Zwift has acquired rival platform Rouvy for an undisclosed sum.

Zwift and Rouvy are two game-like platforms differentiated from fitness companies like Peloton in the way they both try to immerse the user in a virtual world rather than a spin or gym class.

The current plan is to let Zwift and Rouvy continue to operate as separate entities, despite there being significant overlap in their audience demographics. They are long-standing rivals.

Rouvy launched in 2017, three years after Zwift’s first public beta in 2014.

One key difference is Rouvy recreates real-world routes, using captured video, over which your game-like cyclist avatar is placed. Zwift provides ones much more loosely inspired by real places — and famous climbs — as well as a completely fictional world known as Watopia.

“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,” says Eric Min, Zwift CEO.

“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.”

Zwift’s Rouvy-Shaped Future

No plans have been announced for a combo subscription for the two services. Zwift currently costs $19.99 a month, as does Rouvy.

One of the key practical, or political, benefits of this acquisition is it removes any barriers to getting Zwift hardware working with its former rival platform.

Zwift Ready trainers and the Zwift Ride bike hardware are now compatible with both Zwift and Rouvy, which is a major boon for those who have already invested in one of Zwift’s smart bikes.

I used the Zwift Ride for a fair while last year. It’s great hardware, and that sense of having been locked in to using a single platform was its main issue.

Other comparable platforms that aren’t under the Zwift umbrella include TrainerRoad — a specialist in structured training — and MyWhoosh, which is closer to Zwift in style but has a subscription-free, ad-supported model.

This news lands just over a year after Strava acquired training platform Runna . And while this is not necessarily a model for how the Zwift and Rouvy situation will play out, the two platforms still operate as separate entities, but there’s a money-saving annual subscription for both bundled together.