose Alpha Progression.

Hevy Trainer can generate a personalized program and progress your working weights.

Alpha Progression goes further by generating individualized weight, rep, and RIR recommendations for every set and integrating them with the broader structure of your training.

That makes the app particularly useful if you want to remove as much guesswork as possible from progressive overload.

More advanced programming control

Alpha Progression gives you direct tools for RIR, mesocycles, periodization, and deloads while still allowing you to customize exercises, sets, reps, and other variables yourself.

Beginners can largely ignore that complexity and simply follow the recommendations. More experienced lifters can use the additional controls rather than eventually outgrowing the app.

A larger exercise library with real videos

Alpha Progression currently includes 795 exercises and a real demonstration video for every built-in movement.

It also includes exercise evaluations aimed specifically at selecting effective movements for muscle growth.

Muscle building and strength are the core use case

Alpha Progression is built specifically around gym-based strength training and hypertrophy.

The generator, exercise evaluations, RIR recommendations, progression algorithm, volume tracking, periodization, and deload tools all serve that same central goal.

Who should choose Hevy?

Hevy is likely the better fit if:

• You want strong built-in social and community features.
• You want to log workouts from an Apple Watch or Wear OS device.
• You want browser-based access to your workout app.
• Getting the lowest possible Pro subscription price is important to you.
• You want automated programming but prefer a relatively straightforward rep-range progression system.

Who should choose Alpha Progression?

Alpha Progression is likely the better fit if:

• Your main goals are building muscle and getting stronger.
• You want a highly capable workout logger as well as sophisticated programming guidance.
• You want the app to create a structured program around your individual situation.
• You want specific weight, rep, and RIR recommendations for your sets.
• You want the app to actively guide progressive overload rather than only track it.
• You care about RIR, mesocycles, periodization, and deloads.
• You want a large exercise library with real demonstration videos.
• You want programming tools that remain useful as you become a more experienced lifter.