Wger — Self-Hosted Fitness and Workout Tracker

Introduction

Wger (pronounced "vay-gur") is a self-hosted fitness tracking application built with Django. It provides a comprehensive platform for creating workout plans, logging exercises, tracking nutrition intake, and monitoring body weight and measurements over time.

What Wger Does

• Creates and manages structured workout plans with exercise scheduling
• Logs individual workout sessions with sets, reps, and weight
• Tracks daily nutritional intake with a built-in food database
• Records body weight and measurements with progress charts
• Provides a REST API for mobile app integration

Architecture Overview

Wger is a Django application backed by PostgreSQL (or SQLite for simple deployments). It uses Django REST Framework to expose a full API consumed by the web frontend and official mobile apps. Media files such as exercise images are served via Nginx. The application supports Celery for background tasks like cache warming.

Self-Hosting & Configuration

• Deploy via Docker Compose with the official multi-container setup
• Configure PostgreSQL for production or use SQLite for personal use
• Mount volumes for the database and uploaded media files
• Set up email for user registration and password resets
• Load the exercise and nutrition databases on first launch

Key Features

• Extensive exercise database with images and muscle group mappings
• Customizable workout templates with periodization support
• Nutritional tracking with macro breakdowns and daily goals
• Body measurement logging with visual progress charts
• Official Android app and full REST API for third-party clients

Comparison with Similar Tools

• JEFIT — proprietary workout app; Wger is open source and self-hosted
• Strong — iOS/Android workout logger; Wger adds nutrition tracking and runs on your server
• FitNotes — Android-only; Wger is cross-platform via the web and REST API
• OpenFoodFacts — food database only; Wger combines nutrition with workout tracking

FAQ

Q: Does Wger include a pre-loaded exercise database? A: Yes, it ships with hundreds of exercises including descriptions, images, and targeted muscle groups.

Q: Can multiple users share one Wger instance? A: Yes, Wger supports multi-user accounts with individual workout plans and tracking data.

Q: Is there a mobile app? A: Yes, an official Android app connects to your Wger server via the REST API. An iOS app is in development.

Q: Can I import data from other fitness apps? A: Wger provides CSV import functionality and a REST API that third-party migration tools can target.

Sources

• https://github.com/wger-project/wger
• https://wger.de