NaMiVisa vs FitNotes: Which Free Workout Tracker Should You Use?

FitNotes has a small but genuinely loyal following, and it earned that loyalty honestly: no premium tier, no subscription, no upsell screen waiting behind a feature you actually need. It's one of the only workout trackers that means it when it says "free." That reputation is well deserved, and it's worth saying upfront.

NaMiVisa is also free — indefinitely, with the full feature set unlocked — but the two apps arrived at "free" from different directions and built very different things on top of it. FitNotes is a minimal, Android-only logging tool that hasn't changed much in years. NaMiVisa is a full training journal with automatic PR detection, volume trends, body metrics, and recovery tracking. Here's an honest look at where each one actually holds up.

The short version

• FitNotes is completely free with no premium tier — genuinely $0 forever, which is rare in this category.
• It's Android only. There's no iOS app and no web version, so iPhone users and anyone who wants to log from a browser are locked out entirely.
• Development has been essentially dormant for years — no new features, and no guarantee of continued updates or support.
• Progress tracking stops at per-exercise history: no automatic PR detection, no volume trend chart, no body metrics, no recovery tracking.
• NaMiVisa is also free indefinitely, works on any device through the browser, and is actively developed — with PRs, volume trends, body metrics, and recovery tracking built in from the start.

What FitNotes actually gets right

It's worth taking this seriously: FitNotes does exactly what it promises and nothing more. You open it, pick an exercise, log your sets, and close it. There's no onboarding flow, no account to create, no data leaving your phone. For a lifter who wants the digital equivalent of a paper notebook — fast entry, zero friction, zero cost, ever — FitNotes delivers precisely that, and it has for years without changing the deal on its users.

That reliability is the whole pitch. There's no risk of a pricing model shifting under you, no premium tier suddenly gating a feature you relied on. If minimal and permanent is what you actually want, FitNotes' simplicity is a feature, not a limitation.

Where it falls short

The limitations start with the platform. FitNotes is Android only — there's no iOS app and no web version, so it simply isn't an option if you're on an iPhone or want to log from a laptop. That alone rules it out for a large share of lifters before any feature comparison even starts.

The bigger issue is what happens after you log a set. FitNotes stores your history per exercise, so you can technically scroll back and see what you did last time. But that's where it stops. There's no automatic personal-record detection — no notification, no highlight, nothing that tells you a set you just logged was actually a PR. There's no volume trend chart showing whether your training is moving up, flat, or down over weeks. And development has been effectively dormant for years, so none of this is likely to change.

Progress tracking and PRs

This is the sharpest difference between the two apps. FitNotes shows you raw history — the sets you logged, in the order you logged them. Figuring out whether you're actually progressing means reading through that history yourself and doing the comparison in your head, session by session.

NaMiVisa does that work automatically. PRs are detected and flagged the moment they happen, no setup required. Weekly volume is charted without you building anything. Every exercise carries its own history, so the "what did I lift last time" lookup is instant instead of a scroll through raw entries.

Body metrics and recovery

FitNotes doesn't track body metrics or recovery at all — no body weight, no body composition, no sleep, energy, or stress logging anywhere in the app. It's scoped entirely to the exercise log, full stop.

NaMiVisa tracks body weight, body fat percentage, muscle mass, and BMI alongside recovery signals — sleep quality, energy, stress, and motivation — all charted next to the training data they explain. If you've ever wondered why a lift felt heavy for no obvious reason, having recovery data sitting next to that session instead of nowhere at all is the difference.

Platform and staying power

FitNotes being Android-only is a hard constraint, not a minor caveat — it's simply not usable on iOS or from a browser. Combined with years of dormant development, the honest read is that what FitNotes does today is close to what it will keep doing indefinitely. That's fine if the current feature set is genuinely all you want, but it's worth going in with that expectation rather than hoping for a PR view or a volume chart to show up later.

NaMiVisa is web-based, so it works on any device — iOS, Android, or desktop — through a browser, with no app store install required. It's actively developed, with iOS and Android native apps currently in progress.

Who should use FitNotes

• You're on Android and want a permanently free, no-account, offline exercise log
• Minimal is the whole point — you want raw history and nothing else layered on top
• You don't need PR detection, volume trends, body metrics, or recovery tracking
• You're not concerned about the app's lack of active development going forward

Who should use NaMiVisa

• You're on iOS, or you want to log from a browser on any device
• You want PRs and volume trends surfaced automatically instead of read off a raw history list
• You want body metrics and recovery tracked alongside your training, not left out entirely
• You want the free tier to be actively maintained, not effectively frozen

Bottom line

FitNotes earns its loyal following honestly — it's genuinely free forever and asks nothing of you beyond that. But it's Android-only, effectively frozen in its current form, and stops at raw exercise history. NaMiVisa matches the free-forever part while adding automatic PRs, volume trends, body metrics, and recovery tracking — on any device, with active development behind it.

There is a live demo account with months of realistic training data you can explore before creating an account — no email required.

NaMiVisa is a free private workout tracker. Learn more →