If you've spent any time in lifting forums or Reddit threads asking what app to use for tracking workouts, one name comes up more than almost any other: Strong. It's become something of a gold standard for how a workout logging app should feel — fast, unfussy, and built around the unit that actually matters in a gym: the set.
The catch is that Strong's full feature set sits behind a subscription. That's a completely reasonable business model for the app they've built. But if you want that same logging experience — set-by-set tracking, previous-performance context, templates — without paying monthly, it's worth understanding exactly what makes Strong's system work so you know what to look for.
What Actually Makes Strong's Logging Good
It's not the app's polish or its icon. It's three specific decisions in how it structures your data.
- It logs sets, not exercises. Most basic trackers store an exercise as a single blob: bench press, 3 sets of 8 at 135. Strong logs each set individually, with its own weight and reps — the difference between "I did bench press" and "my third set dropped from 8 reps to 5," which is actually useful information about how your session went.
- It shows your last performance while you're logging the next one. Pull up bench press today and it shows exactly what you did last time, right next to the field you're filling in. No digging through history to remember if it was 135 or 145.
- It uses templates. If push day always starts with bench, then incline dumbbell press, then triceps, you don't want to rebuild that list from scratch every session. Templates turn logging into a two-tap process.
Getting the Same System Without Paying
If you want this exact logging philosophy — set-by-set entries, previous-performance shown inline, and reusable templates — without a monthly cost, that's the entire design behind Platemate. Every set gets its own weight and rep entry, your last session's numbers show up automatically when you pull up an exercise, and you can save any workout as a reusable template.
It's not a Strong clone in the sense of copying screens — it's built as a from-scratch PWA, meaning it installs straight from your browser with no App Store account required. But the underlying logic, set-level logging as the foundation rather than an afterthought, is the same idea that makes Strong worth recommending in the first place.
What to Actually Look For
Whether you end up using Platemate, Strong, or something else entirely, here's the checklist worth running through before committing to a tracker for the long haul:
- Does it log at the set level, or just the exercise level?
- Does it surface your previous performance automatically?
- Can you save and reuse templates?
- Does it handle both lifting and cardio in the same log?
- Can you get your data out if you ever switch apps?
The Bigger Point
Strong earned its reputation because it got the fundamentals right — set-by-set logging, contextual history, low-friction templates — not because of anything flashy. That's genuinely good design, worth learning from regardless of which app you end up using. If you want that same foundation for free, Platemate was built around exactly that philosophy.