Here’s something you probably didn’t have on your 2026 indoor cycling bingo card: US-based Zwift, the 800-pound gorilla of indoor cycling known for its strong community and distinctive virtual environments, has strategically acquired Czech Republic-based Rouvy, the popular indoor cycling app using real video as the foundation of its game environment.
Read the full press release from Zwift:
Zwift, the global online fitness platform, has today announced it has completed the strategic acquisition of ROUVY, the real routes cycling app that helps riders achieve their cycling goals. The acquisition aims to accelerate growth in the indoor cycling category through strategic cooperation between the two companies, while maintaining their independent operations.
“This is a major moment for both Zwift and ROUVY”, says Eric Min, Zwift Co-Founder and CEO. “We have a huge amount of respect for what ROUVY has achieved, developing a fantastic product and growing their global community by demonstrating there is a strong market for real video experiences. ROUVY’s differentiated experience is proof we can be stronger together, and I’m excited to see how this deal will accelerate our mission to make more people, more active, more often.”
“This is an exciting time for our industry and for cyclists worldwide. Over the past year, we have seen the indoor cycling market grow at the fastest rate since COVID”, continues Eric. “We’re seeing our audience widen, and we are now seeing more people come to cycling for the first time through indoor training, seeking an activity that supports their active lifestyle and focus on long-term health. This growth has been driven by the increased affordability and simplicity of ‘Zwift Ready’ smart trainers, which offer compatibility with virtually any bike.”
Zwift is pleased to confirm that from today, Zwift Ready smart trainers and Zwift Ride smart frames will work with ROUVY, unlocking new experiences within the ROUVY software application and making it easier for new users to get started. Further updates are planned over the coming months.
Both Zwift and ROUVY will continue to operate independently, with differentiated roadmaps and subscription packages.
“I am really proud of ROUVY and our community!” says Petr Samek, CEO and Founder of ROUVY. “This is a strong validation of what we’ve built with our team and community, connecting indoor and outdoor training through real routes. ROUVY will continue to be the ROUVY you all know and love, with the same team and the same focus on helping riders achieve their cycling goals. For our community, this means we’ll keep building the experience you know, supporting your training all year round. Now, supported by Zwift and the Zwift hardware ecosystem, we have an opportunity to create even more experiences in the world of indoor cycling reality!”
Additional terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Your Thoughts
Big news, right? I’ll post a follow-up article with more details and thoughts, but I want to hear what you think first. Share below!
Almost a bummer they will stay separate. Rouvy can use some Zwift, and Zwift can use some Rouvy. As I have personal experience with software company “mergers”, I know it is not simple.
I think we’ll see a reduced “dual” subscription rate to subscribe to both platforms.
Interesting…
Hard to imagine what this could lead into… 2 biggest players joining, less competition… Hopefully no price hikes :p
Been subscribing to both so far, would enjoy a combo subscription deal 🙂
You can ride 20 km monthly free on Rouvy. I rode the Madone Sunday and the scenery including a small tunnel is much better than red and yellow roads.
Zee, I never knew this. Yes! Why can’t Zwift offer this? I’m 71 and would do 50 a week. I stopped at £18 a month but miss it like hell
Same here! I like the social aspect of Zwift and the realism of the road on ROUVY. It would be nice that the price would be less.
Eric – will you be renaming to http://www.Zwift/RouvyInsider.com
Well, I DO own https://rouvyinsider.com …
Get ready for the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift Rouvy!
Didn’t Rouvy promote La Vuelta?
Also, didn’t UCI select Rouvy for virtual WC for 3 years? I guess that contract could be a reason why they don’t merge yet.
Good questions. I don’t pay much attention to the virtual racing at that level.
Probably both don’t want to loose more market share to MyWhoosh.
Interesting to see if more realism will be incorporated into the real-world map expansions in the future for Zwift. Hopefully this elevates both user experience ! family plan…
A real world climb portal would be amazing!
“Combo subscription deal”….ok i’m in too👍👍👍
That’s what I’d like to see. I’m not paying the cost of Zwift & Rouvy at the same time, but would like the option of using both for variety. So something that’s a discount for subscribing to both would be good
I’d like to see that, too. If Zwift and Rouvy are both $20 a month each, then a good combo price would be $30 for the two of them. I’d pay that.
Using zwift virtual shifting in rouvy will be huge for me. I have different bikes with 11/12 SRAM/Shimano so using real cogs is a pain. Now I can slap on my TT bike and easily ride real world routes!
You could have done this before, but I suppose the fact you didn’t know that is the point.
Ahh. Introduced right after my last ironman training block. Lol
Exactly.
Prince incease incomming one way or the other. Customers arent usual the ones benefitting from mergers.
“Different subscription packages”=we could let you sign in to both but we won’t.
This is the beginning enshitification of indoor training.
That’s already been done by Peloton, and their down $1.8 billion from doing so.
I am very wary of less competition, even for a company as good as Zwift. There has not been any good come in the last several decades from less competition, especially when that is the result of company A purchasing company B. Will this mean a RIF for employees? Will this result in an increase in our price? I wish they’d give us a one-time lifetime purchase option. Or will there actually be some synergy where one company’s technology is used to improve the other company’s tech? I’d like to see that of course. I was not happy when they went from $10/mo to $15 though now I’m on yearly to save money overall. I also wasn’t happy with the layoffs a while back. Overall, though, it seems Mr. Min’s been trying to do the right thing in general and I’m keeping my fingers crossed this will continue. I’m just not 100% convinced.
Personally, I’d like a native way to run Zwift on Linux without any workarounds. I want OFF the M$ carousel!
Rouvy has/had(?) a subscription that had a price locked in. I took advantage of it when I first subscribed circa 2019. With Zwift’s price increases, I now only pay about half of what Zwift costs for Rouvy. Wonder how long it will take the new management to get rid of that perk.
They could substitute the colors in the Climb portal with video. The portal experience would be much improved, and maybe some users could be introuce to Rouvy and decide to subscribe there as well.
And obviously a discount for being in both, would br nice.
“Rouvy portals” is an excellent suggestion.
Why excellent? You can ride climbs 24/7 in Rouvy, no need for a separate “Climb portal”, it makes no sense.
Yes!!! I fluctuate between the two platforms… Rouvy when I want realism and new roads (but it is lonely), and Zwift when I want to ride in a community (but I get bored on the same roads). This is a fantastic development. Granted, Rouvy has soooo many roads, I don’t see much changing in the isolation perspective except on group rides with Zwift’s much larger user base, many of whom I hope use both platforms! Hopefully, there will be some sort of pricing synergy when the merger closes.
So, basically, just to have Rouvy work with Zwift frame and virtual shifting?
hopefully they don’t kill it like wahoo did with the virtual cycling app they bought (can’t remember the name)
RGT
And Sufferfest…
this is going to clown the zwift haters all trying to migrate
Hopeful that my Inside Roller will now work in ROUVY. Loyal to Zwift but have wanted to experience some of the ‘real world’ routes in ROUVY. Can anyone confirm that this will be true — that Inside Ride Smart Rollers will work now in ROUVY?
The only hardware compatibility changes announced is Rouvy officially supporting Zwift Ride/Click. Nothing said about Inside Ride smart rollers.
A concentration of power; I expect both will raise prices since they control so much of the market.
Interesting! I liked ROUVY and wanted to subscribe. My bank here in the USA, however repeatedly flagged the billing transaction for my ROUVY subscription as suspected fraud simply due to the transaction originating in Czech Republic. There was no work around, so I gave up. Hoping for a better and more secure payment set-up with this merger. My Zwift subscription processed monthly with no issues.
You could probably set it up via PayPal or something but I understand that’s probably a lot more hastle then you’d want.
I subscribed to Rouvy for a year, and never had any issues with the transactions being flagged by my US bank (which is actually pretty fastidious about “suspect” transactions — once blocked me while I was traveled in Italy).
My first reaction to this news was “Yay”! I immediately had visions of Rouvy capabilities being brought into Zwift: video rides, upload a GPX route, UI niceties… I’ve used Rouvy to pre-ride event routes and have always wished that I could do that in Zwift. My second reaction to this was “oh no, Zwift is just going to eliminate the competition and we will never see these new route options”. The details shared in the announcement indicate something between the two with no commitments of change at this point. It is hard to imagine that they would run two competing platforms that do mostly the same thing. I can imagine that over the next year, a roadmap will emerge that merges the platforms. The biggest immediate impact from this announcement is the ability to use the newest generation of Zwift virtual shifting on Rouvy – I am grateful to have first-generation Zwift clicks that have always worked on both. That’s one feature from Zwift to Rouvy, now let’s get something from Rouvy into Zwift!
As someone who uses both and have a Zwift ride and likes both platforms I am happy and expect the Zwift ride experience will be much better on Rouvy at some point in the near future as the Zwift ride integration sometimes did cause Rouvy hiccups 😀 so overall very happy 💥 And it definitely wasn’t on my 2026 or 2027 bingo card 🪩
What about Zwift bringing their knowledge on group simulation and dynamics to Rouvy?
I tried ROUVY out in 2020 when I was looking for a platform to use with my new smart trainer when the pandemic hit. I did like the ROUVY product, but I had to choose one, I couldn’t justify both for me. I settled on Zwift precisely because it wasn’t a real life video, with the same bus passing you at the same point of the route every time you rode it, but interactive such that each time you ride a route it feels different. Zwift was also easier on my devices in terms of file sizes and load up time. ROUVY also at that time touted an option for users to record and ride their own routes. I could never get that to work for me, as it was too fiddly and inaccurate (especially gradients) and I basically didn’t have the right kit to record my IRL rides to a sufficient quality for it to work, but I am sure the ROUVY product has improved a lot in the last six years. It will be very interesting to see where this goes: shared subscriptions? A more IRL feel to Zwift? Or a stove pipe between two very different types of virtual cycling solutions.
Rouvy video function on Zwift climb portals to improve the user experience?!
Can’t wait for Eric to update the frame and wheels info for Rouvy!
Each is $20. Probably a combo for $30. There is a chance that we just keep paying $20 for both; at least for some time before you get a combo price or a higher single price.
Rarely does a M&A mean a better product for the consumer, but we’ll see
Competition drives better products. I’m a Zwift diehard, but I can’t help but think this could actually cause Zwift development to stall, rather than increase. Zwift has never been known for big leaps forward even when there were a lot more players in the market. I would love seeing some of Rouvy’s take on indoor cycling in Zwift, but I won’t hold my breath.
It would be cool to have some real-word options to to select as worlds to ride in Zwift.
Dont like this acquisition. Zwift has investors and thus debt and is now (sort of) using that money to acquire Rouvy. The benefits of having Rouvy for the users (us) will take either a long time (and money) to incorporate in zwift structure or wont happen at all. The money to do all this has to come from somewhere and there are only a limited amount of zwift bikes that will be sold to be used on rouvy now with this deal. So where will that money come from? Higher subscription prices or less people working on new things in zwift. Either way Im afraid it will mostly be negative for zwift users but Im happy to be proven wrong
I am worried that this merger will not be good for the community. One of the main competitor to Zwift is now owned by Zwift. I wonder if Rouvy will be around in a few years…
I’d like to eventually see, by this buy-out, where Rouvy obtains the ability to be viewed on a wide, curved screen or by smart glasses where a user’s head turn can view the side, above and below (and behind) created hyper-realistically by Ai, smoothly without distortion. Where one’s speed doesn’t determine how fast a person walks and a filmed car moves (can be done by making them “objects” that the program synthesizes and controls relative to the user’s speed), where the sounds of the roadway can be turned on or left off and the volume turned up or down by the user.
I realize that this is currently a tall ask but I’d like to see these capabilities in the not too distant future.
Complete disaster for us Rouvy users. Another US monopoly.
Yeah it’s sad..
I’ll bet you Zwift shuts down Rouvy in a couple of years. Standard approach to remove competition.
I wonder if miles done on Roovy will count towards Zwift XP. I need to recon some Ironman routes and a change of scenery for climbing might be nice from time to time
I would like to be able to ride Zwift and Rouvy environments from the same User Interface.
I hate that this happened. I abhor the “rainbow” candy land that is Zwift, especially with the month of June upcoming.
The positive feedback about the recent Rouvy update seemed to good to be true.
Now the truth comes out, Rouvy only made the big push to get bought by Zwift.
I rode thousands of miles on Zwift over the years, but stopped supporting them for turning an amazing cycling platform into propaganda for human perversity and the deterioration of truth.
Go farkel yourself
This announcement has “Do not pass go. do Not collect $200” vibes.
I subscribe to both Zwift and ROUVY. Each platform has features that I enjoy (e.g., Pacer group rides, challenges, choice of World/country). I’m hoping that there is a discounted price for riders who subscribe to both.
DC Rainmaker said that the Zwift Ride Play controllers will not work with Rouvy, only the click. When I asked Rouvy about this, they confirmed this is true. Anyone know if this has changed?
That’s not accurate. The Zwift Ride’s built in controllers are different than “Play” controllers we can strap onto normal bars and that Zwift has stopped selling. There’s no such thing as “Zwift Ride Play controllers”.
Zwift Ride (including its controllers) are supported now by Rouvy. Along with the Click. But the Zwift Play controllers are not supported.
Thanks for clarifying. Confusing with all these Zwift hardware changes
My guess: (1) merge behind the scenes – HR, accounting, etc. to save $
(2) there’s likely a lot of overlap in the demographics, but not a lot of overlap in the actual users, i.e. I would guess few people subscribe to both services. This makes the obvious course to add a joint subscription to the mix – more expensive that either, but less expensive than both. So, as a Zwift subscriber I could add a Rouvy subscription for, say, 25% more.
I can see Zwift becoming a holding company that has several offerings for different folks. I think Rouvy appeals to a different set than Zwift and unlike RTG Rouvy is already profitable and it can add to Zwift’s revenue streams right away. I can see Zwift acquiring Peloton at some point as well and kind of own the indoor cycling space. It will be kind of like Pon Holdings is for bicycles. Don’t like what Cervelo represents, while you can get a Cannondale instead, or instead of a road bike you just want to buy a Schwinn from Target to ride around the block with the grandkids a few times a year. It don’t matter to the individual brand, all these are the same company and appeal to different market segments.
Peloton is a different beast. It’s simulates in-gym Spinning classes.
I like real spinning classes. They tend to use quite nice exercise bikes. It’s also somewhat collaborative with everyone in the same room.
But Peloton is a “luxury product” with quite good human trainers but forces customers to buy their non-luxury bikes. (There have been some deaths from their products.) Plus, they don’t give access to your raw data. And then there’s their 1.98 billion debt.
What might make sense is to wait for them to completely implode. Then buy the name alone and start over with a much better data and hardware experience,
Nobody is talking anymore about the acquisition of FULGAZ by Rouvy approx a year ago. FULGAZ is still operating. But…it has thousands of virtual rides available on “real roads”, did some upgrades last year thanks to Rouvy. Really interested how it will integrate all in the next few months. It is not a question of IF but WHEN they will also merge in soft- and hardware and/or use eachtothers features. And about pricing: FULGAZ is even cheaper than Rouvy so that would be interesting to follow.
Sounds great and brilliant news for the constant user. I’m 71 and think my 60 miles a week isn’t affordable at £18 UK. I’d be straight back if there were a cheaper version offering less.
I wish there was a dual subscription for a reduced price. Always contemplating dropping one. Maybe make one inactive while using other. Haven’t tried that yet.
A little while ago, I saw Eric (Min) log a Rouvy ride on his Strava. I thought it was odd but it must of been part of the familiarisation process prior to this deal!
@Eric Schlange will we now have Rouvy insider or Zwift/Rouvy insider?
Well, I did buy this last week: https://rouvyinsider.com
Great, looking forward to it. You will be busy
😂
I think all current subscribers on both platforms would like to see a reduced dual subscription so we can use both platforms, you wont loose subscribers, i certainly would use both.