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Taking care of your body is both important and extremely personal. You might prefer to work out in a gym or in your own home. You might crave yoga or you could be all about jogging the streets of your neighborhood. You might be a total pro or a complete novice. In any or all of these cases, Peloton, the beloved at-home fitness giant, has options for you—and two of those options are apps. The original Peloton app and Strength+ are both available on iOS (original here and Strength+ here), though only the original is available elsewhere, like on Android devices and even your Roku. They do pretty different things, and that's particularly nice if you have Peloton's All Access Membership, which entitles you to full use of both of them. But if you don't pay $44 per month for that (or you just have low phone storage space), you might not be sure which is right for you. Here's a breakdown.
Strength+ is really just for strength
Here's the thing: Both apps have strength training options available. In the original Peloton app, you can access guided strength classes and you have a few ways to filter your search results, like by length or instructor. Ultimately, you watch an instructor perform the exercises in real time with you. Typically, these only use dumbbells, they feature music, and you can watch them on-demand.
Strength+ is very different. Where the original app has a variety of class types—running, walking, meditating, cycling, yoga, and many more—Strength+ only has strength training available. What's more, the workouts are not presented in a class format. That is, you're not watching an instructor do each movement and working alongside them. Instead, the app shows you a list of recommended exercises to complete and provides you with a looping gif of someone performing each one so you know exactly how it should look. When I say the app recommends exercises, I mean it: You can enter hyper-customized inputs and Strength+ will automatically generate workouts for you based on those. You can indicate, among other things, what type of equipment you have available, how long you want to work out, whether you want to warm up and/or cool down, what muscle group you want to target, and whether you're a beginner, intermediate, or advanced. The app allows you to indicate access to both at-home equipment, like resistance bands and dumbbells, as well as machines more commonly found at the gym, so regardless of where you're doing the workout and what you have nearby, the list of exercises precisely matches up with what you can actually do.
The Peloton app is for everything else
As I mentioned, the standard Peloton app is very instructor-based and covers a very wide variety of workout types. You can use it to provide audio guidance while you walk around your neighborhood or find treadmill-based workouts, stretching classes, cardio classes, and a ton more. Classes come in a few different languages, can be accessed live or on-demand, and don't require you to have Peloton-branded equipment. With the app, there's nothing stopping you from taking a cycling or treadmill class on a different company's bike or treadmill—just be aware that some of the cues and references might not add up and, of course, your progress won't be tracked the way it would be if you were using their equipment.
I love this app because I can get it to play on my TV through my Roku, so I don't have to crane my neck and look at my phone when I'm trying to figure out a yoga pose in my living room. It's also awesome for using at the gym, where I occasionally do a treadmill workout with it. Be advised, though, that you can't download the classes, so if you try to access the app offline, you won't get much out of it.
Similarities between Peloton's apps
Both apps do give you the option to do strength training of some kind and both of them use your Peloton account, so they sync up nicely. When I complete a Strength+ workout, it counts toward my daily "streak" the same as a cycling class or stretching session would. They both can also sync up with your phone's health-tracking system, which for me means that my movement is tracked by my Apple Watch and counts toward my daily Apple Health goals.
They're both also very easy to navigate, with simple menus along the bottom of the home screen that can bring you to a home page, your profile, or a list of workouts. They're both easy to follow and use from the moment you download them.
Pricing considerations
Again, with Peloton's $44/month All Access Membership, you can use either of these apps at no additional cost. Because I have the Peloton Bike and ride it nearly every day, it just makes sense for me to have the All Access, but I also know there are plenty of people who don't have Peloton equipment and still rely on the app(s) for some extra guidance during workouts, whether at home or in the gym. In that case, you'll pay a bit. The price for the Peloton app without an All Access Membership is $12.99 per month; Strength+ is $1 per month for the first six months, then $9.99 a month after that.
I don't consider either of those prices particularly prohibitive, given all you get from either app.
Your best bet is...
Stick with the original app if you can't choose
The customizability on Strength+ is great, but if you are only getting one app, it should be the original, as it leaves plenty of space for you to do strength training and all kinds of other workouts. I've found the treadmill workouts really engaging, for instance, and I do not consider myself a treadmill kind of girl. Having the ability to take classes and get instruction in not only strength training, but stretching and cardio, too, makes the original the winner.
