Strava alternatives
Run, ride and walk tracking with routes, splits and a training log.
3 of its 6 core features can be rebuilt with AI. Here is one, working, below.
- They makeRevenue estimate on Sensor Tower
- $18M a month
- You pay
- $80 a year
- AI can rebuild
- 3 of 6 core features
Try it
Visual demo only. Copy the prompt below to get the app.
Build it yourself
Real files on your machine, a real database, and it is yours. This one carries the interface as well — the layout, the colours and the shape of the real app, read off its own screens.
Each opens with the prompt loaded and waiting — nothing is sent until you press enter. It is copied at the same time, in case the app is not installed.
Build me a local running and cycling tracker I own, to replace Strava. - A web app I run on my own machine: a single Node process serving one page, SQLite next to it, Leaflet drawing the map. - Import rather than record: parse GPX, TCX and FIT files off my watch or phone, so a device built for tracking does it and this is the log. - Model it properly: activities, and a trackpoints table with time, latitude, longitude, elevation and heart rate. Distance, pace, moving time and splits are derived from those points, so a correction fixes every figure. - Moving time from a speed threshold, splits per kilometre or mile including the part-finished last one, and pace for runs but speed for rides. - Phone and watch elevation drifts. Correct it against an SRTM tile downloaded once, and keep the raw figure too. - Map tiles from OpenStreetMap, cached to disk so old activities open offline. - A training log with weekly and monthly totals, and personal bests from my own trackpoints: fastest kilometre, fastest 5k, longest ride. - One command to import a folder of GPX files, one to export to CSV and GPX, one to back up. - Binds to localhost only. No accounts, no telemetry, nothing uploaded. - Skip: segments, leaderboards, kudos and clubs. Those are other people's efforts, and inventing rivals would be a lie. - Include a README with setup, and where the database and tile cache live. ## Look and feel Strava's own — clean white, bright orange on the primary button and the route line, the map given the most space, headline stats in a bold row underneath. Generous spacing, clear hierarchy, big tap targets, phone-readable type, system font. Keep the text dark enough to read at a glance: the softness of a palette belongs to the shapes and the fills, never to the words. Nothing I need to read — dates, numbers, labels — in pale grey on white.
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Feature by feature
Every feature, whether AI can rebuild it, and what you would be signing up to keep running if you did. The paid app does that last column for you, and that is most of what the money buys.
| Feature | Core | AI can rebuild | You'd maintain |
|---|---|---|---|
| Record a run or ride with GPSBrowsers have read your location for years. What they will not do is keep tracking after you lock the phone, and that is the part a real app is for. | Yes | Partly | Only while the screen is on and the page is in front |
| Distance, moving time, pace and speedThis is arithmetic on a list of points. There is nothing proprietary in it. | Yes | Yes | Nothing |
| A map of the route you tookDrawing the shape of your route is free. Putting streets and place names underneath it is somebody else's map. | Yes | Partly | Map tiles come from someone else |
| Splits for every kilometre or mile | Yes | Yes | Nothing |
| Elevation gain and a climb profileThe maths is simple. The reading is noisy, and the paid apps quietly correct it against a terrain map. | Yes | Partly | Phone altitude readings drift |
| Training log with weekly and monthly totals | Yes | Yes | Nothing |
| Segments and leaderboardsThis is the whole moat. A segment is only interesting because thousands of other people have run it, and no prompt produces other people's efforts. | No | No | You would be racing nobody |
| Kudos, comments and the activity feedThe social feed is the reason a lot of people finish the run at all, and it needs friends, not code. | No | No | You would be the only person there |
| Club challenges and monthly goalsA personal distance goal is easy. A challenge is a goal with everyone else in it. | No | Partly | Only against yourself |
What you give up
- segments and the leaderboards that make them worth chasing
- kudos from people who know you
- tracking that carries on with the phone in your pocket
- clubs, challenges and everyone else's routes
Why people still pay
The tracking half of Strava is a stopwatch and some arithmetic, and it has been free on the web for a decade. People pay for the other athletes: the segment with four thousand names on it, and the friends who notice when you stop running.
Or use one somebody already built
Free and open source. No prompt, no building, no subscription.
- OpenTracks
- A proper GPS tracker with no account and no server. It records, it maps, it exports, and it never asks who you are. (android)
- Strava free tier
- Worth saying plainly: recording your activity and seeing distance, time and pace costs nothing. The subscription mostly buys the competitive layer. (web, ios, android)
Other apps people are freeing
Questions
- Can AI really replace Strava?
- 3 of its 6 core features, yes. The demo above is what one prompt produced. What it cannot do is on this page too.
- What does Strava cost?
- About $80 a year on the Strava subscription plan. Recording activities and seeing your own distance, time and pace is free. Segment leaderboards, route planning, best efforts and the deeper analysis are paid.
- Is there a free alternative to Strava?
- Yes: OpenTracks, Strava free tier. They are listed below, and they are somebody else's finished work rather than yours.