Body Vitals vs Athlytic
Both apps read your Apple Watch data from Apple Health and turn overnight HRV and resting heart rate into one morning score. Athlytic pairs a 0–100% Recovery score with a 0–10 Exertion target and costs $29.99/year or $4.99/month with no lifetime option. Body Vitals gives a 0–100 readiness score designed to live in home-screen widgets and costs $69.99/year or $99.99 once for lifetime. Athlytic runs on iOS 17 and later; Body Vitals needs iOS 26.
At a glance
| Athlytic | Body Vitals | |
|---|---|---|
| Daily score | Recovery, 0–100%, from overnight HRV and resting heart rate against your baseline | Readiness, 0–100, from HRV against your baseline plus sleep quality, resting heart rate, blood oxygen and training load |
| Training guidance | Exertion scored 0–10 with a daily Target Exertion range; workout suggestions; structured workouts sent to Apple Watch | Zone 2, acute:chronic workload ratio and CTL/ATL/TSB; Daily Capacity and Recovery Forecast |
| Sleep | Sleep performance, stages, sleep debt, consistency, latency, efficiency and a nightly Target Sleep | Sleep quality in the readiness score; Sleep Debt |
| Widgets | 24 iPhone widgets and 16 watch complications | Home Screen, Lock Screen and StandBy widgets in every size; the widget is the main interface |
| AI and Siri | Ask Athlytic (Apple Intelligence) and Siri | On-device AI coaching (Apple Intelligence) |
| Account and data | Reads Apple Health; processed on device | No account, no server; read-only Apple Health access |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch; iOS 17.0 or later, watchOS 10.6 or later | iPhone and Apple Watch; iOS 26.0 or later, watchOS 26.0 or later |
| Price (US) | Free download; Athlytic Pro $29.99/year or $4.99/month, 1-week free trial | Free download; Pro $2.99/week, $69.99/year, or $99.99 one-time lifetime |
How each one scores your day
Athlytic reads your overnight HRV and resting heart rate against your own baseline and turns them into a morning Recovery percentage. That Recovery then sets a Target Exertion range: your cardiovascular load is tracked through the day on a 0–10 scale, so you can see on your wrist when you have done enough. Around those two numbers it adds Battery and Stress, Target Sleep, Athlytic Age (a fitness age from resting heart rate, VO2 max, sleep and more) and a journal that shows how habits move your Recovery.
Body Vitals compresses HRV, sleep quality, resting heart rate, blood oxygen and training load into a single 0–100 readiness score, calibrated to your own data after 90 days, and you can tap it to see the arithmetic. The emphasis is on reading the number without opening the app: widgets for the Home Screen, Lock Screen and StandBy, plus an Apple Watch app with complications. Deeper views add six composite scores, biological age, Zone 2, acute:chronic workload ratio and CTL/ATL/TSB. You can try a readiness calculation in the browser to see how the inputs combine.
Price and requirements
Athlytic has one plan: $29.99 a year or $4.99 a month, with a one-week free trial, and its site says plainly that there are no lifetime unlocks. Body Vitals Pro is $2.99 a week, $69.99 a year, or $99.99 once for lifetime access, and the core app is free.
Requirements are the bigger practical difference for some people. Athlytic supports iOS 17 and later, plus iPad. Body Vitals requires iOS 26 and watchOS 26, so it will not install on older iPhones.
Who should pick which
- Pick Athlytic if you want the Recovery-and-Exertion model with a live daily target on your wrist, structured workouts sent to Apple Watch, the lowest annual price of the two, or support for an iPhone that can't run iOS 26.
- Pick Body Vitals if you would rather glance at a widget than open an app, want training-load metrics such as acute:chronic workload ratio and CTL/ATL/TSB, prefer a one-time purchase to a subscription, or want an app with no account at all.
- Not sure? Both are free to download and read the same Apple Health data, so install both, give them a week of the same nights, and keep the one whose morning number you actually act on.
Looking at more than these two? See Athlytic alternatives or the neutral Athlytic vs Bevel comparison.
Not medical advice. Recovery and readiness scores are wellness estimates, not diagnoses; talk to a clinician about symptoms or health decisions. Athlytic is made by MyndArc, LLC; its name is used only to identify the product compared. escapethematrix.app makes Body Vitals.
Body Vitals: Health Widgets
A 0–100 readiness score from HRV, sleep and training load, on your home screen. No account, no cloud. Yearly or a one-time lifetime purchase.
View on the App StoreFrequently asked questions
Is Body Vitals or Athlytic cheaper?
Per year, Athlytic: its single plan is $29.99/year or $4.99/month, against $69.99/year for Body Vitals Pro. Body Vitals also sells a one-time $99.99 lifetime purchase, which Athlytic does not offer, so if you keep the app for more than about three and a third years the lifetime purchase costs less than Athlytic's annual plan at today's list prices.
Do I need an Apple Watch for Athlytic or Body Vitals?
For the core scores, in practice yes. Athlytic's listing says an Apple Watch is needed for most features because HRV and resting heart rate come from the watch, though some third-party wearables that write HRV to Apple Health also work. Body Vitals reads Apple Health only, so any device or app that writes to HealthKit shows up automatically.
Which app is more private?
Both are built around on-device processing. Athlytic says everything is read and processed on your device through Apple Health and that its App Store privacy label reads Data Not Collected. Body Vitals has no account and no server: every score is computed on the iPhone, and its Apple Health access is read-only; its App Store privacy label lists only crash and diagnostic data, not linked to you.
Can I use Athlytic and Body Vitals at the same time?
Yes. Both read from Apple Health rather than from each other, so you can run them side by side on the same watch data and compare the morning scores before you pay for either.
What is the difference between Recovery and readiness?
They answer the same question — how hard should I train today — in slightly different ways. Athlytic's Recovery is built from overnight HRV and resting heart rate against your baseline and sets a Target Exertion range for the day. Body Vitals' readiness also weighs sleep quality, blood oxygen and training load, and is calibrated to your own data after 90 days.