Strides has been around since 2013, and it's aged well. Its real strength is range: it doesn't just track yes/no habits, it tracks measurable goals — a target with a deadline ("read 24 books this year"), a running average ("sleep 8 hours"), and multi-step projects. It runs on iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watch. If you think in numbers and deadlines, Strides fits your brain, and that's a good reason to keep it.
The reasons people look for a Strides alternative tend to be about the daily-habit side of it. The free tier holds only 3 trackers. A missed day breaks the streak with no way to protect it. And the app looks like a capable spreadsheet, which is either fine or a dealbreaker depending on you.
init.Habits is a terminal-style habit tracker for iPhone with a bigger free tier, earned streak freezes (shields), GitHub-style heatmaps, and 23 editor themes. It's habit-first where Strides is goal-first. Here's the honest comparison, as of July 2026, with Strides' strengths kept in.
At a glance
| init.Habits | Strides | |
|---|---|---|
| Platforms | iPhone (synced web coming) | iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, Vision |
| Tracker types | habits, 5 tracking modes | habit, target-with-deadline, average, project |
| Free tier | 10 habits, 2 routines, full stats | 3 trackers |
| Price | €3.99/mo, €24.99/yr, €34.99 lifetime | $4.99/mo, $29.99/yr, $79.99 lifetime |
| Streak protection | earned shields + vacation + sick mode | streaks, no earned freeze |
| Heatmap | GitHub-style, per habit | charts + progress bars |
| Routines | yes — grouped habits, own schedule | no |
| Apple Watch / Mac | not yet — iPhone-first | yes |
| Themes | 23 editor palettes + custom editor | standard styling |
| Progression | XP, levels, achievements (never gates) | none |
Both are Apple-only, so neither wins on Android here. The difference is what each is built to track. Strides is a flexible goal-and-metric tracker that also does habits. init.Habits is a habit tracker that does streaks, forgiveness and a heatmap better.
What they share
Both track daily habits, both show progress over time, both keep your data private with no social feed, and both are made by small teams that have stuck with their apps for years. Where they diverge is depth in opposite directions — Strides goes deeper on goal types, init.Habits goes deeper on the habit loop itself.
1. Habits vs measurable goals — the real split
Strides' best feature is its four tracker types. A Target counts toward a number by a date. An Average watches a rolling figure like weight or hours of sleep. A Project breaks a big goal into milestones. Alongside those, ordinary yes/no habits. If a lot of what you track is a measurement heading toward a deadline, Strides handles that natively, and init.Habits doesn't have a dedicated deadline-and-average system.
init.Habits models measurable habits too — number-with-a-unit goals like 8,000 steps or 2L of water, and habits that read from Apple Health — but it's aimed at the daily rhythm, not the quarterly target. If your list is "do this every day" more than "hit this number by June," init.Habits is the closer fit.
2. Strides' flexible trackers — its real edge
Worth saying plainly: for goal tracking, Strides leads. Deadlines, averages and milestone projects are first-class there, with charts to match. If you're tracking "lose 10 pounds by summer" or "average 3 workouts a week across the month," Strides was built for exactly that, and it's still one of the best at it. init.Habits would make you approximate those with daily habits.
3. Streak forgiveness and the heatmap
Where init.Habits pulls ahead is the daily habit itself. Strides tracks streaks, but a missed day resets them — there's no earned protection, and one broken day often reads as failure.
init.Habits treats a slip as survivable. Every 7 days of hitting your goal earns a shield (up to 3), spent automatically on a missed day, so a long streak lives through the day life got in the way. Vacation and sick modes cover planned breaks. And every habit is a GitHub-style heatmap — a year of squares that makes consistency visible in a way a progress bar doesn't.
4. Price, the free tier, and the look
init.Habits is cheaper at every tier. Pro is €24.99/year or €34.99 once, both below Strides' $29.99/year and $79.99 lifetime. The free tiers aren't close either: 10 habits with full stats in init.Habits versus 3 trackers in Strides.
And the look is a real divide. Strides is clean and utilitarian. init.Habits is a code editor — monospace type, aligned columns, and 23 editor palettes like Dracula, Nord and Gruvbox, with a custom theme editor. 8 are free. If a habit app that looks like your IDE sounds good, only one of these does that.
5. Where you use it
Strides runs natively on Apple Watch and Mac; init.Habits is iPhone-first, with a synced web app coming and no Watch or Mac app yet. If you log from your wrist or your desk, that's a point for Strides, and it's a fair one.
Where Strides wins
An honest list:
- Goal types. Targets with deadlines, averages and milestone projects — init.Habits has no direct equivalent.
- Apple Watch and Mac. Native on both; init.Habits isn't yet.
- Longevity. More than a decade of steady development and a loyal base.
- Number-first thinking. If most of what you track is a metric heading somewhere, Strides is built for it.
What you trade for those: a bigger free tier, lower prices, earned shields, the heatmap, routines, and editor themes.
Switching from Strides
There's no direct import, and the move takes a few minutes:
- Split your Strides list. Daily habits move to init.Habits cleanly; pure deadline-goals may be worth keeping in Strides.
- Recreate the habits — the free 10 slots cover most, and number-with-unit modes handle measurable ones.
- Backfill recent days so your grid and streaks don't start empty.
You don't have to move everything. Plenty of people run init.Habits for daily habits and keep a goal tracker for the big deadlines — how many habits to track helps draw that line.
FAQ
Is init.Habits cheaper than Strides?
Yes, at every tier. init.Habits Pro is €24.99/year or €34.99 lifetime, both lower than Strides' $29.99/year and $79.99 lifetime, and its free tier holds 10 habits versus Strides' 3 trackers.
Can init.Habits track goals with deadlines like Strides?
Not as a dedicated feature. Strides has purpose-built Target, Average and Project trackers for deadline-and-metric goals. init.Habits tracks measurable habits (number-with-unit goals, Apple Health), but it's built for daily consistency, not quarterly targets.
Does init.Habits work on Apple Watch and Mac like Strides?
Not yet — it's iPhone-first with a synced web app coming. Strides runs on iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watch today.
Which is better for building daily habits?
init.Habits, thanks to earned shields, the per-habit heatmap, routines, and a genuinely usable free tier. Strides is stronger for measurable goals that count toward a deadline.