If you’re looking to keep fit and train indoors, there’s a wide choice of indoor training apps you can use.
Among the most popular are Zwift and Peloton, but they offer their users rather different experiences.
Here, we’ll run through what Zwift and Peloton are, what you need to use them, how much each costs and the types of workout they offer. This should help you decide which is the better fit for your aims.
What is Zwift?
Zwift is an indoor cycling app that links up to a turbo trainer or an exercise bike to provide a simulated environment to ride in. You’re represented by an avatar, which rides a bike through Zwift’s virtual worlds.
It has a range of routes you can choose to follow in different simulated worlds: everything from its own Watopia to an imaginary Southern Japanese island, and real-world course simulations in Paris, London and elsewhere.
You can use Zwift with a standard turbo trainer and vary the resistance level yourself, but a smart trainer or smart indoor bike will give you the best experience from the app.
A smart trainer or bike will vary the resistance against which you pedal automatically in response to the gradient in the app. You’ll even get a rest when the route you are following heads downhill.
A smart trainer will measure the power you’re delivering as you ride and Zwift will use that, along with your weight, to determine how fast you’re riding through its simulation.
On most routes, you can ride on your own and follow a pre-planned Zwift workout or training plan. However, Zwift is geared heavily towards competition as well as steadier group rides.
There are a range of indoor Zwift races available and elite competitors even have the opportunity to turn pro. Some, most notably Australian Jay Vine, have gone on to successful professional careers.
Zwift enables you to garner points as you ride, called Drops, which you can use to buy different equipment for your avatar and unlock other parts of its worlds. You can also earn badges and real-world and virtual prizes.
The Zwift companion app can be used to find and join races and rides, and also communicate with other riders via text messaging.
In short, Zwift offers you a way to train and keep fit indoors but through a gamified experience. It also has key training features such as FTP tests.
What is Peloton?
Peloton provides a range of exercise classes that you can follow in your own home. These are like gym classes, and Peloton has diversified from its original Peloton Bike stationary exercise bike to offer other workouts, including strength training and yoga.
It has its own treadmill too, which you can buy if you want to follow a running class.
The Peloton Bike provides a turnkey solution to get you riding, but you can also sign up to its app and follow its classes on your own equipment.
If you opt for the Peloton Bike or the Peloton Bike+, a screen on the exercise bike provides a link to live and on-demand instructor-led workouts and speakers, and a microphone provides interactivity.
With the Peloton Bike, you vary the resistance manually as instructed, while the Peloton Bike+ has the option to vary resistance automatically as the class progresses.
Peloton encourages you to exercise for 30 minutes a day and many of its classes aim to provide this length of workout. It’s more geared towards fitness maintenance and improvement than hardened cyclists.
Zwift vs Peloton features
Zwift and Peloton differ in their objectives, how they work and the user experience. Here’s a quick run-through of how they differ.
Ecosystem
Zwift will run on a range of hardware devices, including computers, tablets, smartphones and smart TVs. You can use a wide array of different turbo trainers and smart bikes to ride on Zwift, with many providing resistance control from the Zwift app.
If you opt for a turbo trainer rather than a smart bike, you’ll also need a real bike to put on it.
Zwift has its own Zwift Hub direct-drive smart trainer, which it sells for £549 / $599 including one year’s Zwift membership. Zwift has introduced new hardware to its ecosystem, including the Zwift Play controllers and Zwift Cog, which is said to be compatible with a wide variety of bikes and drivetrains.
It also sells a range of Wahoo smart trainers on its site, again with one year’s Zwift membership. You’ll need to source a bike to attach to your trainer as well.
Opt for the Peloton app and you can use it on your smartphone to follow Peloton’s classes on a trainer or exercise bike of your choosing. If you buy a Peloton Bike, this has an integrated screen to follow your workout.
Connectivity and hardware
Both Zwift and Peloton require an internet connection.
With Peloton, it’s via the bike. If you buy a standard Peloton Bike, Peloton streams its workouts to the bike’s screen and you adjust the resistance manually. Opt for the Peloton Bike+ and there’s the option for either manual or automatic resistance adjustment.
Zwift uses an internet connection to your hardware device to run the app, with a connection, usually via Bluetooth, to a smart trainer to vary the trainer’s resistance to reflect the terrain in the game and how hard you are riding. You can add a heart rate monitor to measure training zones, a separate power meter and other devices.
You can also use Zwift with a 'dumb' trainer, which doesn’t vary the resistance automatically. You’ll have to adjust the trainer’s output by hand to reflect the in-game terrain, and will need a speed and cadence sensor for Zwift to estimate your power output. These are fairly inexpensive add-ons.
Unlike Zwift, Peloton is not based on power measurement, so you can use the Peloton app with a less sophisticated trainer.
Physical properties
If you choose to buy a Peloton Bike, the brand says its bikes can be adjusted to accommodate riders between 150cm and 195cm tall, and weighing up to 130kg. The bike itself, although reasonably compact, weighs more than 60kg.
Your Zwift setup will depend on your own choice of hardware. Most turbo trainers can accommodate a range of bike sizes. With a separate bike and trainer, it’s easier to store your equipment when it’s not in use. The Zwift Hub smart trainer, for example, weighs 15kg. The footprint of a bike plus trainer will be similar to an exercise bike.
A smart bike will have similar dimensions and adjustability to the Peloton Bike. The Wahoo Kickr Smart Bike, for example, can accommodate users between 152cm and 193cm tall, and weighing up to 113kg. The Kickr Smart Bike itself weighs 42kg.
Pricing
Peloton’s pricing includes an up-front payment for the bike, its delivery and setup, then a monthly subscription to participate in its classes and consume its content. There’s a 30-day trial period.
The Peloton Bike isn’t cheap (currently £1,345 / $1,445 for the standard Peloton Bike, or £1,995 / $2,495 for Peloton Bike+), but Peloton offers zero per cent finance over a year with Klarna. There is also Klarna finance available with interest over periods of up to 43 months.
The tied-in nature of the Peloton Bike enables it to charge a significant monthly subscription fee to take part in its classes and consume its content, currently £39 / $44 per month.
The Peloton App lowers this though, with the standard Peloton App One app priced at £12.99 / $12.99 per month. This limits to three the number of equipment-based workouts you can consume per month.
Pay £24 / $24 per month for the Peloton App+ and you get unlimited cycling workouts and other equipment-based workouts, as well as exclusive content and the option to link up a cadence sensor. There’s a 60-day free trial period for both app versions.
Zwift’s monthly subscription currently costs £12.99 / $14.99 per month. There’s a 14-day free trial period available.
The up-front cost of a Zwift setup should work out significantly lower than buying a Peloton Bike, particularly if you have a bike already that’s suitable to put on a trainer.
Zwift’s longer-term cost of ownership will be lower than the Peloton Bike, although the price if you just use the Peloton app will be similar to using Zwift.
If you like the idea of Zwift or Peloton but you want to save money, there are free indoor cycling apps, but you will still need an exercise bike or smart trainer and bicycle.
Experience
A major difference between Zwift and Peloton is their respective riding experiences.
While Zwift mimics riding and racing outdoors with its virtual worlds, Peloton is an at-home version of an exercise bike class at the gym.
Peloton classes are geared more towards fitness maintenance and there’s a wider variety of non-cycling exercises than with Zwift, the primary focus of which is cycling, with a sideline in running.
The gym-class like experience means you’ll get prompts and encouragement on Peloton and there’s the potential to interact with other class members. Many users find having a real instructor, either live or on-demand, more supportive than riding in Zwift’s virtual world.
Zwift doesn’t support voice communication itself, but you can interact with other users by text messaging on the companion app. Users may link into another app – Discord is popular – for voice communication with other users as they ride.
So, should you get Zwift or Peloton?
If you’re looking to start indoor cycling, the choice between Zwift and Peloton, or indeed another indoor cycling app, largely comes down to the experience you’re looking for.
If you want to mimic outdoor riding and explore a virtual world, then Zwift is the way to go. It’s also an opportunity for group rides and competition, as well as providing an environment for more structured training.
If, on the other hand, you’re looking for a gym experience that you can enjoy without needing to travel to a physical gym, then Peloton will provide that. Its bite-sized workouts are likely to be more time-efficient to maintain your fitness than riding on Zwift too.
