I.Three tools, three different questions
When you take your outings seriously, three names come up almost every time: Strava, Garmin Connect, and — more recently — a dedicated analyser like GPXchunk. From a distance, they look like competitors: all three show numbers, maps, charts. In practice, they answer three fundamentally different questions.
Strava answers: « How do I rank against others, and against myself over time? »
Garmin Connect answers: « What do my physiological numbers say about my training and my fitness? »
GPXchunk answers: « What does this precise portion of my track say, isolated from the rest? »
Three distinct questions, three tools tuned for their question. The choice of tool depends on the question you're asking that day — not the other way round.
II.Strava: community and social comparison
Strava turned the sport-tracking app into a community platform. Its strength is captured in a few words: segments, leaderboards, friends feed, KOMs and QOMs. You run up a climb others ran up before you, you're ranked automatically. You publish your outing, your friends see it and comment. You look for a route in an unfamiliar area, Strava's heatmap shows you where others ride. That's Strava's DNA: social comparison made trivial.
Best for: measuring yourself against others, following a community, finding popular routes, keeping in touch with running partners. No one does Strava better than Strava.
Limit: it's not a fine-grained private analysis tool. Everything goes through the account, through sharing, through public display. If the question is « what does this portion of my track say, independently of others? », the tool asks you to set up a public segment to get the answer — too high a price for the question asked.
III.Garmin Connect: the physiological ecosystem
Garmin Connect is the natural extension of your Garmin watch. Its strength lies elsewhere: heart rate, effort zones, training load, estimated VO₂ max, training status, sleep and HRV tracking. It's a physiological companion that aggregates weeks, months, years of activity to produce trends and advice. Paired with structured training plans and the Connect IQ ecosystem, Garmin Connect covers the bulk of modern sports preparation.
Best for: long-term tracking, structured training plans, well-being metrics (recovery, sleep, fatigue), deep integration with a Garmin watch.
Limit: less skilled at fine geographical analysis. Connect favours aggregation (whole-outing average, global curves) over dissection (this specific segment, isolated). The product is built to file activities into a training calendar, not to dig into a track.
IV.GPXchunk: precise geographical analysis
GPXchunk does one thing, and does it deeply: isolate any arbitrary portion of a GPX track and read its twelve measures recomputed live. The climb of a col within a four-hour outing, the closing sprint of a race, the technical descent of a trail — drop two handles on the elevation profile, and the segment alone yields its figures.
Best for: understanding a specific effort in detail, comparing climbs without creating a public segment, analysing a track received from a friend without having to create an account, keeping your watch's raw barometer intact.
Three architectural choices set GPXchunk apart: no account required (open the page, drop your file), no data sent to a server (everything stays in the browser — see the local-only path), and no smoothing (the track you read is exactly the one in your file, no hidden elevation correction).
Limit: no social, no long-term tracking, no training programmes, no fitness status over six months. GPXchunk is a track microscope, not a coach.
V.Decision matrix: when to use which
Rather than arbitrate in the abstract, let's start from concrete situations:
- « Comparing my climb time on a col against friends and strangers » → Strava.
- « Tracking the trend of my VO₂ max or training load over six months » → Garmin Connect.
- « Reading the elevation gain, climbing speed and average HR of yesterday's big climb — without the dilution of the whole outing » → GPXchunk.
- « Following a marathon training plan, week by week » → Garmin Connect.
- « Finding a popular race or a busy route in a new area » → Strava.
- « Analysing a .gpx track sent by a friend who doesn't have a Strava account » → GPXchunk.
- « Understanding why I cracked on the last climb of Sunday's trail » → GPXchunk.
- « Planning my training week and checking my recovery score every morning » → Garmin Connect.
- « Posting my outing so my friends see and react to it » → Strava.
The matrix could stretch indefinitely, but the logic is stable: the question determines the tool.
VI.The honest case: using all three together
Most reasonably serious athletes use all three in parallel — often without realising it. The outing is recorded on the Garmin watch, which pushes it automatically to Garmin Connect (physiological tracking) and to Strava (social publication). When the runner wants to dig into a specific effort — a memorable climb, a hard surge, a costly section —, they export the .gpx and open it in a dedicated analyser. Three tools, three moments.
Strava socialises, Garmin trains, GPXchunk dissects. Three roles in the same sporting gesture — not a competition.
What makes them complementary is that none does the job of the other two. Strava doesn't dissect an isolated portion without friction. Garmin Connect doesn't build a community around your outing. GPXchunk doesn't track your fitness over six months. Wanting one tool to do everything is like asking a watch to also be a phone: technically possible, rarely satisfying.
VII.If you had to pick just one
For the casual runner who wants a single app: Garmin Connect. It comes with the watch, it's well integrated, it covers 80 % of the needs (tracking, training plans, well-being metrics). It's also free as long as you have the watch.
For the social runner whose engagement comes from comparison: Strava. The network effect is unmatched, and the « kudos engine » remains a powerful motivator for those who need one.
For the curious runner who wants to understand what actually happened on a precise portion — race preparation, effort debrief, analysis of a bad day —: GPXchunk as a complement. It isn't a first-pick tool, and saying so honestly is better than pretending otherwise. It's a microscope you pull out when the questions get precise.
The right reflex: use all three depending on the moment, without worrying about the apparent redundancy. It's not redundancy, it's complementarity.