A fitness app that can't even reach the internet, polished for two months into 1,500 stars: GymMane won by shipping one version a week and replying on Reddit
What it is An open-source fitness logging app for Android: tap a muscle on the body map to start a workout, log sets, with 500+ exercise animations. No account, no ads, free, and it doesn't even have the network permission.
Why it took off It rode the 2026 summer wave of "open-source alternatives to subscription-based Hevy/Strong." Using the verifiable selling point that "the data physically can't leave," plus features matching commercial apps and weekly updates, it built word of mouth bit by bit in Reddit's privacy circles and on F-Droid.
BHow you could follow it Don't build another fitness logger. Take the same playbook to another high-frequency category whose free tier was cut by subscriptions (habit tracking, bookkeeping, period tracking, vocabulary apps, etc.): build an open-source version that doesn't cut features, works offline, and imports competitors' data in one click, and post an update on Reddit with every release.
- Data (updated daily) · Repo created 2026-08-05 · 1,565 stars · 7 days +319
GitHub · stars Data 2026-10-09 → 2026-11-08 (31 days, 31 observations). Points before 10-28 come from deeply / archive backfill, not every day has one
Aug 2026, 30, a Reddit user u/Beneficial_Carob_830 posted in r/foss titled "Gymmane is back". He said he'd shipped this workout log app once before, but found that some of the exercise animations were taken from a repo that re-hosted GymVisual copyrighted content without permission, so he archived the project. Now all the animations have been swapped for freely usable versions and it's back online: "Fully offline, no tracking, no ads, no accounts. This is v1, getting the basics right first, and I'll keep updating it based on what you all need, same as I do with Streak." The post got 69 upvotes and 39 comments, one of which said: "I was going to build something like this too, yours is way better than what I had in mind." By Nov 6, GymMane had 1,527 stars and 163 forks on GitHub (GitHub, 11-06). It never went viral in a single day. What's worth watching is how it piled up stars one by one.
What it is
GymMane is an Android fitness logging app written in Flutter, open source under GPL-3.0. Tap a muscle on the body diagram, pick an exercise, and log your sets, with 500+ built-in animated exercises. It also has RPE/RIR, supersets, 1RM curves, a training heatmap, progress photos, and home-screen widgets, and later added nutrition logging, Health Connect sync, and .fit export for Strava. Data from Hevy, Strong, FitNotes, and openGym can be imported in one click.
The repo's one-line description: "Offline gym log for Android. No account, no ads, no internet." The strongest point is that it doesn't even request Android's INTERNET permission. That turns "we don't collect your data" from a promise into something users can verify: after installing, they can see it on the system permissions page, and the data really can't get out. Everyone who shared it later used almost this exact line.
Completely free, with only a Ko-fi tip link from the author.
Why now
The long-standing problem with fitness logging apps is that the free tier isn't enough: Hevy (8.72M installs on Google Play) requires an account and has a Pro subscription; Strong (4.34M installs) free tier only lets you save 3 workout plans. On Reddit, people have long been posting asking for "a truly free fitness app."
2026 年 7 月,这股情绪有了出口。开源项目 openGym 7-18 建库,7-20 在 r/coolgithubprojects 一帖 172 赞,到 11-06 涨到 19,947 星,近 7 天还在涨 2,393(GitHub,11-06)。GymMane 晚了一个多月进场,搭上了同一波。它没去跟 openGym 比谁大,而是挑了一块 openGym 没占的位置:openGym 用 JS/Expo 写,支持自托管、跨端、上了 App Store;GymMane 只做 Android,纯本机,上 F-Droid,连网络权限都没有。在最在乎隐私的那群人里,它更「纯」。
How the stars came
Put the GitHub Releases timeline and the star curve side by side, and they roughly line up:
| Date | What happened | Stars (GitHub / Trendshift) |
|---|---|---|
| 08-29 / 08-30 | v1.0.0; r/foss "Gymmane is back" | — |
| 09-07 | Listed on IzzyOnDroid (a third-party F-Droid repository) | About 165 |
| 09-19 / 09-21 | v1.3.0 released; two days later +115 in a single day, ranked #2 on the Dart daily chart that day | about 09-17 341 |
| Around 10-20 | Posted "just hit 1k stars" on r/foss | About 1,000 |
| 10-24 → 11-03 | v1.7 → v2.0, four versions in ten days | 1,070 → 1,262 |
| 11-05 / 11-06 | Recommended by developer account @rammcodes on X (about 232 likes, 6.7K views) | The two days with the most gains out of 35 days: +70,93 each |
Which post drove the +09-21 on 115 was not determined; based on timing, it's most likely related to the v1.3.0 update post (inference).
The main channel is Reddit, and the author posted again with every release. The author rotated posts across r/foss, r/ProductivityApps, r/DigitalEscapeTools, and r/HowToMen: "1.1.0 We built everything you asked for," "1.2.0 Thanks for all the support," "1.5.0 Nutrition logging is here," "Passed 1k stars," "1.3k stars." The posts weren't huge, getting 30 to 70 upvotes, but they kept coming. r/BestGitHubRepos also had a post from someone else, titled with that same line "does not even request the internet permission."
Every release states how many user requests it addressed. From v1.0.0 (08-29) to v2.0.0 (11-03), it shipped 11 versions in two months, four of them in the last ten days. Release notes repeatedly say things like "twenty-six of them are in this version" and "Forty-eight of them," and the v1.9.0 notes open with "The biggest update yet, and once again it's built from your issues." Issue numbers have reached #331,11-04 to 11-06, and people are proposing new features every day. Those who request features in the comments repost when the next version ships. So the curve is a steady slope, not a single spike: +7 in the last 170 days, and +7 in the first 173 days (GitHub, 11-06).
The long tail from F-Droid. After it was listed on IzzyOnDroid, F-Droid's main repo, OpenAPK, and Obtainium, a batch of open-source app aggregator sites and "open-source alternative to XX" sites picked it up automatically, and on AlternativeTo it's listed under "Hevy alternatives." People who use F-Droid are, by definition, the crowd that cares most about "no network permission."
People are actually using it. APKs across all versions have been downloaded about 21.5k times on GitHub, and v1.3.0 alone accounts for 4,777 downloads (GitHub, 11-06). F-Droid install numbers aren't public, so real users are likely more than this (inference).
There are also smaller pieces: a repost account on Instagram ("This Gym Tracker Literally Cannot Connect to the Internet"), a YouTube video with only 235 views, and a Spanish-language LinkedIn post. The volume is small, and they don't look like the author's own promotion. No Hacker News front page, Product Hunt launch, media coverage, or ads were found.
This isn't the author's first time doing this.
The author's InlitX account runs two other projects on the same playbook: June's streak (offline habit tracker, 1,105 stars) and February's Obsidian-Dashboard-Gallery (858 stars). Both are small tools: no accounts, no ads, no network, multilingual READMEs, posted to Reddit's FOSS communities. GymMane is the third run of the same playbook and the biggest one. Its README and landing page also look like a real product: store-grade screenshots, a one-line slogan ("Lift. Log it. Grow."), and translations in 16 languages via Crowdin. Next to a pile of bare-bones FOSS projects, it stands out.
Offline alone isn't enough. Flex, which is also offline, Flutter, and on F-Droid, has only 453 stars. LibreFit has 251 and LiftLog 602. What they lack is features, packaging, and update speed.
Who it's competing with
| Project | Scale | How it differs from GymMane |
|---|---|---|
| Hevy | Google Play 8.72M installs | Accounts, cloud sync, social features, Pro subscription |
| Strong / FitNotes | 4.34M / 4.19M installs | Strong's free tier is limited; FitNotes is free and offline but closed-source with a dated UI |
| openGym | 19,947 stars | The leader of the same wave, self-hostable, cross-platform, on the App Store; about 13x GymMane's scale |
| wger / workout-cool | 7,234 / 8,663 stars | One requires you to run your own server, the other is a web coaching platform |
| Flex / LiftLog / LibreFit | 453 / 602 / 251 stars | Also offline and open-source, but growth has essentially stalled |
| smartworldarafath/Open-GYM | 11 stars | A reskin built in 09-23, even copying the slogan |
Others are already copying it. The author 09-29 added an ADDITIONAL_TERMS.md to the repo requiring every derivative to display "Based on GymMane by InlitX," per GPL clause 7. Other same-period offline workout-log libraries, like Forge-Fitness and ForgeLog, sit at single-digit stars.
There's also a risk. A September piece, "How much of F-Droid is LLM generated?", was discussed on HN and labeled GymMane "Mostly AI." Across 266 commits, almost all by one person, with a huge release every week and an alarming number of features, it does look heavily AI-written. The FOSS community is sensitive to this, and the reputation could turn at any time.
If it were you
One-line verdict: Workout logging already has openGym and GymMane. Don't build a third. What's worth copying is the playbook, applied to another category.
- Who it's for: indie devs who can use AI to ship frequently, are willing to spend long stretches commenting in Reddit's FOSS and privacy communities, and want an open-source app with real users to put on a resume.
- Who it's not for: people hoping for one viral post and then walking away. GymMane never had a single explosive day. Its 1,500 stars came from 11 releases over two months and a dozen-plus posts. It's also not for anyone hoping to make money from it, since this category basically doesn't earn.
- How to do it: Find a high-frequency category where subscription pricing has gutted the free tier, such as habit tracking, period tracking, expense logging, meditation, flashcards, or running logs. Build an open-source version with no features cut, no accounts, and no network permission. Make privacy a technical fact users can verify (you don't request a given permission) and put it in the title. Ship one-tap import from the leading competitor in v1 so switching costs nothing. Another route is filling what GymMane hasn't done: the author says an iOS version is in progress but not out yet, and as far as I can tell, no one has shipped a purely offline, open-source iOS workout logger (unverified).
- How to get users: Post in r/foss, r/fossdroid, r/privacy, r/ProductivityApps and similar communities, and follow every release with an update post whose release notes say "this version does N issues you asked for." List on IzzyOnDroid, F-Droid, and Obtainium to catch the aggregator long tail. Format the README like a store page, and make it multilingual. Smaller language charts on GitHub Trending (Dart, Kotlin) have less competition, and steady star growth can get you on them.
- When to move early: No rush, since this playbook doesn't depend on a hot moment. But once a category has an open-source alternative with 10k+ stars, later entrants can only fight for narrow niches. So check whether your chosen category still has room first.
- Signs you've misread it: After three or four releases, each followed by a Reddit post, stars are still stuck at a hundred or two and the issue tracker has no feature requests. That means the category's users don't care about "offline and open-source," or your features are still far from a commercial app. Change categories then, rather than adding more features.
Research notes: competitor table, acquisition evidence, full research report
- Competitors
Name Where Launched Scale How it differs from this one Hevy iOS 2019-06 Play installs 8.72M, 287k ratings (googleplay library) Requires an account, cloud sync, Pro subscription; GymMane has no account, no network, is fully free, and supports importing from Hevy Strong iOS 2017-04 Play installs 4.34M Free tier caps routine count, subscription model; GymMane has all features unlocked and can import Strong data FitNotes Android 2013-03 Play installs 4.19M Long-running free offline app, not open-source, dated UI; GymMane has a muscle map, animations, a modern UI, and can import FitNotes Fitbod / JEFIT iOS Around 2020 Fitbod Play 4.87M installs AI-generated workout plans on a subscription; different direction openGym (DuarteSantos8/openGym) Open source 2026-07-18 19,947 stars, up +2,393 in the last ~7 days; also a mirror repo with 7.4k stars Leader of the same wave: JS/Expo, self-hostable, on the App Store. GymMane is local-only Android, native to F-Droid, with no network permission. Its scale is about 1/13 of GymMane's wger Open source 2013-01 7,234 stars; Flutter client 990 Requires a self-hosted server; more of a general-purpose suite workout-cool Open source 2025-06 8,663 star Web coaching platform, not a mobile offline logbook Flex / LiftLog / LibreFit Open source 2024-02 / 2021-05 / 2024-09 453 / 602 / 251 star Also offline FOSS, but weaker in features, packaging, and update speed; growth has stalled Apple Fitness / Health Connect / Samsung Health Big-company features - Built into the system Doesn't do set-by-set strength logging; GymMane instead writes workouts into Health Connect - Where users come from
- Verified Post on Reddit's FOSS/privacy subreddits every release: u/Beneficial_Carob_830 posted "Gymmane is back" (08-30,69 upvotes, 39 comments) on r/foss, plus 1.1.0/1.2.0 update posts, "hit 1k stars" (10-20), and "1.3k stars"; r/ProductivityApps (09-15,30 upvotes, 25 comments), r/DigitalEscapeTools, r/HowToMen, 1.5.0 posts total. Trendshift's step-ups roughly line up with the posting dates.
- Verified Multi-channel F-Droid ecosystem listings + long-tail aggregators: IzzyOnDroid InRepoSince 2026-09-07, the main F-Droid repo, OpenAPK, Obtainium; auto-indexed by AlternativeTo (as a Hevy alternative), OpenAltFinder, fossdroid, wares.gg, selfhostedworld, and others.
- Verified GitHub Trending / star aggregators: Trendshift logged 28 days in the Dart top 25; our trending table shows it at #2 on the Dart daily chart 11-06; indexed by hysenlabs, upstar, codeKK.
- Verified Large X developer accounts: @rammcodes's recommendation post got about 232 likes / 20 reposts (11-05). 11-05/06 was one of the two biggest star-gain days in 93 days (+35/+70 in our library, Trendshift +96/+99).
- Verified Instagram/YouTube/LinkedIn repost accounts: IG Reel "This Gym Tracker Literally Cannot Connect to the Internet"; a YouTube GitHub Recaps video with 235 views; a Spanish-language LinkedIn post with 09-25.
- Inferred Show HN: The data card cites about 67 upvotes, but neither our hackernews library nor Algolia finds it.
Why GymMane (InlitX/GymMane) took off
Channel: GitHub (open-source Android app). Research day 2026-11-06. Data sources: our github / hackernews / googleplay databases, GitHub API, Trendshift, Jina/Exa/Brave search (Reddit original posts were 403, so search summaries were used).
One line
GymMane is an offline Android workout logger built in Flutter. You tap a muscle map to start a session, log sets, get 500+ exercise animations, and there's a nutrition beta. Its hard pitch is "it doesn't even request the INTERNET permission". The stars didn't come from one burst. The author built them up by posting every release to r/foss and other privacy/FOSS subreddits, shipping fixes for every issue quickly, and listing on F-Droid, IzzyOnDroid and other channels. It rode the wave of 2026 summer's "open-source alternatives to subscription apps like Hevy and Strong" (openGym got close to 20k stars in the same stretch), and within that wave it claimed the spot for offline-only, Android-only, F-Droid-native apps.
1. Data
- Stars: 1,526 (GitHub API, 11-06 late); the data card recorded 1,392 (11-06 snapshot). Library built 2026-08-05,93 days ago.
- Trajectory (our repo_day library + Trendshift daily table):
- About 165 stars before 09-07 (Trendshift shows 09-07~11-06, +1,361 total); 09-17 at 341 (hysenlabs snapshot); 10-09 825; it crossed 1k around 10-20; 11-06 1,392~1,526.
- Steady daily gains of +5~+40, punctuated by several step-ups: 09-21 +115 (Trendshift, same day as #2 on the Dart chart), 10-13~15 at +20~26 a day, 10-22/26/27 +33/+33/+44, and 11-05/06 +35/+70 (our library; Trendshift logged +96/+99).
- prev_7d 173 → gain_7d 170, steady growth; 11-06 it hit #2 on GitHub Trending's Dart daily chart (our trending table). Trendshift logged it in the Dart top 25 for 28 of the 09-07 days since.
- 162 forks (about 10.6%), 17 merged PRs (61 days, Trendshift), external contributors including Marcos6226 and 9DYnastY; issue numbers have reached #331,11-04~11-06, with new feature requests every day (GitHub issues page).
- Indirect evidence of real usage: all APKs on GitHub Releases have 21,467 cumulative downloads (GitHub API, 11-06), and v2.0.0 (released 11-03) got 1,799 downloads in three days. F-Droid and IzzyOnDroid don't publish download counts.
- Release cadence: v1.0.0 (08-29) → v2.0.0 (11-03), 11 releases in two months, roughly one a week. Release notes repeatedly say things like "twenty-six of them are in this version" and "Forty-eight of them"; every release says it was built from issues and Reddit feedback.
II. Competitors
| Product | Where | Launched | Scale | How it differs from GymMane |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hevy | iOS/Android | 2019-06 | Play installs 8.72M, 287k ratings (googleplay library) | Accounts + cloud sync + social features, limited free tier, Pro subscription; GymMane has no accounts, no network, and is fully free |
| Strong | iOS/Android | 2017-04 | 4.34M installs on Play (googleplay library) | Free tier caps at 3 routines, Pro subscription; GymMane supports importing from Strong |
| FitNotes | Android | 2013-03 | 4.19M installs on Play (googleplay library) | Long-running free offline logger with a dated UI and not open-source; GymMane can import FitNotes and has a modern UI with a muscle map and animations |
| Fitbod / JEFIT | iOS/Android | 2020/earlier | Fitbod Play 4.87M installs | AI-generated plans on a subscription; different direction |
| openGym(DuarteSantos8/openGym) | Open source (self-hosted web + iOS + Android APK) | 2026-07-18 | 19,947 stars (11-06), up +7 in the last 2,393 days; also a mirror repo with 7.4k stars | The leader of the same wave of "open-source alternatives to subscription fitness apps": JS/Expo, self-hostable, on the App Store. GymMane is offline-only Android, native to F-Droid, with no network permission. The two each support importing the other's data. |
| wger | Open source (self-hosted) + Flutter client | 2013 | 7,234 star; Flutter Android client 990 | Needs a server, more of a general-purpose tracker |
| workout-cool | Open-source Web | 2025-06 | 8,663 star | Coaching platform/web, not an offline phone log |
| Flex(brandonp2412/Flexify) | Open-source Android/Flutter, on F-Droid | 2024-02 | 453 star | Also offline Flutter, but thinner features and packaging. Also listed by tintotint as AI-generated |
| LiftLog / LibreFit / Simple | Open source | 2021 / 2024 / — | 602 / 251 / 225 star | Old-school niche FOSS logger, growth has stalled |
| Apple Fitness / Google Health Connect / Samsung Health | Big-company features | — | Built into the system | Doesn't do set-by-set strength logging; GymMane instead writes workouts into Health Connect |
Verdict: the category is crowded. Commercial leaders Hevy and Strong have millions of users. On the open-source side, openGym has been the clear leader since 2026 July. GymMane didn't create the category. It's a second-tier entrant in this wave, and it won the FOSS/privacy crowd with a narrower positioning.
3. Where users come from (growth levers)
- Reddit privacy/FOSS subreddits, one post per release (main channel, confirmed). The author's Reddit account is u/Beneficial_Carob_830:
- 08-30 r/foss "Gymmane is back", 69 upvotes, 39 comments. The earlier version was archived because its exercise GIFs came from a repo that re-hosted proprietary GymVisual content without a license. The rebuilt version was reposted (Brave summary).
- Later r/foss "1.1.0 everything you asked for is in" and "1.2.0 thank you for all the support", r/ProductivityApps "100% offline, free, and open-source gym app" (09-15,30 upvotes, 25 comments), r/ProductivityApps "Gymmane is back", r/DigitalEscapeTools / r/HowToMen "1.5.0 nutrition tracking is here", r/foss "just hit 1k stars" (10-20), r/foss "reached 1.3k stars".
- r/BestGitHubRepos has two or three third-party/semi-official reposts ("does not even request the internet permission", "1.2k stars"). People also mention GymMane in comments under openGym's thank-you post.
- Trendshift's step-up days (09-07, 09-13/14, 09-21, 10-12, 10-21, 10-24~26, 11-03) roughly line up with these post dates. I could not verify which post the single-day +115 jump on 09-21 corresponds to.
- Multi-channel listings in the F-Droid ecosystem (confirmed): IzzyOnDroid (InRepoSince 2026-09-07), the main F-Droid repo, OpenAPK, one-click import into Obtainium, GitHub Releases. It was then auto-indexed by many F-Droid/open-source app aggregators (fossdroid, AlternativeTo "Hevy alternative", OpenAltFinder, wares.gg, appsgit, SafeHaven Store, androidhit, selfhostedworld, wikiapkpedia, and others). These are long-tail SEO entry points.
- GitHub trending and star aggregators (confirmed): the Dart language chart has light competition, and it has repeatedly reached the top 25,11-06 daily spots, ranking #2. Also tracked by hysenlabs (49 days +1,043), upstar, codeKK, and Trendshift.
- Big X account amplification (confirmed, recent): 11-05 developer account Ram Maheshwari (@rammcodes) posted an open-source recommendation in the style of "OH... INTERNET, YOU NEVER DISAPPOINT", with about 232 likes, 20 reposts, and 6.7K views (scraped via Jina). The two biggest star days in 93 days came right after 11-05/06.
- Short-video and repost accounts (confirmed, small reach): an Instagram Reel "This Gym Tracker Literally Cannot Connect to the Internet", an Instagram post "Your workouts deserve a better tracker", a YouTube video on the "GitHub Recaps" channel, "I Found a FREE Gym App With NO Ads, NO Account & NO Internet?!", with only 235 views, and a Spanish-language LinkedIn post "Hay una app de gimnasio que no podría vender tus datos ni aunque quisiera" (09-25). These are all GitHub-repost style accounts, not paid promotion by the author.
- Not found: HN (neither our hackernews database nor Algolia has a GymMane post; the "Show HN about 67 upvotes" in the data card could not be verified), ads, Product Hunt, press coverage, Google Play/App Store listings (a Reddit commenter asked "Is it on the Play store?", and the author replied that only Android is out and iOS is in progress).
IV. Why it took off
- Hit a clear frustration: fitness tracking apps like Hevy and Strong have turned into "free tier is unusable, account required, subscription required" products, and Reddit has a long-running demand for a truly free gym app. openGym's post went from cold start to nearly 20k stars with 172 likes in 2026 July, which shows the sentiment is real. GymMane entered two weeks later and rode the same wave.
- A sharp, verifiable one-line hook: "Doesn't request the INTERNET permission, so data physically can't leave the device." It isn't "we promise to protect your privacy". You can check it on the permissions page after install. That line was reused as-is by every repost account (IG, X, LinkedIn, aggregator titles), and it's the core unit of spread.
- Feature parity with commercial apps: muscle body map, 500+ exercise animations, RPE/RIR, supersets, 1RM curves, heatmaps, progress photos, widgets, nutrition, Health Connect, Strava .fit export, one-click import from Hevy/Strong/FitNotes/openGym. "Zero migration cost and no feature cuts" made FOSS users willing to actually switch. It also drives 20k+ release downloads and daily issue activity.
- "We build what you ask for" fast iteration, and reporting back on Reddit every release: 11 releases in two months, each one listing how many user issues it addressed. Every update is another round of exposure. People who requested features in the comments became the next round's promoters. That's why the growth curve is a steady line rather than a single spike.
- Natural distribution through F-Droid: once listed on IzzyOnDroid/F-Droid, a crowd of aggregators and "open-source alternative to XX" sites indexed it automatically. F-Droid users are the people who care most about "no network permission", so positioning and channel line up exactly.
- The author had a ready-made template: the same author's June streak (offline habit tracker, 1,105 stars) and February Obsidian-Dashboard-Gallery (858 stars) used the same playbook: small tool + no account, no ads, no network + multilingual README + Reddit FOSS posts. GymMane is the third reuse of that playbook, and the biggest one.
5. Differentiation
- Versus commercial apps (Hevy/Strong/Fitbod): no account, no subscription, no ads, no network permission, open source. Feature depth is close.
- Versus openGym (the most direct open-source rival): openGym goes with "self-hostable + cross-platform + on the App Store". GymMane goes with "purely on-device, native Android, listed on F-Droid, no network permission at all". GymMane is "purer" in the F-Droid and privacy crowd, but it's only about 1/13 of openGym's scale.
- Versus old-school FOSS loggers (Flex, LiftLog, LibreFit, FitNotes): the UI and packaging are far more modern (store-grade screenshots, the brand slogan "Lift. Log it. Grow.", multilingual README and landing page), with many more features and much faster updates.
- Judgment: the "no network permission" differentiator is the hook that drove spread, and that's one reason it took off. What kept it growing is feature completeness, fast iteration, and reporting back to Reddit every release. "Offline" alone isn't enough. Flex and LibreFit are offline too, and they've stalled at a few hundred stars.
6. How many people saw it, and is anyone copying it?
- Visibility: circulating in small circles. Mainly on Reddit FOSS/privacy subreddits, the F-Droid ecosystem, and GitHub aggregators. On X it was first picked up by one developer account only at 11-05. No press, no HN front page. No revenue (fully free, only Ko-fi tips).
- Negative signal: tintotint.eu's September post "How much of F-Droid is LLM generated?" (discussed on HN) rated GymMane "Mostly AI". The author's commits are almost all by one person (266 contributions), with a big release every week and a huge feature list, which matches the profile of AI-assisted development. The FOSS community is sensitive to this, so it's a real risk.
- Copycats: smartworldarafath/Open-GYM (09-23 built, 11 stars) even uses the same slogan, "Lift. Log it. Grow.", and "552 exercises, 16 languages". It's basically a reskin. The author of 09-29 added ADDITIONAL_TERMS.md, because GPL §7(b) requires derivative works to display "Based on GymMane by InlitX", which shows the reskinning already happened. Other small "offline-first gym tracker" repos from the same period (single-digit stars) include Forge-Fitness, ForgeLog, open-factor and PRIME.
7. What others can learn
- Find a high-frequency category where a subscription has gutted the free tier. Build an open-source version with "no feature cuts + no account + no network", and put the privacy promise in the title as a verifiable technical fact (you don't request a certain permission).
- From day one, offer one-click import from the leading competitors so switching costs nothing.
- Report back to the same community every release, and name in the release notes how many of their issues that version addressed. This turns the comment section into a feature backlog and a promoter pool.
- List on F-Droid, IzzyOnDroid, and Obtainium to automatically pick up a long tail of aggregator traffic.
- Store-grade screenshots, a slogan, a multilingual README, and a landing page make the project look like a product among a sea of bare-bones FOSS repos.
- The same playbook can be replicated across other small tools in batches. The author has already done this with streak, Remindrop, and others.
8. What's still uncertain
- Which specific post caused the single-day +115 on 09-21; the data card's "Show HN about 67 upvotes" could not be found in the HN database or Algolia.
- The full text and all comments of the original Reddit posts (403, only search snippets available).
- Actual install counts on F-Droid/IzzyOnDroid, and the view count on the Instagram Reel.
- The author's identity (in Reddit replies they say they'll cover Spanish, English, and Arabic). Whether this is an individual developer batch-producing apps with AI.
- Whether an iOS version will ship (the author said on Reddit it's in progress).
Sources
- github.com/InlitX/GymMane (README, releases, issues, ADDITIONAL_TERMS.md); GitHub API (stars/forks/downloads, 11-06)
- trendshift.io/repositories/107197 (09-07~11-06 daily star gains and Dart chart ranking)
- hysenlabs.com/projects/inlitx-gymmane (09-17 341 star → 11-05 1.4k)
- Reddit: r/foss/comments/1w2ow40 (Gymmane is back, 69 upvotes 39 comments), r/ProductivityApps/comments/1wh5820 (30 upvotes 25 comments), r/foss/comments/1xb6hdo (1k stars), r/foss/comments/1w8clq9, 1wf9azz, r/DigitalEscapeTools/comments/1x3xs66, r/BestGitHubRepos/comments/1wp14n4, 1xisq1w (Brave/Jina search summaries)
- x.com/rammcodes/status/2118380126874505407 (11-05)
- tintotint.eu/whacky-corner/f-droid_slop/ ;news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49710015
- apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid/index/apk/com.gymmane.app?repo=main ;f-droid.org/en/packages/com.gymmane.app/
- www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbDvNlmdYwE (235 views); www.instagram.com/reel/Ddh2XIlFKnX/
- Our database: github (repo_day, trending, repo_profile, 11-06), googleplay (Hevy/Strong/FitNotes/Fitbod install counts), hackernews (no GymMane posts)
- openGym: github.com/DuarteSantos8/openGym; r/coolgithubprojects/comments/1v1rbig (07-20,172 upvotes)
- Reskin: github.com/smartworldarafath/Open-GYM