Kapel vs FitNotes

FitNotes is a favourite among lifters for a reason: it is fast, free, offline, and gets out of the way. If pure strength logging is all you need, it’s genuinely hard to improve on. This page is about what changes when you want more than a set log.

The short version: FitNotes is the right tool if you want a free, offline, dead-simple place to log barbell work on Android and nothing else. Kapel is for people who want that training log to sit alongside ingredient-level nutrition, capture, and structured protocols — and who want to keep their FitNotes history when they move.

What FitNotes does well

• Speed and simplicity. Logging a set is a couple of taps. There’s no bloat.
• Free and offline. No subscription, no account required, works with no signal in the gym.
• Focused. It does one thing — log resistance training — and does it reliably.

For a lot of lifters, that’s the whole job, and FitNotes nails it.

Where Kapel differs

It’s a whole-day tracker, not only a strength log. Meals, workouts, and runs live on one timeline. Your training sits next to your nutrition instead of in a separate app.

Capture over manual entry. Photograph a plate and Kapel composes the meal from ingredients; speak or type a session and it structures the sets. FitNotes is manual by design.

Protocols as first-class structure. EDT PR-zones, supersets, AMRAP, EMOM — modelled as timed zones, with a live session screen that alternates your antagonist pair and accumulates reps against the clock.

Equipment-aware planning and an MCP interface. Plan against the equipment actually in your gym, and let an AI assistant read and write your data through Kapel’s Model Context Protocol server.

You keep your history. Kapel imports a FitNotes backup, so switching doesn’t cost you your logs.

Capability comparison

	Kapel	FitNotes
Strength logging	Yes, protocol-aware	Yes, fast and simple
Nutrition tracking	Ingredient-level	None
Capture (photo / voice / text)	Yes	No (manual entry)
EDT / timed protocols	First-class	Manual workaround
Equipment-aware planning	Yes	No
Offline	No	Yes (offline-first)
Platforms	Mobile web	Android
AI assistant (MCP)	Yes	No
Import your history	Imports FitNotes	N/A
Pricing	In alpha	Free
Maturity	Alpha	Mature

FitNotes wins on offline use, simplicity, and being free and proven — real advantages if strength logging is all you need.

Who should stay with FitNotes

• You only want to log lifting, as fast as possible, for free.
• You train where there’s no signal and need offline logging.
• You’re on Android and happy with a single-purpose app.

Who should try Kapel

• You want nutrition and training in one place, not two apps.
• You program with structure — EDT, supersets, timed blocks — and want it tracked properly.
• You’d rather capture a session than type every set.
• You want to bring your FitNotes history with you.

Kapel is in alpha. If that trade sounds right, import your FitNotes backup and start from where you already are.