If you use Strava (and if you're reading this, you probably do), you already get basic analytics - weekly distance, pace trends, a fitness score, relative effort. It's clean, it's free, and for a lot of people it's enough.
Baseline doesn't replace Strava. You'll still use Strava for recording, segments, kudos, community. Baseline adds a layer on top that Strava doesn't do.
Here's exactly what's different.
What Strava analytics does well
Strava's analytics are better than most people give them credit for:
- Fitness & Freshness - a simple version of CTL/ATL/TSB, automatically calculated from heart rate or power data
- Relative Effort - weekly training load expressed as a single number you can compare week-to-week
- Weekly intensity - pace/HR zone breakdown
- Monthly activity - volume trends by sport
- Personal heatmap - all your GPS tracks on one map (Subscriber feature)
For the casual athlete training 3–5 days a week in one sport, this is genuinely useful. The Fitness & Freshness chart alone is more than most people will ever use.
What Strava analytics doesn't do
The gaps become clear when you:
- Train across multiple sports and want to see them together. Strava splits run/ride/swim into separate tabs with no unified load view.
- Use multiple devices - WHOOP for recovery, Garmin for training, Apple Watch for daily steps. Strava only shows what it recorded.
- Want to see how recovery metrics (HRV, sleep, RHR) affect your performance. Strava doesn't connect these dots.
- Care about geographic analysis beyond a pretty map. Country/state counts, trip detection, altitude tracking.
- Want training load tracking at the level of specificity that CTS/ATL/TSB provides - with customisable time constants, not a one-size-fits-all formula.
What Baseline adds
1. Cross-source dashboard
Baseline imports your Strava activities alongside data from WHOOP, Garmin, Apple Health, Coros, and Oura. The Overview screen shows them together - including a single training load chart that combines all sources.
This means you can answer questions like "on days I train hard (from Strava), does my HRV dip the next morning (from WHOOP)?" or "does my Garmin Body Battery correlate with Strava relative effort?" The answers exist in your data; you just couldn't see them before.
2. Geographic depth
Strava's personal heatmap is beautiful. Baseline's goes several steps further:
- Country and state coverage stats
- Per-trip activity grouping
- Altitude and depth tracking
- Multi-sport overlay (your runs AND rides on the same map)
If you've trained in multiple countries - and a surprising number of athletes have - Baseline surfaces that story automatically.
3. Training load, properly
Baseline uses the same CTL/ATL/TSB model coaches rely on, with configurable time constants (default 42/7 days, adjustable to your sport). You get a real fitness/freshness balance, not a simplified score.
4. AI insights, not a chatbot
Baseline's daily insights card surfaces three things every morning: what changed since yesterday, what's trending, what to watch. It's AI-driven but not pushy - you read it in 20 seconds over coffee.
5. Data ownership
Everything Strava records is accessible to Baseline via OAuth. Everything Baseline computes is yours to export (full JSON download, one click). Delete your account and your data is gone - 30-day soft-delete grace window, then hard delete.
Should you use both?
Yes. That's the honest answer.
Baseline complements Strava. Use Strava for recording, social, segments. Use Baseline for the analysis that spans all your devices and all your sports.
If you're a casual runner who uses Strava 3x a week and doesn't wear a WHOOP or Garmin, Baseline is probably overkill - stick with Strava's free analytics, they're good.
If you wear more than one device, train across multiple sports, or just want to nerd out on your own data properly - try the demo or start a free trial.