As someone in the tri community in vc funded silicon valley, I haven't heard of a better alternative to strava? would genuinely be interested in trying something better but all my running clubs still seem to be using strava
I use intervals.icu for planning my training - it has one main developer and he’s great. And it’s completely free unless you want to donate (which I do)
That's the crazy thing about Strava's situation, so many companies have integrated with their API, or built Chrome extentions on top of Strava that replicate their functionality but better and for free. People have been begging for improvments like that for premium and I'd bet by now most have settled on something like intervals.icu and wouldn't miss premium anyway.
https://app.trainingpeaks.com/ - if you have a coach
For social stuff? They're the gorilla in the room. But, the pure social stuff isn't gated (comments/posts/groups).
For training analysis? TrainingPeaks, TrainerRoad, Wahoo Systm, intervals.icu, and others. Of course, some of those rely on Strava APIs to get data to/from devices.
I haven't used Strava, but Garmin seems to have a decent enough app and their devices are pretty popular amongst the running and cycling communities. I've been using Garmin's app and a watch for about 6 months now and couldn't be happier with my experience.
If all your buddies have Garmins and post public rides/runs, you get segment leaderboards, friends news feed, popularity routing, kudos, a training calendar that connects to TrainingPeaks and all the stats you could want.
Plus Garmin has very capable sports watches and smart body weight scales to consolidate all your fitness indicators in one place. Also, it's completely free.
The downside is the user base is much smaller so less segments and who knows if your KOM is the fastest time. You also won't get randos on the internet kudo'ing your rides/runs and boosting your ego. Also, no cool extensions like Elevate, StravaSauce, etc.
My experience with their index scale is that it's garbage for anything other than weight.
Agree with everything else you say though.