Comparison

Walking Buddy vs Loop

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

Head to head
About

Walking Buddy

Features
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Reminders that say how many steps to take and keep you moving through the day instead of one long walk in the morning or evening. Walking Buddy reads your steps from Apple Health, learns your usual pace, and nudges you when the day starts to slip. No account, no ads. STEPS THAT ADD UP See today's count from Apple Health on a ring with your goal, how far you are ahead of or behind pace, and where the steps landed hour by hour. REMINDERS SIZED TO YOUR DAY Instead of "walk more", each nudge tells you how many steps to take right now to stay on pace, and stops once the goal is done. Choose your active hours and days. Snooze a nudge or mark the day done straight from the notification. YOUR USUAL PACE Walking Buddy learns your typical day from the past four weeks and tells you whether today is ahead, on track or behind, with a projection of where the day will land. GOALS FOR EVERY KIND OF DAY Keep more than one goal active, each on its own days: 10,000 steps on weekdays and 6,000 at the weekend. A day without a goal is a rest day: no reminders, and your streak is safe. HISTORY THAT MEANS SOMETHING Week, month and year views, goal-met days, streaks with rest days that do not break them, and a Steps Log calendar back to your first recorded step. A weekly recap arrives every Sunday evening. ON YOUR APPLE WATCH Today's ring, steps to go and your pace on your wrist, with complications for the watch face and the Smart Stack. The watch app works on its own: it reads steps from the watch, keeps your goal, and lets you change the daily target with the Digital Crown. With the iPhone app installed, the goal stays the same on both. WALKING BUDDY PRO - Reminders on your schedule: every hour, twice an hour, fixed intervals, or your own times - Keep the nudges coming after the goal - Custom reminder messages - Vacation mode: plan the days you are away, with no reminders and your streak safe - Streak protection: one missed day a week does not break your streak - Trends and All Time: four-week trend, this week, month and year against the last, the year as a heat map, typical day with weekday and weekend averages, and every year since your first step - Apple Watch: pace and steps to go on the watch face (rectangular and corner complications), your usual pace and the day by hour PRIVATE BY DESIGN No account, no ads, no analytics. Step data is read from Apple Health and stays on your iPhone and Apple Watch. Goals are stored locally. Walking Buddy is a pedometer built on Apple Health: it works with iPhone step counting and with Apple Watch data that syncs to Apple Health. Pro is a subscription, monthly or yearly with a 7-day free trial, charged to your Apple ID and renewed unless cancelled at least 24 hours before the period ends. Manage it in Settings > Apple ID > Subscriptions. Terms of use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

About

Loop

Features
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LOOP — EVERYTHING YOUR WATCH KNOWS, IN ONE CLEAR OVERVIEW Your Apple Watch measures more than you ever get to see. Loop shows all of it on one calm page, no searching, no tapping through menus. Open the app and your latest run is right there: distance, pace, heart rate, splits, the weather, the route. Swipe for the run before it. CLASSIC DESIGN Warm paper, one amber accent, big clear numbers. No loud colors, no feed, no ads, no account, no subscription. Loop is designed like a good instrument: everything you need, nothing that distracts. THE WEATHER DURING YOUR RUN What no other app does: the weather at the moment you ran. Temperature, feels-like, rain and UV, and for every kilometer whether you had a headwind or a tailwind, calculated from the wind direction and your heading. Now you know why that one kilometer felt harder. WHEN TO GO A score from 1 to 10 for running, cycling, walking and outdoor sports, right now and hour by hour for the rest of the day, with the reason: warm, wind, rain, strong sun. "Best from 6 to 8 pm" — that's all you need to know. EVERYTHING YOUR WATCH RECORDS • Splits per kilometer or mile with pace, heart rate, wind and temperature • Heart rate, cadence, running power, stride length, ground contact time, vertical oscillation, elevation • Cycling power, cadence and speed from paired sensors • The route on a map • Charts in your order: put what matters to you at the top RECORDS Your fastest 1, 2, 5, 10, 15, 20 km, half marathon, 25, 30, 40 km, marathon and 50 km — the top three per distance, even when it was a stretch inside a longer run. A run with a record gets a medal. WORKOUTS Create a pace run, heart rate run or intervals on your iPhone (warm-up, blocks by distance or time, repeats, cool-down). They go to the Watch by themselves. While running you see a speedometer: up is on target, left too slow, right too fast; outside the band you get taps. Share a workout as a TCX file with Strava, Garmin or Komoot. LIST AND FAVORITES All workouts by month, filtered by running, cycling, walking, swimming, other, distance and favorites. Tap and you're in the run. PRIVACY Everything stays on your iPhone. Loop only reads from Health, writes nothing, and has no server of its own. Weather comes from Apple Weather. For iPhone, with workouts from Apple Watch or any app that writes to Health, such as Strava or Garmin. English, Dutch, German, French and Spanish. Kilometers or miles, °C or °F, following your device.

Screenshots

Walking Buddy4 screens
Loop4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Loop at none against Walking Buddy's 2. On price, update cadence, ads and device support 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. Walking Buddy sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per month. Loop asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Walking Buddy ships an update every 2 days, Loop daily. The most recent releases landed on October 29, 2026 and October 18, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard1 real difference · 7 level
Walking Buddy versus Loop: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterWalking BuddyLoop
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (1 ratings) — better—
Number of ratings1 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 2 daysDaily — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
DevicesiPhone, Apple WatchiPhone, Apple Watch
Requires iOS18.017.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size32 MB4 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperRaphael KoebraamDimitry van den Berg

In-app purchases

2 purchases

Walking Buddy

Subscriptions2
  • Pro Monthly: Reminders, Trends$1.991 Month
  • Pro Yearly: Reminders, Trends7 Days trial$19.991 Year
None

Loop

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Walking Buddy free?
Walking Buddy is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Loop free?
Loop is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Walking Buddy or Loop have ads?
Neither Walking Buddy nor Loop shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Walking Buddy or Loop?
Walking Buddy ships an update every 2 days, and Loop daily. Most recently, Walking Buddy was updated on October 29, 2026 and Loop on October 18, 2026.

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