Top Fitness Apps of 2024: Features Elevate User Experience and Health Goals | PYMNTS.com

Fitness apps continue to evolve as companies introduce features designed to enhance user experience, support personal health goals and create community engagement.

The best fitness apps offer a range of features designed to improve the workout experience, from tracking progress and setting goals to providing personalized workout plans and recovery tips. They simplify fitness routines by offering convenient tools that help users stay motivated, optimize their training and achieve their health goals.

For a closer look, here’s the latest PYMNTS Provider Ranking of Fitness Apps. Check out which fitness apps made our Top 10 list.

The Top 5

No. 1 is Strava, with 98 points.

Strava unveiled new initiatives and product developments aimed at enhancing the experience of its 125 million active users. CEO Michael Martin emphasized two key areas of focus: building for women and using artificial intelligence (AI) to elevate community interactions. Notable features announced included an AI-powered Leaderboard Integrity system to flag irregular activities, and the introduction of a Family Plan Subscription, offering discounts for groups of up to four people. The company also launched Dark Mode, and new updates to features like Flyover, which includes activity stats and off-platform sharing.

Strava’s focus on empowering women in the community was also a central theme, with initiatives such as Night Heatmaps to highlight safe, well-traveled routes for nighttime activities and Quick Edit tools for greater privacy control. To support women in sports, Strava also launched a partnership with TOGETHXR and pledged a $100,000 donation to the Alex Morgan Foundation to help girls and women pursue sports.

Additionally, Strava launched Athlete Intelligence, an AI-powered feature designed to provide personalized performance insights based on activity data, available to subscribers as a public beta. The feature simplifies complex workout data from smartwatches or mobile phones, offering athletes of all levels clear, actionable guidance on metrics like pace, heart rate, elevation and Strava’s proprietary Relative Effort. Athlete Intelligence helps users track progress over time, spot trends, understand performance, celebrate milestones and receive tailored feedback. This feature is available globally in 14 languages.

At No. 2 is Home Workout – No Equipments, recording 88 points.

The Home Workout app offers daily bodyweight exercises targeting major muscle groups, allowing users to build strength and maintain fitness at home without equipment. It includes expert-designed routines for abdominal muscles, chest, legs, arms and full-body workouts, along with features like progress tracking, reminders, tutorial videos and the option to share results on social media.

The beauty of all the workouts? None of them need equipment and take just a few minutes a day.

No. 3 is MyFitnessPal, checking in with 83 points.

MyFitnessPal’s 2024 Summer Release introduced several new features to help users reach their health goals. These include a Progress Bar for real-time tracking, Best Match foods verified by dietitians and Food Group Insights to raise awareness of food intake. Free memberships also include access to motivational features and real-time nutrition feedback, while Premium memberships add advanced features like AI-powered Meal Scan and Multi-Day Logging for meal prep. The updates aim to support behavior change, offering both free and paid members tools to track progress and stay motivated.

Planet Fitness Workouts and Headspace round out the top five with 78 and 75 points, respectively.

The Top 10

Checking in at No. 6 with 70 points is Nike Training Club followed by Map My Run in seventh with 68 points.

Nos. 8 through 10 comprised Peloton, Google Fit and Asics Runkeeper with 67, 63 and 59 points, respectively.