Strong vs Hevy for logging detail: set types, RPE and export

You finish a squat session with two warm-up sets, three working sets and a drop set at the end. Strong and Hevy can both record every one of those sets with its tag, its RPE and a note. Strong vs Hevy on logging detail is closer than the marketing on either side suggests. The real differences are smaller: where you type the RPE, how notes repeat from week to week, and what your history looks like once it leaves the app as a CSV.

Every fact below comes from the two companies' own help pages and feature pages, opened on 29 October 2026. Menus move between app versions, so treat the steps as a snapshot. Where a page did not say something, this post says so instead of filling the gap.

What each app records on a single set

Both apps log the same core: weight, reps, an optional RPE and a set tag. The tags are nearly identical. Strong offers warm-up, drop set and failure, chosen by tapping the set number [1]. Hevy offers a warm up set, a failure set and a drop set, with every other set treated as a normal set [2].

The tags mean slightly different things in practice. Strong states that a warm-up set is left out of its charts and metrics [1]. Hevy's page says only that set types give you more data to review later, and does not say how a tag changes its totals [2]. Strong's failure tag also carries a convention worth knowing: five reps tagged failure means you attempted a sixth and missed it, and a missed single is logged as zero reps [1].

RPE, the rating of how hard a set was where 10 means no reps left, works the same way in both. Each app takes values from 6 to 10 [3] [4]. Strong lists the half steps 6.5, 7.5, 8.5 and 9.5 and explains that it leaves out values below 6 because they are too hard to judge [3]. In Strong you open the reps cell and tap an RPE button on the keyboard. In Hevy you first switch on RPE tracking in the workout settings, which adds an RPE column to rep-based exercises [4]. Hevy's own comparison page counts Strong's placement as one extra tap per set [5]. It is a small cost, and not a reason to switch on its own.

Notes, supersets and the details around a set

Notes are where the two apps differ most, and even there the gap is narrow. Strong has workout notes for the whole session, exercise notes for one exercise in one workout, and pinned notes that reappear every time you do that exercise but do not show in history [6]. Hevy has notes on the exercise inside a saved template, notes for a single session, and pinned notes that you can scope to one template or to the exercise everywhere [7]. Neither help page describes a note attached to one individual set.

Supersets exist in both. Strong links grouped exercises with a vertical line and its Next button moves through the sets across the group [8]. Hevy gives each superset its own colour and has an optional setting that scrolls to the next exercise in the group when you tick a set complete [9].

Here is the whole comparison in one table. Each cell cites the page it came from.

Exporting: what the CSV actually holds

Both apps hand you a CSV, and both files are a long table with one row per set. Strong's export lives in its in-app settings and produces a spreadsheet-friendly CSV. Its help page adds that the file cannot be imported back into Strong, and does not list the columns [10]. Hevy exports workouts and measurements as CSV, and it is the only one of the two that also imports, taking Strong files [5].

That import is a useful test of what a CSV preserves. Hevy's page says a Strong file brings across workouts, exercises, sets, reps, weights, dates and workout names. Supersets come in as separate exercises in the right order, and saved templates do not come across at all, because Strong exports only completed workouts [11]. The page does not mention set tags, RPE or notes either way.

Superset grouping is the detail most likely to vanish in any move between apps. If you rely on it, expect to rebuild it.

What the Top Sets import keeps from each file

Top Sets reads both files from Settings, and the switching guide walks through the steps. The two files do not arrive equally rich, because they do not carry the same columns.

From a Hevy file, the importer reads the set type column. A Hevy warm-up arrives as a warm-up set, so it stays out of weekly volume, the same rule the app applies to every warm-up (the reasons are in why warm-up sets do not count). A Hevy drop set arrives as a drop set and a failure tag as a failure set. RPE, exercise notes, the session description and timed sets come across. The superset grouping does not; the sets import in order as separate exercises.

From a Strong file, the importer reads weight, reps, RPE, notes, workout notes, timed sets and set order. It reads no set tag from a Strong file, so a set you tagged as a warm-up in Strong lands as a normal set and counts toward volume. If your Strong history has a lot of tagged warm-ups, check your first few weeks of imported squats and presses after the import. Some older Strong exports also do not say whether loads are in kilos or pounds, and the importer asks you rather than guessing.

RPE is the detail that matters most for your numbers. A set with no RPE is read as RPE 10, the assumption every classic one-rep max formula makes. Take 90 kg for six reps. Imported with RPE 8, the estimated 1RM is 114.5 kg. Imported without an RPE, the same set gives 107.5 kg. Both figures come from the model behind the one-rep max calculator.

If you rated your sets in Strong or Hevy, those ratings come across and your estimates start where they should. If you skipped RPE, your history will read a little conservative, which is the safe direction to be wrong in. RPE for beginners covers how to start rating sets honestly.

Top Sets has no CSV export of its own today. It is built to take history in, so weigh that if a portable file matters to you.

Which app should you pick?

Pick Strong if you already tag warm-ups and want them kept out of your numbers, because Strong states plainly that tagged warm-ups are left out of its metrics [1]. Its free accounts keep logging workouts indefinitely, and the paid tier adds unlimited templates, the full set of progress graphs, and the plate and warm-up calculators [12].

Pick Hevy if you want RPE in the same row as weight and reps, pinned notes you can scope per template, and an app that imports your Strong history [4] [7] [11]. By Hevy's own account, its free tier allows up to 4 saved workout templates and 7 custom exercises, and its exercise graphs cover the last 3 months [5]. The same page puts Strong's free tier at 3 templates with unlimited custom exercises [5].

If your reason for comparing is that you want the next weight worked out for you from the RPE you already log, neither app's pages describe doing that. That is the job Top Sets is built for: progression schemes from double progression to RIR targets, an estimated 1RM from every rated set, and records that are all-time on every tier. The free plan's only limit is a 30-day chart window. Both of the exports above import in one pass, and the tools page has the calculators that run on the same formulas.