It's increasingly hard to choose between these two indoor cycling apps - we highlight the key differences
(Image credit: Zwift/MyWhoosh)
If you’re trying to choose between MyWhoosh and Zwift, the choice is more difficult than ever. MyWhoosh is increasingly snapping at the heels of Zwift and it has one key advantage: it's free.
While apps such as Rouvy and Bkool offer a slightly different experience from Zwift, MyWhoosh works in a way that's very close to Zwift.
Both MyWhoosh and Zwift allow you to ride in a variety of virtual worlds, with your avatar shown on bikes and in kit that you can customise, with added customisation available via points earned in-game, although you can also use real money to buy upgrades in MyWhoosh, but not in Zwift.
Both Zwift and MyWhoosh award points which can be used to upgrade your avatar and your bike (Image credit: Zwift)
Both offer a range of workouts and training plans, as well as the chance to join group rides or race against other riders. Both include workout builders so that you can create a custom session.
So how would you choose between Zwift and MyWhoosh? We’ll run through the main differences between these two of the best indoor cycling apps to help you decide if MyWhoosh is the best Zwift alternative.
Lots of routes to ride
MyWhoosh's worlds include Switzerland, home of the UCI esports world championships (Image credit: My Whoosh)
MyWhoosh has increased the number of worlds it offers for you to ride in, as well as the number of routes in each world, at a faster rate than Zwift, although it still lags behind its competitor here.
You can now ride in ten worlds in MyWhoosh with a total of 74 routes, as of October 2024. Although most worlds are based on real places, MyWhoosh World is totally imaginary, with volcanoes, jungles and other landscapes. Other worlds include California and Australia, although desert landscapes still dominate, with Arabia, Abu Dhabi and AlUla all featuring.
Get The Leadout Newsletter
The latest race content, interviews, features, reviews and expert buying guides, direct to your inbox!
Zwift’s equivalent of MyWhoosh World is Watopia, which again features fantastical imaginary landscapes. It’s one of a current total of 12 Zwift worlds and 120 routes, as of October 2024. Options include a southern Japanese island landscape and New York. Note though, that at any one time, only three of the worlds are available to ride: Watopia and two others.
MyWhoosh too has started to ration its world’s availability. You can ride MyWhoosh World and AlUla any day of the week, but other worlds are available on specific days only. As with Zwift, this is designed to prevent riders from being too spread out in game and increase the chances of interaction with other users.
Different hardware requirements
A budget Zwift set-up can use a dumb trainer with a speed and cadence sensor (Image credit: Josh Croxton)
You can ride both MyWhoosh and Zwift on a wide range of smart trainers, but only Zwift supports riders using just a speed sensor and a cadence sensor with a non-smart trainer, for a budget Zwift set-up.
Both apps can be run on a wide range of computer, tablet and smartphone hardware, including Apple TV and both have a companion smartphone app, so if you want you can also just mount your phone to your bars and ride in the app.
Different numbers of companions and competitors
There's a huge calendar of rides and events on Zwift (Image credit: Zwift)
As the dominant player in indoor cycling, there are over a million active users of Zwift. That size allows you to find other riders to ride with or compete against at any hour of the day and night.
Although growing, MyWhoosh’s user base is still significantly smaller than Zwift’s, so if you’re looking to ride with or race against others you’re probably going to need to organise your own group ride or join a race.
Different esport competition orientation
MyWhoosh will hold the UCI esports world championships from 2024 to 2026 (Image credit: My Whoosh)
MyWhoosh has targeted elite esports competitors with its large prize purses and its affiliation with the UCI for its esports world championships, which it has wrested from Zwift from 2024 to 2026. Its largest cash prize pool totalled over $1 million and the Sunday Race Club offers up to $50,000 for each month’s winning team and $10,000 for the elite-level individual winner.
Although there are plenty of pros on Zwift – its headline riders in 2024 include Mathieu van der Poel and Kasia Niewiadoma – there’s also a big amateur contingent. Zwift does offer prize money and real cycling hardware as prizes for some events, but the value of these is much lower than on MyWhoosh. Mostly the rewards are virtual.
For wannabe pros, Zwift does have the allure of the Zwift Academy though and the prize of a pro contract, while there’s no equivalent in MyWhoosh.
Different game hardware purchase options
Zwift offers hardware as well as the game itself (Image credit: Zwift)
Although its primary focus remains its game, Zwift is increasingly branching out into hardware, offering a turnkey solution for new users. Its Zwift Cog offers virtual shifting and the Zwift Ride with Kickr Core is a complete indoor bike set-up. You can use its Zwift Play controllers for in-game power-ups, steering and other control functions.
MyWhoosh focuses on its software platform, so you need to choose and buy your own set-up to ride on MyWhoosh, although it does offer guidance on what you need.
Different pricing
Free access and desert landscapes are attractions for new MyWhoosh users (Image credit: MyWhoosh)
One of MyWhoosh’s key attractions is that it’s free.
In contrast, you’ll pay £17.99/$19.99 a month for a Zwift membership. You can also pay annually, which gives you the equivalent of 12 months for the price of ten.
If you relish a bit of variety though, there’s no reason not to run both apps and it won’t cost you any more than just riding on Zwift.
Paul has been on two wheels since he was in his teens and he's spent much of the time since writing about bikes and the associated tech. He's a road cyclist at heart but his adventurous curiosity means Paul has been riding gravel since well before it was cool, adapting his cyclo-cross bike to ride all-day off-road epics and putting road kit to the ultimate test along the way. Paul has contributed to Cyclingnews' tech coverage for a few years, helping to maintain the freshness of our buying guides and deals content, as well as writing a number of our voucher code pages.
