Compound vs Strong: a program or a logbook

Strong and Compound both put a rep counter and a rest timer in your pocket, and that is close to where the resemblance ends. Strong is a logbook: it records the workout you already know how to run, and it does that job well. Compound is a program: it decides that workout for you and does the arithmetic in between. If you already have a plan, a coach, a spreadsheet, or a book you trust, and you want a fast, well-built place to write it down, use Strong. If you want the plan itself, use Compound.

What is Strong good at?

Strong is a genuinely well-built workout logger. It times your rest with a timer you set once and it remembers per exercise. It tracks RPE, runs supersets, and takes any custom exercise you add, which matters because Strong is explicitly built to run whatever program you already follow: its own listing describes itself as "optimized for a progressive barbell routine such as Starting Strength or StrongLifts 5x5, but easily adaptable to any other routine." It logs to Apple Health, exports your whole history to CSV, and ships a fully-featured Apple Watch app that can run a workout with or without the phone nearby.

The free tier logs unlimited workouts, with one real limit: three saved custom routines. Strong PRO removes that cap and adds the rest of the analytics layer: a plate calculator, a warm-up calculator, body part measurements, a muscle heat map, and the full chart set showing your best sets and estimated one-rep max over time. PRO costs $4.99 a month, $19.99 for six months, $29.99 a year, or a one-time $99.99, per the App Store listing and Strong's own help center, both checked August 22, 2026. Pricing varies by region and by platform, and Apple and Google both run limited-time offers on top of it from time to time.

None of that is a knock. A fast, well-instrumented log is a real product, and for a lifter who already knows what to do, it is most of what they need.

What does bringing your own program cost you?

It costs you a running list of decisions, every session, that Strong times and records but never makes for you. Before you touch a bar, something, you, a coach, a book, or last week's notes, has to answer:

• Which exercises today, and in what order
• How many sets per exercise
• What rep range or rep target
• What weight to load
• How long to rest between sets
• When to add weight, and how much

Strong is built to receive those answers, not produce them. Its own positioning says as much: it is for "anyone and everyone, no matter your experience level, training program or expertise," which is another way of saying a program is assumed to exist before you open the app. For a lifter who already has one, that assumption is exactly right. For everyone else, six decisions a session is six chances to guess, second-guess, or skip the session because nobody feels like doing the arithmetic tonight.

How does Compound answer each of those decisions?

Compound answers all six before you open the app, because the plan is fixed. Exercises and their order come from a four-day pull, push, legs, and auxiliary rotation, with push sitting between pull and legs so the heavy deadlift and the heavy squat-and-RDL day are never back to back. Sets and rep ranges are fixed per exercise, from three sets of three to five on the deadlift up to three sets of twelve to fifteen on lateral raises and curls. Weight comes from automatic double progression: hit every set at the target, at one weight, and the next session asks for one more rep; top out the range and the app adds a plate jump, 5 lb on barbell compounds and 2.5 lb on isolation work, and resets the target to the bottom.

Rest comes from three tiers set by exercise: 180 seconds for heavy compound lifts, 120 for moderate work like the overhead press and split squats, and 90 for isolation and finishing movements, started automatically the moment you log a set. Every session opens with a warm-up, light cardio, the day's dynamic movements, then three ramp-up sets at 40, 60, and 80 percent of your working weight, and closes with about ten minutes of mobility matched to what you just trained.

How do Compound and Strong compare, decision by decision?

They land on opposite defaults for nearly every decision a session requires.

Who should use Strong instead?

Anyone who already has a program they trust should use Strong to run it, not Compound. That covers more lifters than a comparison article usually admits: anyone working with a coach who writes weekly programming, anyone in a powerlifting peaking block with prescribed percentages and specific accessory work, anyone running a program from a book (Starting Strength, 5/3/1, a GZCL template, an nSuns spreadsheet), and anyone whose training includes movements outside a four-day lifting split entirely, Olympic lifts, strongman events, a machine circuit, cardio intervals. Strong's own listing is explicit that it is built for exactly this range, adaptable to any routine, with a custom exercise field for anything not already in its library. Compound's plan is fixed to its own four days, pull, push, legs, and auxiliary, and nothing else. If your training does not fit inside that, Compound is the wrong app, not the better one.

Where does your training data live?

Compound keeps your training history as a single JSON file in Application Support, on your device, with no account and no server; there is nothing to create, nothing to log into, and nothing to sync, because there is nowhere else for the data to go. Strong takes a different approach: local storage by default, with a free account and Strong Cloud available if you want your history to follow you across an iPhone, an Android phone, and an Apple Watch. Neither model is careless. They are different answers to whether a lifting log should live in one place or several, and whether "several" is worth an account.

What is Compound's honest limit?

Compound will not let you log an exercise it does not already know. There is no custom exercise field, no way to bolt on a coach's accessory movement, no way to add a fifth day. That is the trade the whole app makes: you give up the choice of what goes on the bar, and in exchange you never have to make that choice again. If the plan already covers what you train, four days a week, pull, push, legs, and auxiliary, that trade is a good one. If it does not, use Strong, and bring your own program.