Open-sourcing Gran Fondo, my privacy-first workout tracker
My iOS run and ride tracker dropped its paywall.
- Answers
- Is the Gran Fondo workout tracking app free and open source?
- Topics
- Free Software · Freedom · android · bike · gran fondo · heart · iOS · running · smartphone · sport
- Full article on willem.com
- https://willem.com/en/2025-03-06_open-sourcing-gran-fondo/
Summary
Yes. In 2025 I decided to open-source Gran Fondo, my iOS app for tracking runs and rides. It dropped its subscription paywall to become free and libre, with no ads, no trackers and no cloud.
Full text
Gran Fondo launched in May 2024 as a native Swift app for iPhone, built to track runs and rides with privacy at its core: no cloud, no data harvesting, just your smartphone doing the work. Subscriptions kept it afloat, but they also locked it behind a wall, which clashed with my view that software should empower users, not corporations. So I decided to make it libre. The code evolves from native Swift into a multi-platform core built on web technology, the approach I used for my Snake 97 app, so it can span iOS, Android and libre platforms like Sailfish OS or Ubuntu Touch. Instead of subscriptions there is a sponsor board, like the signs at a sports club. Bluetooth quirks and background power demands make the port tricky, but I am betting on collaboration over profit.