Comparison

Cadence vs Stride

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Cadence

Track your daily steps, distance, floors climbed, and calories burned with a focus on simplicity and privacy. Set custom weekday and weekend goals and visualize your activity patterns with interactive heatmaps. Integrates seamlessly with Apple Watch.

Highlights
  • Daily step, distance, floors, and calorie tracking
  • Customizable weekday and weekend goals
  • Interactive hour-by-hour heatmaps
  • Apple Watch app and complications
  • Private by design, no account required
  • Automatic iCloud history restore
Features
Read full description

Step tracking that stays out of your way Cadence helps you build a consistent walking habit without the usual noise. No social feed. No gamification. No upsells. Just an honest, clear picture of how you move every day. Weekday and Weekend Goals Most days aren't the same, so your goals shouldn't be either. Set separate targets for weekdays and weekends. Cadence automatically applies the right goal each day, and your history always reflects the target that was active on that specific day. Past records are never rewritten. Changed your mind about a goal? You can apply any update retroactively across your entire history with a single tap. Heatmaps You Can Actually Explore See your walking rhythm hour by hour. Scrub through today's heatmap to pinpoint exactly when you were most active, or zoom out to spot long-term patterns across weeks, months, and years. Beautifully color-coded and easy to understand. No chart reading required. Steps, Distance, Floors, and Calories Every day shows your full activity picture — steps, walking distance, flights climbed, and active calories. See how your week is shaping up with a projected end-of-week step total based on your current daily pace. Apple Watch and Complications A native three-page Apple Watch app gives you today's steps and progress, your full week chart, and goal settings directly on your wrist. Eight thoughtfully designed complications work beautifully on any watch face. Goals sync instantly between iPhone and Watch in both directions. Private by Design No account. No sign-up. No ads. Your health data stays on your device and syncs privately through your own iCloud. No analytics. No tracking. Your History, Restored Install Cadence on a new device signed into the same iCloud account and your complete history restores automatically — goals included. No exports or manual backups needed. Core step tracking, the Apple Watch app, and all complications are completely free and will always remain free. There's an optional tip jar if you'd like to support ongoing development.

About

Stride

Track your walks and runs with real-time GPS, rewarding milestones, and personal insights. Monitor shoe mileage, set weekly goals, and advance through lifetime tiers without ads or battery drain.

Highlights
  • Real-Time GPS Tracking
  • Apple Watch Companion
  • Apple Health Integration
  • Weekly Goal Tracking
  • Lifetime Level Progression
  • Personal Records & Analytics
  • Shoe Closet & Health Tracker
Features
Read full description

Stride is a fast, beautiful, and distraction-free walking and running tracker designed to turn your daily mileage and steps into a rewarding journey. Whether you are hitting your daily step goal, taking a morning neighborhood walk, training for your first 5K, or tracking lifetime mileage across your favorite pairs of shoes, Stride delivers real-time GPS tracking, step counting, rewarding milestones, and deep personal insights without the noise, ads, or battery drain of traditional fitness apps. KEY FEATURES - Integrated Step Counting: Track your total steps for every walk, hike, or run. Monitor your step count in real time during active workouts and review total steps in your post-walk summary and history. - Real-Time GPS Tracking & Live Activities: Track distance, active duration, current pace, average pace, elevation gain, and steps with precision. Glance at live workout metrics right from your Dynamic Island and Lock Screen, with customizable split audio announcements. - Apple Watch Companion & Standalone Tracking: Track workouts directly on your wrist with native Apple Watch support. Monitor real-time heart rate and step counts, feel crisp haptic split alerts, and close your Activity rings with full HealthKit integration. Start on your watch and finish on your iPhone (or vice versa) with seamless live mirroring, or leave your phone behind for untethered Watch GPS workouts. - Apple Health Integration: Seamlessly sync your workouts, routes, steps, and active metrics to Apple Health to keep all your fitness data in one place. - Weekly Goal Tracking: Set custom weekly distance goals in miles or kilometers. Watch your weekly progress bar fill up in the History tab, track your goal on your Home Screen widget, and celebrate every time you hit your target. - Lifetime Level Progression: Advance through 10 lifetime tiers from Explorer all the way to Legend. Watch the app theme dynamically shift to match your earned tier, and track your next milestone on the interactive Lifetime Roadmap. - Personal Records & Analytics: Automatically track your all-time fastest achievements across 1-Mile, 5K, 10K, and Half Marathon distances. - Shoe Closet & Health Tracker: Track mileage across your running shoe rotation. Visual wear gauges monitor midsole life and notify you when it is time to retire a pair before injury strikes. - Hands-Free Siri Controls: Pause, resume, or finish workouts hands-free using Siri on your iPhone or AirPods ("Hey Siri, pause Stride"). - External Heart Rate Sensor Support: Connect standard Bluetooth LE chest straps and armbands to stream live heart rate directly into your workout stats. YOUR DATA BELONGS TO YOU - 100% PRIVATE We believe your fitness journey, daily routes, and physical habits are deeply personal. - No Third-Party Accounts: No email signups, no social logins, and no third-party tracking SDKs. - Private iCloud Sync: All workouts, routes, splits, steps, and shoe data are stored strictly on your device and inside your own personal, encrypted Apple iCloud container. - Zero Data Collection: We never have access to your GPS routes, workout history, or personal data. We cannot see, store, share, or sell your data to advertisers or data brokers. Ever. BUILT FOR WALKERS & RUNNERS - Customizable Units of Distance: Easily switch between miles and kilometers. - Light & Dark Modes: Clean, modern interface designed specifically for iOS and watchOS. - Battery & Storage Optimized: Lightweight data footprint ensures long battery life and minimal storage impact. Move with purpose. Track with pride. Download Stride today! SUBSCRIPTION & TERMS Stride offers an optional annual auto-renewable subscription (Stride Pro) with a 14-day free trial. See full terms and privacy policy at these links: Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://sites.google.com/view/strideapp/privacy-policy

Screenshots

Cadence4 screens
Stride4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is monetization model: Cadence at free against Stride's freemium. Stride's advantage is update cadence (every 5 days vs fortnightly). On price, rating, ratings volume and ads there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Cadence sells 5 one-off in-app purchases and Stride sells 1 in-app purchase, starting at $1.99 per year. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for Cadence against 5.0 for Stride. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 4 and 3 respectively.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Cadence ships an update fortnightly, Stride every 5 days. Both last shipped on October 31, 2026.

Scorecard2 real differences · 7 level
Cadence versus Stride: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterCadenceStride
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (4 ratings)5.0 (3 ratings)
Number of ratings4 — better3
Update frequencyFortnightlyEvery 5 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree — betterFreemium
DevicesiPhone, Apple WatchiPhone, Apple Watch
Requires iOS17.617.6
Further details — not scored
Size5 MB10 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperVlad GankinMatthew Adjemian

In-app purchases

5 purchases

Cadence

One-time5
  • Small Coffee$0.99
  • Medium Coffee$1.99
  • Large Coffee$2.99
Show 2 more
  • Coffee & Muffin$3.99
  • You're too kind$4.99
1 purchases

Stride

Subscriptions1
  • Stride Pro Annual14 Days trial$1.991 Year

Questions

Is Cadence free?
Cadence is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Stride free?
Stride is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Cadence or Stride?
Cadence and Stride are both rated 5.0 out of 5 on the App Store, from 4 and 3 ratings respectively.
Do Cadence or Stride have ads?
Neither Cadence nor Stride shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Cadence or Stride?
Cadence ships an update fortnightly, and Stride every 5 days. Most recently, Cadence was updated on October 31, 2026 and Stride on October 31, 2026.

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