Peloton vs Zwift: Which One Should You Invest In for Indoor Cycling?
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If you’re new to cycling, new to the indoor trainer, or you’ve been riding on one indoor platform for a while but are considering making a switch, you may be wondering if Zwift or Peloton is right for you.
At a glance, the platforms couldn’t be more different. Peloton’s spin-style classes and other class-based fitness offerings are nothing like the virtual world of riding and racing on Zwift. But both apps can help you boost your cycling fitness, depending on what you’re looking for in an app and your style of motivation.
Here, we not only hopped on both platforms for a few weeks to see what the fuss was about, but we also spoke to riders, coaches, and industry experts who have experience with both platforms. Multi-time Olympic Gold medalist Kristin Armstrong, Zwift’s director of women’s strategy, Kate Veronneau, and cycling coach Lorri Lown (who works with one of Peloton’s top coaches) weighed in on their favorite parts of each platform.
That’s right: Even people who actually work at Zwift and at Peloton are using both platforms to stay fit during indoor trainer season!
At-a-Glance Vibe Check
Zwift: Made by cyclists for cyclists, this platform is designed to emulate on-road riding and racing on the trainer and it provides a little competition. Consider it the best option for the serious cyclist who loves to race and wants the closest version of riding outside.
Peloton: Turn to this platform if you’re a fitness type who happens to love riding—and cross-training. Within the app, you get full-body workout options, mindfulness meditations and of course, indoor cycling classes, some of which are designed for cyclists who want to boost their FTP. This platform is for the cyclist who wants all-around fitness, but maybe isn’t as focused on their specific riding data.
A Scan of the Features
Zwift:
Group rides on Zwift’s roads, which feel like IRL roads thanks to the app’s connection to your smart trainer that changes your resistance based on elevation profiles
Races for all levels
Workout plans and guided workouts
Constant addition of new routes and roads, as well as new events
A lot of cycling-specific fitness metrics available on the platform to track your progress
Easy integration with smart trainers, power meters, and heart rate monitors
Celebrations of milestones typically include unlocking costumes, new apparel, and bike equipment for your avatar
Peloton:
Thousands of spin class options of different lengths, styles, and focuses
Live classes to offer more accountability—and yes, a leaderboard so you can compete against others
Thousands of fitness classes focusing on bike bootcamp, strength, yoga, meditation, HIIT, Pilates, and more
For optimal usage, use any bike with a cadence sensor and heart rate monitor, or a Peloton bike, but you can also simply ride any indoor bike or trainer and follow along with the workout, making it easy to get started with whatever gear you have
Celebrations of milestones typically include shoutouts from coaches during live classes and a call out for your weeks-long workout streaks in the app
How Each App Helps Boost Performance
Zwift: The community-based model allows you to tap into your competitive side on group rides and races, and lets you ride with friends anytime, anywhere. “When you ride on Zwift regularly, you’re going to know people by name,” says Armstrong. There are clubs and groups to join, regular weekly races and rides that can become your “regular routes,” and you can even plan to meet up with friends on any of the Zwift routes and chat away over a shared Discord channel for a blend of IRL/virtual hangouts.
“I think that people underestimate how powerful those connections can be,” says Armstrong. “People underestimate the power of community in making change in your life. But I believe that the root of change is happiness. You can be working out every day, you can be drinking your green smoothies, you can be sleeping really well. But if you’re not happy, and you’re not connected, things are not going to change for you.”
Zwift also uses power and heart rate data in your rides and workouts, which allows you to easily track your progress. It also allows you to actually take part in esports racing where you’re essentially emulating outdoor racing from your basement. And your ride data looks almost exactly like data from an outdoor ride.
Peloton: Peloton gained popularity based on the viral popularity of the brand’s coaches—and for good reason. Take a class with Robin Arzon and before you know it, you’re crying, laughing, feeling ultra-motivated, and likely working up a serious sweat.
The popular Peloton coaches develop an almost cult-like following. It’s a community, yes, but with the coach as the connector. This is great if you prefer to blend into the crowd and—ahem—aren’t here to make friends. (Though, as Armstrong points out, if you wear Peloton-branded gear in public, expect to have at least one random person chat with you about your favorite classes.)
If you’re a serious cyclist looking to improve IRL bike performance, look for classes from Peloton coach Matt Wilpers or Christine D’Ercole, or look for classes that specifically reference power zones.
Peloton does make you feel supported: The coaches are all experts at making you feel great while you’re on the bike, and if you’re the kind of athlete who benefits from having a “cheerleader” style of coaching, you’ll love riding on this platform.
While Peloton is competitive if you’re paying attention to the leaderboard in live classes, it’s less about who’s on top and more about trying to do the best for you, personally—making it ideal for someone who doesn’t love the feeling of being in competition with others, but does prefer track their progress, based on their own performance.
What Each App Is Missing
Again, neither platform is bad, but both have drawbacks depending on your personal preferences.
Zwift: Zwift can be a little intimidating to beginners. Because Peloton is class-based, it's easy to hop on the app and choose something like a 30-minute cycling workout with Matt Wilpers (or any other trainer) and in seconds, you’re pedaling away. Zwift has so many options for workouts, rides, races, and paces that it can be a bit tougher to get going.
For more advanced riders, Zwift can be tough for those of us who are hyper-competitive. It can take some serious mental effort to not try to catch every rider who whizzes past you, and it’s easy to get caught up in trying to beat everyone around you even on days you’re supposed to be taking it easy.
Lastly, Zwift obviously is just for riding (or running if you have a smart treadmill). There aren’t any strength workouts or yoga classes.
Peloton: On Zwift, even endurance-paced rides are a bit more fun because you can ride with a friend, with a group, or just around a new part of one of Zwift’s worlds you haven’t explored. On Peloton, you’re either in a class or you’re not, there is no “just riding around.” Of course, you can still opt to ride your trainer or smart bike in “dumb mode” and just do a ride while watching TV, but it won’t have the same undulations in the course and visual interest that riding on Zwift provides.
Peloton also has a great coach-centered community, but you don’t interact with the other riders the same way you do in Zwift. On a Zwift ride, you’ll see people greeting each other, having conversations via the Companion app, making plans to do other rides later, and even—in one instance Armstrong recalls seeing—getting married IRL as a result of riding together virtually. (However, if you have friends on the Peloton platform, you can still plan to meet them for live rides and schedule those ahead of time. You’d just have to chat via text if you wanted to during the ride.)
Finally, as mentioned, Peloton doesn’t provide as much cycling-specific data, especially if you don’t have a power meter or heart rate monitor. And it doesn’t integrate with Training Peaks the way that Zwift does. It does integrate with Strava, but not with the same level of data that Zwift does.
Equipment and Setup
At minimum, you need an indoor bike or a bike on an indoor trainer for both Zwift and Peloton. You can technically use both platforms without actually connecting to them via Bluetooth, but you won’t get as much out of them.
Here’s what you need above and beyond just a way to pedal indoors:
Zwift: A speed/cadence sensor can get you started on the platform (and costs around $40). To get the most out of the platform, you’ll want a smart trainer that can be controlled via the Zwift app in order to automatically change the resistance and make your ride feel more outdoor-like.
Peloton: A speed/cadence sensor will get you started on the platform, and you can add a heart rate monitor to get more data. If you’re trying to keep track of your training on an app like Training Peaks, you may want to use a cycling computer to record your heart rate and/or power during your workout and upload that for more clear bike-centric data.
App-centric hardware:
Zwift offers the relatively inexpensive Zwift Hub smart trainer that syncs seamlessly with the platform. They’ve also added fun extras like levers that can attach to your handlebars for more outdoor ride-feeling while racing in the game.
And of course, the Peloton indoor bike is the prime piece of equipment when it comes to using the app, though it’s not necessary. Some people, like Lown, actually love having the Peloton bike as their primary indoor bike rather than using their outdoor bike on a trainer, and will use the Peloton bike to ride on Zwift.
Pricing
Zwift: $15/month or $150/year
Peloton: It’s complicated. To use Peloton as a cyclist, you’ll have to get the Peloton App+, which offers unlimited cardio classes, and integrates a cadence sensor as well as heart rate monitor into your workout. That comes with a higher price tag—$24/month or $240/year—but because it also gives you access to yoga, meditation, and strength, you’re essentially getting two apps for the price of one.
The Peloton App One is also $13/month or $129/year, and you have unlimited non-bike/rower/treadmill classes and three bike, row, or run classes per month. There’s also a free version with more limited class options.
Common Misconceptions
“Peloton isn’t for real/serious/longtime cyclists.”
“You would be surprised,” says Lown. “Just take a look at Strava and you’ll see lots of your local pros, state and national champions, as well as everyday recreational riders. The power zone program from Matt Wilpers is probably the most popular training program available.”
The power zone training on Peloton is based on Hunter Allen’s power zone training philosophy, and there are three types of rides available: Power Zone Endurance (longer rides focused on zones 2 and 3), Power Zone (focused on zones 3, 4, and 5) and Power Zone Max (focused on those short spicy efforts in zones 6 and 7). “Power zone rides range from 30 to 120 minutes and it’s really easy to put together an 80/20 program with just these classes,” Lown adds.
“Zwift is only for serious, competitive riders.”
As a coach/Zwift ambassador, Armstrong sees a lot of different riders on Zwift—especially in her Zwift Women’s Training Club, which contains thousands of new members since launching in September. “[Many Zwift riders] don’t know much about cycling, they just found the app and fell in love with it,” she says.
“Peloton is girly.”
The stats don’t back this up: In 2020, almost 43 percent of Peloton’s riders were men, 49 percent women. “Peloton can be whatever you want it to be,” says Lown. “I think that’s one of the strengths of the platform. And it’s just a tool, like any other training tool. The content is available to help you become super-fit. It’s up to you to put together a program that progresses your fitness in a logical way.”
“Zwift is hard to set up.”
While initially, Zwift may have been a bit trickier to navigate—and still, there are so many options for what to do on the app that it may be overwhelming for a beginner—Armstrong points out that the company has made huge strides in the onboarding process for new users. “Now when you get started, it asks: Do you want to explore? Do you want to train? Do you want to race?” she says. “It really helps funnel people into the right category.”
This Rider’s Personal Experience
Peloton: I admit, my initial assumption was that Peloton’s classes were more in line with a cheesy indoor cycling class, and I went in with low expectations.
While yes, this is a very different experience compared to just riding the trainer, but after I reluctantly got lured into a ride with Robin Arzon by promises of pop punk, I was almost instantly sucked in by her positivity, and found myself pushing much harder on “hills.”
In fact, I found the whole suite of Peloton class options (including strength, yoga, meditation, etc.) to be extremely useful for the offseason, especially if you’re looking for more all-around fitness and want a break from your riding routine. I also love that it can be sorted by time, and even the short classes—my pop punk spin class was only 30 minutes—feel like well-rounded workouts.
(PS: If you were worried that Peloton’s indoor cycling classes would be early-aughts-styled classes with lots of arm movements, don’t be. Most of the instructors are focused on the ride, not on jazz hands.)
Zwift: I love Zwift—I think it’s a really well-designed, realistic cycling platform. However, as an extremely competitive person, I find even the easiest, chillest ride on Zwift to be tricky, because the second there’s a cyclist in front of me, I am pissed about it.
However, if I can get out of my internal “don’t let anyone beat you” dialogue, I really do enjoy rolling around on Zwift, and nothing makes me work harder than a Zwift race.
After chatting with Armstrong and joining the women’s group she recommended, I found that the community element really is what makes the platform great. Watching the chats happening constantly via the Companion app, I realized that for many riders—especially women—who come into cycling and don’t have a local club or team, Zwift really is their entry point into finding a cycling community of their own. And that’s a beautiful thing.
The Bottom Line on Peloton vs Zwift
In the battle of Zwift versus Peloton, there is no clear winner—it’s all about personal preference and how you’re motivated. Both have their benefits for cyclists, but are vastly different in their approach. You’ll likely love one and be less enamored with the other—or you may find that a combination approach works best for you.
As Armstrong put it: “Peloton helps you fall in love with cycling, Zwift helps you learn to ride."
After chatting with people who love both, it seems like the best option may be the combo: Zwift plus the Peloton App One for access to all the non-bike strength, Pilates and yoga classes, and the occasional spin class to switch things up. That’s what Veronneau currently does, and says that the access to Peloton’s strength and mobility classes help keep her core strength up so she has more power when racing on Zwift. Lown says similar: She uses Peloton and Zwift in conjunction with each other and says she’s never been fitter.
Fortunately, both offer a free trial. With Peloton, you get a month to test it out and there is a free version of the app with limited classes available forever. On Zwift, you have two weeks to ride commitment-free. We recommend trying both out before you make a decision—even if you think that Peloton or Zwift definitely isn’t for you, it’s worth testing. You may surprise yourself!
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