The Best Workout Apps of 2024

Daily Burn has a vast catalog of almost every kind of workout you can think of—strength training, HIIT, barre, pilates, yoga, outdoor and treadmill running, and more. Most are available in video formats, but many, like the running workouts and meditation classes, are in audio formats.

The main pull of the app is that a new workout is streamed every day at 9 a.m.—the ones I caught were reruns, but it’s nice to know that you can do a workout every single day with a bunch of (virtual) friends. (You can also catch them later in the day or any time in the future, if 9 in the morning doesn’t suit your routine.)

The instructors described the exercises well in the workouts I tried, but I needed to look at the screen pretty much the whole time. So it’s probably not the best option if you are planning on using your fitness app at the gym, unless you stick with the audio-only workouts. In fact, I’d say that the videos are best watched on a tablet, laptop screen, or TV because the bigger screen allows you to pick up the moves better. Overall, it’s a great app with effective workouts to do at home.

Daily Burn offers a longer free trial than most apps—30 days—but it also costs more once that trial is up, at $20 a month (Amazon Prime users can get it for $15 a month).

The Pro (paid) version of comprehensive lifestyle app 8fit offers personalized workout plans, meal plans, recipes, and a meal log. It has a “basic” free option, but it’s very basic and seems to function mainly as a way to make you aware of the paid app. In it, you get a few decent beginner workouts to do on your own but still see everything that’s available in the paid app. If you click on anything that isn’t included in the free version, it triggers an upgrade request.

If you decide to upgrade, a quiz asks about workout goals, level, and preferences, eating styles, and how much work you want to put into making your meals. Then you have access to a workout plan that might include a mix of tabata, pilates, HIIT, yoga, and more. You also get a meal plan based on your goals and food preferences.

I liked that 8fit takes a holistic approach to overall health as opposed to straight-up weight loss. I also enjoyed the workouts I tried, which were explained and demonstrated clearly, though occasionally repetitive. I also didn’t find them particularly challenging based on what I had entered into my quiz, and in my own searching, I found the app offers far more beginner videos than intermediate and advanced ones. But that's what makes 8fit a great option for newbies, especially those who want a simple way to integrate new exercise and eating habits into their routine.

The 8fit app offers a 14-day trial of its Pro version, which costs $25 a month if paid monthly, but offers steep discounts if you commit to a longer program: $39 for three months ($13.33 a month) or $79 for a year ($6.67).

I was surprised by how much I liked Sworkit (a portmanteau of “simply” and "work it”), an app that previously earned our choice for Best Value (before Nike went totally free).

Sworkit costs $10 a month for a month-to-month membership and $60 for a full year and, for everything you get with it, that's a steal. Sworkit is excellent: easy to use, with a vast assortment of customizable workouts, including strength, cardio, yoga, and warmups and cooldowns.

When you sign up, you take a brief quiz, which gives you an option to join a program or toggle between different workouts. The thing that set Sworkit apart for me, however, is that you can pick how long you want each workout to be based on how much time you have, from one minute to an hour. Other apps allow some degree of customization by filtering workouts by length, but this one actually allows you to pick the workout you want to do, then set the time.

It also has good music playlists—full of real music by artists you’ve heard of, not the royalty-free tunes you sometimes get on apps. And you can listen to music through the app, on Sworkit's channels on Spotify or Apple Music, or your own playlists, if you prefer.

My quibbles with Sworkit are minimal. The videos are serviceable in that they show a looping video of an exercise along with clear audio narration, but they can get dull to watch and make it easy to zone out of the workout, especially if you are partial to exercise videos where you see people doing the moves in real-time.

The app offers a one-week free trial, which should be enough for you to decide if you think it's worth the lower-than-most price.

The Workout Trainer by Skimble is a very good all-around fitness app. It offers programs for beginners as well as general options sorted into categories like “Lose Weight,” “Strengthen Core,” “Build Muscle,” “Improve Endurance,” and “Improve Flexibility." You may also pick your own workouts, based on type, difficulty level, muscles worked, and more.

I liked the workouts I tried, which mainly consisted of bodyweight-only exercises and made it clear in the description if they required extra equipment. The instructions are easy to understand and the moves are demonstrated by a 3D-animated avatar, which I didn’t love aesthetically, but adequately provides correct form cues. Skimble also lets you connect with personal trainers on the app, though there is an extra charge for that service and I didn’t try it out. I also didn’t test the newer heart-rate training option that allows you to pair a heart rate chest strap to the app for additional training feedback.

The app sends you slightly shame-y notifications if you miss a workout, which could be a boon or detriment, depending on what motivates you. (If you don’t like that, you can always turn the notifications off.)

The Workout Trainer by Skimble offers a free version that lets you try out the workouts, but upgrading to Pro+ gets you training programs and much more for a lower-than-most fee of $7 a month or $60 a year after a one-week free trial.

The Peloton app is not just for use with a fancy stationary bike. The mobile app has options for strength, cardio, yoga, running, and, yes, cycling classes, all of which you can take live, though the bulk of the live classes are on a stationary bike or treadmill.

For the most part, Peloton lives up to the hype. I particularly enjoyed the audio-only outdoor walking and running classes, in which a coach picks a playlist and talks you through a 20- to 45-minute workout, while the app tracks how far you went and your overall pace.

That said, I found some of the strength and cardio video classes a little hard to follow. It was cool to see how many other people were in the class with me—Peloton does this whether the class is live or not, but the classes themselves were just OK to me.

It also didn’t have me take any kind of quiz when I first downloaded the app—I added in some basic information like my height and weight later, but I had to search for the place to do so myself—so it's less customized than other apps. (It appears that a workout questionnaire has been subsequently added, but it just asks for preferences of style of workout and music you like, not goals you hope to achieve.)

Still, Peloton has a lot of workout options, so anyone of any fitness level is likely to get something out of it—particularly if you have a treadmill or stationary bike (the company's or another brand's). Either way, the app costs more than some, at $13 a month, but offers a full month trial so you have ample time to decide for yourself if it will be worth it for you.

As an action star, Chris Hemsworth works out a lot. So it makes sense that he founded a fitness and lifestyle app, called Centr, that has workouts, recipes, and meal plans for people who want to get a feel for what it's like to exercise like Thor.

When you download the app, you take a quiz that asks your body stats, fitness level, goals, and eating preferences (“regular,” vegetarian, pescatarian, vegan, and so on). It gives you a workout to do every day—most are about 30 minutes, though some days it told me to do two different ones in the same day—and an eating plan to follow.

The workouts it served up to me every day were cardio and muscle-focused, like HIIT, bodyweight strength training, and kickboxing classes, but you can also search for yoga and pilates classes. Some workouts are “coached,” which means they follow the format of a typical workout video, and others are self-guided, which means you watch a looped video of a certain exercise and do it until the timer runs out. I liked both variations, but the app didn’t let me listen to my own music during the coach-led classes, which could be a turnoff for some people.

If you are considering getting this app just so you can work out with Chris Hemsworth every day, you may be disappointed. Though Hemsworth appears in some videos, most of the routines are led by (excellent) coaches.

Centr costs $30 a month, which makes it the most expensive app we tested, though it offers a one-month free trial and steep discounts for paying quarterly ($60, which works out to $20 a month) or annually ($120, or $10 a month).

If you're looking for something of a lifestyle overhaul, with meal plans and efficient, effective workouts—and don’t mind paying for it—Centr is a good option.

To use Apple Fitness+, Apple’s workout app, you must have an iPhone, but you’ll get even more out of it with a paired Apple Watch Series 3 or newer. Depending how deep into the Apple universe you are, that’s either good or bad news.

Once you’re signed up, Fitness+ streams its workouts on iPhones, iPads, and Apple TVs. As a workout platform, Fitness+ builds off the concept of Apple’s fitness rings—i.e., the way the watch measures certain wellness goals—and uses its exercise classes to help users hit them. (Or “close the rings,” in Apple parlance.)

There’s no intro quiz, because Apple already has your data from when you set up your phone or watch. Once you’re in the app, you can choose from 10 types of exercise classes, including HIIT, yoga, core, strength, treadmill, cycling, rowing, dance, and “mindful cooldown” (stretches paired with a short meditation sequence). The classes play as videos led by trainers, all of which are between 5 and 45 minutes long and can be accessed on any (Apple) screen of your choosing.

The app also has Watch-only outdoor walking sessions, in which celebrities—who range from singer Dolly Parton to basketball player Draymond Green—chat at you and play some of their favorite tunes as you stroll. All of its classes are on-demand, which means there are no live workouts.

That it’s (understandably) iOS-only knocked it down a couple of pegs. The workouts are also equipment-heavy—you can find bodyweight workouts, but the app is best used with a big piece of cardio equipment like a treadmill or elliptical and a set of dumbbells. I thought there was too much emphasis on the fitness rings, which could encourage users to only go for high-intensity classes and skip out on mind-body ones that are important but don’t burn as many calories.

Other than that, I enjoyed the classes, instructors, and how seamlessly the metrics flowed between the watch and workout screen. The higher-intensity classes—HIIT, treadmill, cycling, and rowing—use something called a “burn bar,” which compares your stats to others who have taken the class and shows a visual comparison of where you stack up. I liked that graphic—I thought it provided competition without feeling overwhelming—but if you don’t, you can hide it from the screen.

Bottom line: If you’re an Apple devotee, you should give Apple Fitness+ a try, as first-time users get a free one-month trial. If you have an Apple Watch, the biometric integration may also appeal—and if you’re planning to get one, that’s another reason to give it a shot: a new Apple Watch purchase comes with a free three-month trial. Beyond that, Apple Fitness+ costs $10 a month or $80 a year.

There’s a lot to like about Obé, the pastel-hued fitness app that you may have seen on your Instagram feed. Obé offers at least 10 live classes each day and more than 10,000 classes in total—most are 28 minutes long, though there are options from 5 to 60 minutes.

The app suggests aiming for five classes a week, broken up into two “sweat” classes (dance, HIIT, and cardio boxing) and three “define” classes (pilates, weightlifting, and barre.) It also offers three variations of “flow” classes—yoga, sculpting yoga, and restorative stretching. All the classes are easy to sort through, but I found myself drawn to Obé’s live classes more than I was with other apps.

When you open the app, if there is currently a live class, it’ll already be playing on the screen, so all you have to do to join it is expand the window. When you do, the instructor will greet you by your name, because classes—at least all the ones I took—actually are live.

At $25 a month or $170 a year, Obé is one of the more expensive apps we tested. Many of its classes also require equipment like dumbbells, resistance loops, and sliders—all of which Obé also sells—and, although most of the instructors offer modifications if you don’t have the equipment, this wasn’t always the case. Finally, many of the classes are dance-focused, and it could be difficult to keep up with the instructors based on audio instruction and occasionally glancing at the screen—particularly if you, like me, are very much not a dancer.

That said, if you favor classes like pilates and cardio dance, vibe with Obé’s sherbet-colored aesthetic, and want an app with easy-to-join live classes, Obé is a solid option.

Freeletics Training Coach, despite the name, is not free. It has a decent amount of free features, with several workouts and single exercise demonstrations, but the bulk of the app's content is behind the paywall. To access this, you take a quiz that asks your goals, fitness level, and how you like to work out, and it suggests a few different programs, most of which are 12 weeks long.

The workouts felt challenging and effective and the instructions were clear and easy to follow. In most of them, the instructions tell you to do things like squats, push-ups, and burpees, with a looping video that shows you proper form, and you click an arrow to tell the app when you’re ready to move on to the next set. I didn’t mind this—it meant I could take my time and work on my form—but someone who likes a more straightforward video format and doesn’t want to keep tapping their phone during the workout might have an issue with it.

All in all, I’d recommend this to someone who knows they want to have a specific, thought-out program, but not someone who wants more flexibility with their workout app. A training and nutrition app is also available, but we didn’t review the diet aspect.

The Freeletics app originates in Europe and bills its plans weekly but in three-, six- or 12-month increments—it costs about $4 a week on the lowest-commitment plan, or $12 to $15 a month, and about $107 a year if paid as an annual plan.

If your main exercise goal is to get toned—or, perhaps, shredded—Shred is the app for you. It offers a wide range of customizable workouts for every part of the body, with options to filter based on the type of movements you want to do and the equipment you have available.

When you download it, you take a quiz that asks standard questions, plus what kind of coaching you prefer—“positive,” which is much like any other kind of workout coaching or “intense,” in which the virtual instructor yells at you, sometimes with foul language. Just for fun, I picked “intense,” which the app made me verify I was sure I wanted. (I didn’t think it was that bad, but double-checking for consent is probably a good idea.)

You can use body weight for the strength routines (most of those got me pretty sweaty), but the app assumes you have access to a treadmill, stationary bike, rower, or elliptical when you click through to cardio-only exercises. The circuit-style exercises seem effective, but if you don’t have any of those machines at home, it’s hard to use the app to get in your cardio. If you do—or plan to use the app at the gym—it won’t be an issue.

I was surprised that I got a lot of notifications every time I finished a workout—all from random names with a message telling me they were proud of me for working out. You can customize your notifications to turn this feature off, but it seemed odd to me that this was the default.

Also odd: The Shred app doesn’t appear to offer a month-to-month subscription and costs $100 a year with a one-week free trial.

NeoU (“new you,” get it?) is an app that offers access to HIIT, bootcamp, yoga, barre, and more, taught by instructors from name-brand fitness studios, such as YogaSix, Forme Barre, and Vixen Workout. The app also broadcasts “interactive” live classes every day and has a nutrition section with recipe videos, as well as workouts you can do with kids.

Despite the touted two-way video aspect of the studio-style classes, NeoU also felt more impersonal than the other apps I tried. There was no questionnaire when I signed up, so it’s up to the user to sort through NeoU’s (impressive) collection of workout videos. This is fine if you know exactly what kind of workout you like doing, but it could be daunting if you don't.

It also means that, other than the live class feature, NeoU didn’t feel all that different to me from videos one could watch for free on YouTube. No disrespect to those creators, but I think a paid app should have some differentiating features. Still, the workouts are fun, and it’s a cool way to check out the offerings from notable workout studios. NeoU costs $8 a month or $50 a year with a one-week free trial.

Beachbody is a multi-level marketing business, or MLM, which means its products and services are sold by person-to-person sales (you’ve maybe seen some acquaintances shilling it on Facebook). I’m not evaluating that aspect of Beachbody, only the effectiveness of the app itself, but it’s useful to know before getting into it.

Beachbody On Demand has a wide variety of proprietary workout programs—such as P90X, PiYo, and 80 Day Obsession—which encompass HIIT, weightlifting, pilates, yoga, barre, and more. The app all but forces you to go through a program rather than doing one-off workouts. The ones I tried were easy to follow, fun to do, and would no doubt be effective when followed long-term. The app also offers meal plans, recipes, and a place to log workouts and meals.

But I was ultimately turned off by a few things. The first was that, in almost every video, the instructors push Beachbody’s protein shake brand, Shakeology—if I’m already paying for a fitness plan, I don’t want to be told to buy something else. It’s also nice to have the option to do one-off videos on your own, rather than feeling like you’re giving up on a program if you want to do something else one day.

Finally, everything about Beachbody, from the name to the emphasis on losing weight, seems outdated. Weight loss is a valid reason for starting an exercise program, but Beachbody pushes it in a way that seems built around getting a conventionally acceptable bikini body, rather than developing sustainable habits for long-term health. All in all, the workouts are decent, but there are better options out there.

If you want to give it a go, Beachbody on Demand offers a two-week free trial if you sign up for the three-month plan, which costs $75 ($25 a month) after the trial period. You can get a better deal if you opt to pay for six months up front ($90, or $15 a month) or a year ($120, or $10 a month), and the annual plan has a free 30-day trial.

The Seven app has an appealing premise: a full workout in 7 minutes. When you download the app, you take a quiz that asks your goals, and if you want a reminder to work out. The workouts themselves are simple, with exercises like jumping jacks, wall sits, planks, and push-ups, demonstrated with animated graphics.

The seven-minute routine got my heart pumping, but I didn’t feel like I was done with exercising for the day when I finished. It’s pretty easy to stack workouts until you feel appropriately worked out, but I got bored of the repetitive narration and simple exercises.

I think Seven is a good option for someone who wants to learn the fundamentals of working out or has trouble starting a habit but doesn’t have a ton of time and space. Seven offers a decent number of free workouts so you can see if you like it. Otherwise, it costs $5 a month or $40 a year with a one-week free trial.