Strava reviews
What users love and hate, from real reviews
The gold-standard tracker for running and cycling with a strong social layer, now bleeding the trust of long-time users by moving once-free features behind a subscription and flooding the interface with «buy Premium» popups.
What users love
The gold standard for accurate tracking and analytics — when it works
For its happy users this is the best tracker out there: accurate GPS, clean breakdowns of distance, pace and segments, clear progress over time. Many call it the «gold standard» for runners and cyclists and praise the low battery drain.
The gold standard for runners and cyclists. Accurate GPS tracking, fantastic community features, and great performance analytics to track progress over time
The GPS tracking is incredibly accurate, the interface is clean, and the data breakdowns give you the perfect amount of insight without being overwhelming.
I love how strava breaks everything down so I can see progress.
A social network for athletes that motivates and hasn't drowned in ads or toxicity
Its strongest side is the community: kudos, segment leaderboards, challenges and following friends genuinely motivate people to train on days they'd rather not. It's one of the rare social networks people call «good for you».
It's one of the rare social networks that is GOOD for you.
It helps me stay motivated and monitor my progress. This app keeps me motivated to stay active.
pushes you to beat segments, features exclusive rewards for challenges and gets you active
What users hate
Once-free features moved behind the paywall — a bait-and-switch feeling
Long-time users are furious: features they relied on for free for years now require a subscription. Maps, search, activity breakdowns, sharing — they all migrated into Premium one by one, and without paying the app «won't let you do anything».
Leading athletics app until they put every single feature that was previously free behind a paywall.
almost every feature is paid nothing is free
use to be cool but they put everything behind pay walls and made it too expensive
Subscription popups on every tap make the app nearly unusable
The loudest complaint: you can't press a single button without a «buy Premium» popup. Two popups just for finishing an activity, ads blocking the record button — users call the UX «desperate» and «pathetic».
it is literally impossible to press any button and not get a pop-out to buy premium, this makes the UX appalling and the app barely usable.
Too many annoying popups nagging about the subscription all the time. Two of them just for finishing an activity, seriously?!
the subscribe popularity just blocked my keypress to record my ride
Recording cuts out mid-activity and loses the whole route
The core technical failure: the app silently stops recording, then greets you at the end with «Strava recovered from a problem» — with nothing actually saved. People lose half-marathons and long rides, and it has gone on for years.
im tired of "an unexpected error occured, your recording has now resumed" greeting me at the END of my workout, meaning NOTHING was actually recorded at all.
Stopped recording in the middle of my longest run Edit: did it again
Stops logging without any warning. Then "resumes" by connecting two last logged points with straight line. Deleted.
GPS «bounces» and miscounts distance — stats come out wrong
Distance is systematically off: a 30-mile ride logged as 16, a 21-mile ride as 0.11. GPS throws you into the next street from inside a stadium, and in the mountains or among skyscrapers the track falls apart entirely.
It gave me credit for 0.11 miles.
Now it's counting 30 mile bike rides as 16 miles and 16 mile bike rides as 9. The loop I ride is 8 miles. 2 laps can't be 9 miles!!!!
Even when I am running inside a stadium, at random points it puts me outside in the street.
Charges without consent after a «free trial» — money meant for school and food
A whole stream of identical stories, especially from the Philippines: 1500–2999 pesos pulled from GCash/bank accounts without confirmation, often money set aside for school. The «free trial» quietly becomes a yearly plan, and refunds get delayed or denied.
my account charged me 1500 Philippine pesos and I unsubscribed because of fear that it might charge more
I understand that I may have activated a free trial, but I did not intend to subscribe to the one-year plan. I was also not clearly notified or asked for confirmation before the payment was charged
i got charged 2,999.00 pesos without confirmation. i barely used the app. They wont refund me. scammer
One-time-code login breaks and locks you out of your account
Removing Facebook login and switching to 6-digit email codes left people locked out — including paying subscribers. Codes «aren't accepted», an endless «try again with a new code» loop, and support tickets sit unanswered for weeks.
Completely locked out of my paid subscription due to the Facebook login removal. Opened Ticket #4063497 weeks ago with zero response.
constantly looping at signup with try again with new code. Frustrating jank.
Now strava wont even recognize the code they send to log in. So totally locked out.
Support goes silent, and accounts get banned with no explanation
Tickets sit for weeks with zero reply, and some users get banned «for logging workouts» with no reason given. Support is described as «non-existent» — not afraid to take your money, but unwilling to help.
terrible customer service but they are not afraid to take your money
They disable your account with no explanation and no reason and the customer service is very slow and useless
I was inexplicably banned for simply logging my workouts and following other athletes. Their support team is non-existent
Screenshot interception forces «share» and gets in the way of saving ride data
Take a screenshot of your own data and a window pops up saying «just share it through us», with no way to turn it off. It breaks scrolling screenshots and annoys people whose actual share function doesn't show what they want.
The screenshot intercept feature asking me to "share" needs an option to stop asking, because it make it impossible to take scrolling screenshots.
Who changes an app to make you pay to screenshot your runs?!
If I take a screenshot of ride data, Strava pops up a window telling me I can just share the ride. This is trash software by a trash company.
Poor syncing with watches and third-party services
Galaxy Watch and Samsung Health, Whoop, Oura, Huawei Health, Shimano E-Tube — integrations either won't connect or import garbage (a 21-minute swim becomes 1h 34min). People end up running two apps at once.
Won't connect to Samsung Health.
I'm uninstalling this because the distance never syncs up with my Galaxy Watch 7/Samsung Health and it always says I ran a shorter distance.
I swam for about 21 minutes, but the app says the workout lasted 1h 34min. I have no idea where it gets these values from
Forced AI and bloated updates crowd out what used to work
Long-time subscribers beg them to «not go down this AI nonsense»: AI insights and AI workouts are useless, the «muscle map» is constantly wrong and can't be disabled, new animations lag. The app gets «worse every update».
please dont go down this AI generated nonsense. been a subscriber for years and I find the ai insights and the ai workouts completely useless.
"Muscle map" that is constantly wrong (it is correct in Garmin) and can't be disabled.
it's messy and laggy with fancy gimmicks that don't add to functionality.