Ride with GPS vs AllTrails
AllTrails is the better choice for general outdoor trail navigation due to its wider user base, extensive trail database, and generally positive feedback on ease of use, despite some recent issues with its paid tiers, while Ride with GPS excels for dedicated cycling with advanced route planning but struggles with user experience and reliability.
AllTrails offers a vast database of trails and is praised for its user-friendliness, making it ideal for hikers and general outdoor enthusiasts, though some users express frustration with its pricing model and recent technical glitches. Ride with GPS is highly valued by cyclists for its detailed route planning and navigation, but it faces criticism for its outdated interface, syncing issues, and confusing user experience.
Head to head
You are a serious cyclist looking for advanced route planning and navigation, especially for complex or gravel routes, and value a strong web-based tool over the mobile app R23. You are willing to navigate a less intuitive interface for specialized cycling features R8R13.
You are primarily a hiker or general outdoor enthusiast seeking a vast database of trails and user-friendly navigation for finding new routes . You appreciate community reviews and photos to inform your outdoor activities .
Evidence note: AllTrails has a significantly larger number of reviews, which might skew perceptions, but both apps have a mix of recent negative feedback regarding pricing, bugs, and UX issues. Ride with GPS's free tier appears more restrictive, leading to more complaints about paywalls for basic functionality.
Frequently asked
Is Ride with GPS good for off-road cycling?
Does AllTrails have a free version?
Can I sync Ride with GPS with other devices?
What are the common complaints about AllTrails' paid subscriptions?
What reviewers actually said
Built only from these 120 real reviews (foreign ones translated). Superscripts jump to the quote here. Apple has no per-review links, so [ref] opens that app's reviews on the App Store.
- [R10] Ride with GPS Not what I would like!: The basic app is all I want or need. My biggest disappointment is that I can’t consistently save my rides! The app won’t see my home WiFi. As a result, the ride doesn’t get recorded. This seems to be happening more often. It’s happened twice this month.
- [R18] Ride with GPS No sharing rides: Good enough for following along, but man it’d be nice to be able to export files
- [R23] Ride with GPS Way better than Strava: Ride with GPS has been excellent. The route planning, mapping, and navigation tools are far better than what I’ve been able to do with Strava, especially for real outdoor riding, gravel routes, and planning bigger rides. The customer service has also been great. They actually respond and help solve problems, which makes a big difference. Dylan’s tutorials are excellent too
- [R24] Ride with GPS Could be excellent but has fundamental flaws: In general, and for very simple actions, this is a good app. It reliably tracks rides and provides good turn-by-turn route following instructions. BUT it has one major flaw, which renders it pretty much useless in my book. The problem lies in the ‘Explore’ function, where you search for nearby routes. This feature is downright awful. Let’s say you a
- [R6] Ride with GPS Needs Update: The Home Screen looks like it was designed a decade ago. The cost seems high for the features provided
- [R8] Ride with GPS Lousy instructions: You people need serious help with intuitiveness
- [R12] Ride with GPS Some good, some not so good: Was really excited to see the live view on lock screen come back, but now the edit details screen is much worse. The keyboard doesn't behave normally and the screen looks really strange. Not sure what drove those changes, but hopefully they'll revert.
- [R13] Ride with GPS Confusing: Confusing to end a ride even for my tech savvy son. If it starts OUT that way what other frustrating stuff have your IT folks put in it?
- [R3] Ride with GPS Frequent Apple Watch issues: The app frequently failed to record heart rate data from my watch. This has been an ongoing issue for over a year..
- [R9] Ride with GPS Should have more Intelligence: Ride With GPS is my go to app for bike ride navigation. Generally works well. But it will send you in the wrong direction on a figure 8 course. The app doesn’t have built in intelligence to understand whether you are coming or going and it will send you on the return leg rather than sending you in the mapped ride direction. This should be an easy fix but this bug has
- [R19] Ride with GPS Bad tracking and late notifications: App does not accurately map tracks and notifies you of turns after you pass the waypoint. Rode over and extra mile for difficult MTB trails due to bad tracking
- [R25] Ride with GPS Ouch $$$$$: Too expensive for me
- [R34] Ride with GPS Can’t navigate: Have always been able to follow navigation without having to pay. Got started on a sponsored race and found out I had to pay in order to use the navigation. This put me at risk and in danger in the middle of a ride to have to try to figure out how to pay or get lost or worse.
- [R36] Ride with GPS Somewhat limited for a subscription-based app: Considering that the asking price is around £60/year for full access to the app, I’m a little disappointed with my trial. There are a few bugs - km changed to miles and back again multiple times for no reason, offline maps still needed some mobile signal on occasion. There was no option to view some pieces of info in metric and others in imperial (e
- [R4] Ride with GPS Bad Account Support: There is no way to manage your subscription using the app
- [R11] Ride with GPS Climbs are being added as descents: I like this app enough to purchase a year subscription. However, there is an issue that I am hoping can be resolved. Someone with Ride with GPS has escalated a ticket to developers but issue still not resolved. The Climb section isn’t showing climbs. Climbs appear to be added to descents. Curious if anyone else is experiencing this issue.
- [R81] AllTrails Cancelled subscription but still charged: I cancelled my subscription the day before it ended but was still charged £35.99. After several messages with their support team support team I was refunded the full amount but without apology or explanation. I won’t be using this app again.
- [R16] Ride with GPS USE CAUTION on off-road routes!: Just because a route is posted, doesn’t mean it is a valid route. Route hazards, water access, and trail conditions may not be visible unless you pay for a subscription. Routes posted without reviews or comments should be avoided.
- [R26] Ride with GPS So good: Wouldn’t leave my house with making a quick and easy route that avoids traffic and google map errors. Always make it an adventure taking the gravel and back alley routes.
- [R57] Ride with GPS Just cancelled. Recommending garmin: If you are a roadie or new to an area, Ride with GPS is fine, but it has too many limitations for gravel, cross and mtb. Recommending garmin for those routes. Garmin has more trails and the freehand feature lets you make a route using real world experince instead of outdated GPS mapping. I've already found a summer full of new rides.
- [R77] AllTrails Thank you for the free version: I don’t hike very often. I us is for a guidance
- [R78] AllTrails No route notification: I used this for the first time on the peak subscription. At no point does the phone notify you of the next turning, each time you have to open the app and look which when you are walking and looking where you are stepping is frustrating. I thought there would be a buzz or a ping to tell you the next turning. I’m disappointed that I upgraded as it’s hard to navigate. That sai
- [R79] AllTrails Just a giant ad: Everything is locked down in this app. Everything you click on is a trick to advertise the paid premium app. It’s not worth it anymore
- [R90] AllTrails Feature locked: I would be happy to pay plus fees if I could create and modify my own routes. It’s ridiculous this is locked in the peak tier for £80 a year. Just save that tier for your AI tools? It’s a good app, nice interface and smooth operation, but I’ve cancelled my subscription and won’t restart it until these features are available for the plus tier. Very frustrating.
- [R7] Ride with GPS Doesn’t actually sync with Wahoo: Doesn’t sync with My Elemnt. Keeps putting me in a loop appwise despite my signing up for a membership. Then online my membership is not showing. Terrible. PS my device DID ack connect new app RWGPS and STILL could not send route to device. WTF. Now I have to download GPX. What friggin year is this, 1999?
- [R21] Ride with GPS Garmin: Finding it hard to sync with Garmin devices. When it does sync, the route is pretty extraordinary and I spend most of my time “off course”. This could be as much a problem with Garmin but it should be easier.
- [R39] Ride with GPS Workout route maps are not sync’d to Apple: Actually I think this is the only app that doesn't send the route to Apple Health so I cannot think why they excluded this functionality. Otherwise nearly great.
- [R61] AllTrails Thief’s App: I get a notification of auto renewal at 10:53pm and two hours later they hit my account leaving me not option but to pay for something I didn’t want. Theirs do their work an night, and so do these people. Decent app, worth $15 yearly: sure. However, it’s not worth $35 or the money they’ll have to pay me to remove the 12 reviews I’ve posted announcing their nefariousness.
- [R69] AllTrails Great App but it’s a money grab: 80 dollars is ridiculous for the peak subscription. I feel like it’s a money grab, I also hate how they show features that you don’t have access to and you don’t realize you don’t have that feature until you click on it. The peak features should be part of the plus subscription.
- [R70] AllTrails Hate this two-tier system: So annoyed by the greed of having this two-level system, and denying stuff for people who are already paying customers. It sucks.
Synthesized from 120 recent App Store reviews · updated July 2026 · View on the App Store