Activy vs. Strava: Why Activy is the Better Solution for Group Fitness Challenges

Organizing a fitness challenge for a team, group of friends, or corporate employees is a great way to motivate individuals, encourage physical activity, and build camaraderie. Whether you're part of a corporate sports club, a team leader looking for ways to integrate your team, or simply a group of sports enthusiasts looking for a fun, competitive activity, it’s essential to choose a platform that not only tracks activity but also ensures engagement, fairness, and scalability. While Strava is a popular app among athletes, it comes with several limitations when used for group challenges. This is where Activy shines, offering more comprehensive features specifically designed for teams and groups of all kinds.

In this article, we’ll compare Activy Lite and Activy Comfort with Strava Clubs and Strava Challenges, focusing on key aspects like pricing, features, statistical access, management tools, and fair play. Let’s see why Activy provides a much more engaging and organized solution for group challenges.

Activy Lite vs. Strava Clubs: A Free Option, But With Limitations

Activy Lite provides a 30-day free trial that allows you to test the platform with up to 10 users. This free version is a perfect starting point for small teams, sports clubs, or casual groups looking to organize a fitness challenge without the initial commitment.

On the other hand, Strava Clubs is also free and can be used by anyone to create clubs and manage group challenges. However, while Strava offers a free entry point, it has significant limitations that make it less suitable for more complex or larger group challenges.

1. Features and Access to Leaderboards

• Activy Lite provides full access to leaderboards, real-time statistics, and advanced reporting, allowing participants and organizers to track performance and engagement on an ongoing basis. The platform tracks multiple dimensions of activity, such as distance, time, streaks, and team rankings, ensuring comprehensive data collection.
• In contrast, Strava Clubs offers weekly leaderboards, which reset every Sunday at 11:59 pm. While clubs can be limited to a specific sport (e.g., cycling, running, swimming), allowing leaderboards based on that sport’s activity (such as distance for cycling), there is also the option to combine multiple sports. In that case, the leaderboard will reflect total activity time rather than distance. However, Strava Clubs lacks long-term tracking or monthly summaries—only data from the past week is available. This makes it harder to track progress over time or engage participants in longer-term challenges.

2. Point System: Engaging, Not Demotivating

• Activy Lite and Activy Comfort use a points-based system to encourage participation and maintain fairness. Points are awarded not only for distance or time but also for regularity, meaning that even less athletic participants can stay motivated by earning points for consistency, rather than just competition over kilometers. This model ensures that everyone, regardless of fitness level, can succeed and feel engaged. In fact, 79% of Activy users report exercising more often thanks to this inclusive approach.
• In Strava Clubs, the focus is almost entirely on tracking distance or time for specific sports. This can lead to a demotivating experience for less active users, who may quickly fall behind if they’re not as athletic as others. Strava’s setup often encourages only the more advanced users to engage, sidelining those who may need more encouragement.

3. Pricing and Billing

• Activy Lite is free for the first 30 days, with no upfront costs. After the trial period, you can transition to a paid plan. Activy Comfort (self-service plan) follows a pay-per-user model, with invoicing provided for all users under the account. A 12-month subscription for Activy Comfort costs only $49.99, providing a cost-effective solution for larger teams or organizations that want to scale their challenges.
• Strava Clubs is free, but organizing a group challenge requires Strava Premium. The premium version costs $79.99/year, and each user must individually subscribe to gain access to the premium features necessary for group challenges. This means that every participant in your group must pay for their own subscription, which can add up quickly if you have a larger team or group.

4. Team Collaboration and Group Management

• Activy Lite allows you to create teams, but you have a choice: either you can define predefined teams (set by the organizer) or participants can create their own teams within the app. This offers flexibility, allowing you to choose how much control you want over team organization.
• Strava Clubs is limited to individual leaderboards. While you can create a club and assign multiple administrators, there’s no support for team-based challenges. The focus is purely on individual performance, making it harder for groups to collaborate or track collective progress.

5. Fraud Protection and Fair Play

• Activy Lite includes algorithm-based fraud detection. This is crucial for ensuring fairness, as participants can’t manipulate the system by, for example, using a vehicle for cycling or recording non-authentic activities.
• Strava Clubs relies on user reporting for suspicious activities, with no built-in fraud protection or support. This could lead to potential issues with fairness, especially as the size of the group grows.

6. Admin Panel and Communication Tools

• Both Activy Lite and Activy Comfort include access to a dedicated admin panel, where you can set up your challenge by choosing the right parameters such as duration, activities, or bonus points (e.g., for commuting to work or charity goals). The flexibility to adjust these parameters mid-challenge helps you keep the challenge dynamic and engaging. Additionally, Activy includes a communication panel that allows you to plan and send posts and push notifications to participants. This feature is essential for keeping participants engaged, informing them of important updates, and boosting motivation through reminders or encouragement throughout the challenge.
• In contrast, Strava lacks a communication panel, meaning you cannot send dedicated push notifications to your team. The administration tools in Strava are also very limited, offering minimal options for managing challenges and no flexibility to adjust parameters during the challenge. This makes it difficult to engage participants or manage the challenge effectively once it’s underway.

Activy Comfort vs. Strava Challenges: Scalable, Flexible, and Customizable

For teams or organizations looking to expand beyond the basics, Activy Comfort is the ideal solution. It’s a self-service SaaS platform that supports unlimited users and offers full customization options for challenges, team creation, and gamification. Activy Comfort is designed for scalability, making it perfect for larger groups or companies.

On the other hand, Strava Challenges is a good option for athletes, who already using Strava Premium and are focus on competition.

1. Features and Access to Leaderboards

• Activy Comfort offers real-time data, customizable leaderboards, and detailed activity stats across multiple dimensions, such as time, distance, streaks, and points. Organizers can easily track individual and team performance throughout the challenge.
• Strava Challenges offers a challenge leaderboard  (max 1 month). It ranks users based on individual activity for specific sports, and the group challenge options are limited to Strava Premium users. There’s no option for more specific statistics or long-term tracking, making it hard to keep participants engaged in ongoing challenges.

2. Pricing and Billing

• Activy Comfort works on a pay-per-user model, and businesses or teams are billed based on the number of registered users. This is convenient for groups of any size, as you only pay for the users who are actively participating. The invoice is issued to the organization, and team coordinators can manage billing with ease.
• Strava Challenges requires Strava Premium, each participant must individually purchase a subscription ($79,99/ year), which means your team members need to bear the costs themselves. This can become expensive for larger groups, as each member has to subscribe separately.

3. Team Collaboration and Group Management

• Activy Comfort allows for unlimited team creation, custom team names, and logos, making it ideal for corporate teams, sports clubs, or any other group. The team-based leaderboard promotes collaboration and engagement, while participants can join multiple teams to enhance social interaction.
• Strava Challenges lacks support for team creation. Challenges are based purely on individual performance, making it difficult to foster a sense of team spirit or collaborative competition.

4. Fraud Protection and Fair Play

• Activy Comfort includes robust fraud protection with algorithm-based activity verification to ensure that no one cheats. This creates a fair environment where every participant’s effort is tracked and recorded accurately.
• Strava Challenges has no automatic fraud detection or verification system, relying solely on users to flag suspicious activities. This could lead to discrepancies in tracking and fairness in larger challenges.

5. Customization and Branding

• Activy Comfort offers full customization of branding, including custom logos, team photos, and personalized challenge themes. This is especially useful for organizations that want to align the challenge with their company culture or event branding.
• Strava Challenges offers very limited customization, allowing only a club logo and description. There’s no option to customize the challenge itself or incorporate personalized features that match the organization's branding.

6. Admin Panel and Communication Tools

• Activy Comfort also offers a dedicated admin panel, where organizers can customize challenges, modify parameters in real-time, and track progress in an easy-to-navigate interface. Additionally, the communication panel allows for push notifications and posts, ensuring ongoing engagement with participants.
• Strava Challenges lacks such customization and communication features, relying solely on the basic features within the app for organizing challenges.

Looking for Even More Customization? Try Activy Enterprise

If you're part of a larger organization or need a highly customized solution, Activy Enterprise is the perfect choice. This premium offering provides full support from Customer Success, including personalized onboarding, promotional materials, and introductory webinars. Activy Enterprise is designed for businesses looking for a tailored approach to their fitness challenges, with advanced customization options, including custom branding, flexible challenge durations, and detailed participant data collection.

With Activy Enterprise, you’ll get full access to dedicated support and expertise to help you build an engaging, scalable, and successful fitness challenge. Whether you need to manage hundreds or thousands of participants, Activy Enterprise ensures that every aspect of your challenge is designed for maximum impact.

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Conclusion: Why Activy is the Better Choice

While Strava may be suitable for casual athletes or small groups, Activy offers a far more comprehensive, customizable, and scalable solution for teams and groups of any size. With Activy Lite, you can start with a free 30-day trial and easily transition to Activy Comfort, which allows for unlimited team creation, real-time statistics, customization options, advanced reporting, and access to an admin panel for managing the challenge and tracking progress.

Activy’s points-based system, which rewards participants not only for distance but also for regularity, ensures that 79% of Activy users exercise more frequently. Whether you're part of a corporate sports club, a team leader looking to build morale, or a group of friends competing together, Activy is the perfect tool to organize, track, and manage your challenge, all while ensuring that everyone—regardless of fitness level—can participate and succeed.

For larger organizations or those seeking highly tailored solutions, Activy Enterprise offers everything from personalized onboarding and promotional materials to full customization and dedicated support, ensuring that your fitness challenge is a success from start to finish.

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