Deep down inside, we all know how important it is to try to live a healthy and active life, but actually making that happen everyday can often feel like a chore. The truth is you don’t need a personal trainer or a gym membership anymore if you want to stay on top of your activity. You don't even need to purchase a wrist-worn fitness band. In fact, the smartphone you already have in your pocket can track activity and help you meet your fitness goals.

The best activity tracking apps use the motion detectors built into your phone and don’t rely on any additional hardware. They make it easy to set and monitor goals that work for you, and motivate you along the way with timely information about your progress.

Fitness tracking apps won’t put you on the podium at a fitness competition, but they can kick off a number of habits that help you live a healthier life. There are a lot out there, but when all things are considered, one stands out.

The Winner

The app that gets all that right and even goes a few steps further is UP by Jawbone. You might already be familiar with UP as a wrist-worn activity tracker but the brains of the operation are actually found in its companion smartphone app. Using your phone’s built-in sensors, UP collects all the data it would get from a dedicated tracker, provided you bring your phone along for the ride. Best of all, the UP app is completely free to use.

UP learns from the data it collects and can automatically send a helpful nudge when you’re having an off day, or a thumbs up for exceeding one of your goals. You can also set up custom notifications for when you’ve taken a certain number of steps as well as scheduled progress reports for a more detailed overview of your days.

Unlike most trackers that start everyone out at the same 10,000-step-per-day goal, UP cleverly suggests a good place to start with your goals by showing you where other people with the same height, weight, and age averaged. It’s a simple feature, but it goes a long way to ensure that UP feels more like an aid than an annoyance.

In addition to monitoring your activity, UP can also keep a log of all of the food you consume. Logging every meal is a chore, but UP tries, and mostly succeeds, at solving that problem by giving you several very fast and easy ways to input what you eat and drink. In addition to a manual search of UP’s database, there is a scanner that can quickly find any prepared food or drink item with a barcode. A list of restaurants nearby allows you to add whatever you’ve just ordered to your food log with a few taps. All of this adds up to an app that feels fun and light while being very powerful and flexible.

Overall, UP is the app we chose because it’s the most comprehensive and useful in your daily life. But if you want something less involved, you might be interested in our runner-up pick.

The Runner Up

For the next best option go with Fitbit. Just like UP by Jawbone, Fitbit started as a companion app for Fitbit’s popular line of wearable activity trackers and then grew up into a full-fledged tracker of its own. Also like UP, Fitbit will track all your activity, log food and drink intake, and has the ability to link up with your friends for fun competitions. I actually like Fitbit’s home screen better than UP’s because it lays out more information on the screen in an easily glanceable page that has all the details I care about in one easy to find place. I also found Fitbit’s app to be a bit faster and more intuitive to navigate.

The speed and ease of use of Fitbit are important because you’ll be opening the app a lot during the day to see how you’re doing. Whereas UP feels like an app designed to act like a personal trainer who reaches out at just the right time to give you a little push, Fitbit feels more like a scale in your gym locker room, a passive device that only gives you information when you check it. For that reason, it can be harder to make using the Fitbit app a habit, which is a crucial part of changing your lifestyle.

The Others

Our review of Strava Running and Cycling (iOS) Verge Score 8.4 out of 10 If you’re a hardcore runner or bicyclist, you should be using Strava. You can track your run or bike ride with GPS and see your exact route along with detailed info like pace, elevation changes, power, and cadence. Strava’s biggest selling point is its large active user base that allows you to do things such as see which of your friends are out on a run or compare your best record to other people of the same age, weight, and height. But it's really designed to be a companion to workouts or specific activities, not as a monitor for your everyday step count. Buy for $0.00 from App Store

Our review of iTMP Technology Nike+ Fuel (iOS) Verge Score 8.1 out of 10 If all you care about is seeing is how hard you trained today, it’s very hard to beat Nike+ Fuel. It can’t track what you eat and drink, and it won’t allow you to keep an eye on your sleep cycles. Instead it focuses on providing the most polished visual interface that motivates you to push harder and beat all of your friends' records in the process. Buy for $0.00 from App Store

Our review of Grallr Carrot Fit (iOS) Verge Score 7.6 out of 10 Carrot Fit is the military boot camp of activity tracking apps. Carrot combines a basic tracker with a built-in exercise trainer that aims to “put you through hell.” Forget to open the app and do some training, and you’ll get notifications like “Time to get off your fat rump and move around, meatbag.” But its goal-setting features are limited, and it doesn't have the comprehensive meal tracking of our top pick. Buy for $2.99 from App Store

Our review of Microsoft Health (iOS) Verge Score 7.4 out of 10 Like our top picks, the Microsoft Health app is designed to be a companion to its dedicated tracker, Microsoft Band. In the service of being extremely simple, Health only tracks your activity and exercise and provides a fast dashboard for you to check in on throughout the day. Also like UP by Jawbone and Fitbit, Health can pair with Microsoft Band’s wearable for more advanced fitness tracking. Buy for $0.00 from App Store

Our review of iTMP Technology Digifit iCardio (iOS) Verge Score 6.8 out of 10 Digifit is mostly made to be a detailed journal of workouts or specific activities, not a behind-the-scenes activity tracker. But it lets you start recording basic info about your workout with a lot fewer taps than most other apps and gets out of your way when accessing the raw data. There are no leaderboards, and you can’t log other things like food intake or sleep, but if all you want is a simple way to record your progress, Digifit is quick and easy. Buy for $0.00 from App Store

Our review of JEFIT Workout (iOS) Verge Score 6 out of 10 JEFIT wants to be your one go-to app for all things fitness and exercise, but ends up feeling cluttered, slow, and confusing. One thing it does do well, however, is help gym-goers stick with a set routine by allowing you to create a custom exercise schedule. So on Monday you’ll know to start with those decline pullovers because it’s chest and arm day. But it’s just got too much going on for an everyday activity tracker. Buy for $0.00 from App Store