When comparing Solar 2D (formerly Corona SDK) vs RunKeeper, the Slant community recommends Solar 2D (formerly Corona SDK) for most people. In the question“What are the best 2D Lua game engines?” Solar 2D (formerly Corona SDK) is ranked 2nd while RunKeeper is ranked 3rd.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Very simple to use
Pro Free
Corona SDK is completely free. That includes pro-tier plugins.
Pro Corona Simulator
Corona SDK ships with Corona Simulator, which runs your game/app directly on your PC/Mac and updates every time you make changes.
It provides immediate feedback to your actions, you can see your changes right on the screen, without necessity to make build to device. Getting instant feedback really boosts tenfold prototyping and development speed.
Pro Good documentation and lots of tutorials
Pro Content scaling
It's easy to create a game that looks good on many different sized mobile devices.
Pro Live builds - update builds running on a device automatically
With the live build feature, once you have created a build and installed on a device, you get lightning fast turnaround times because any change on the code or data is updated to the devices running the game (within the local WiFi) immediately. So changes can be tested on the real hardware within a very few seconds.
What's even more impressive, this even works flawless with multiple devices running the game. You have to use it to learn how good of a feature this is while development and even more, while doing QA. Imagine fixing bugs and everyone of your QA team/friends/whoever helps to get your game done, has all changes on his device without doing anything but waiting 5 seconds - outstanding.
Pro Lua syntax
Uses the great and easy-to-learn Lua programming language.
Pro Very comprehensive API
It's very quick to get things up and running with Corona SDK. The API is extensive and while it's not 100% feature-complete with the iOS API, it's close enough that you could create tons of games and never run into a roadblock.
The API docs can be found here.
Pro Amazing learning curve
Corona does not throw photoshop-like madness full of buttons editor. You can go as fast as you want, learning and building game from ground up. Eventually, you'll learn how much corona is doing for you. But to start you don't have to master complex editor software. It's a great tool to learn to start game development if you want to learn how to program and make games. Your experience will be 100% transferable to any other Pro game engine.
Pro Cross-platform desktop and mobile
Corona works on OS X, Windows and Android (including Kindle Fire & Nook).
Pro Marketplace for 3rd party plug-ins
Pro Great community
Pro Ability to call any native (C/C++/Obj-C/Java) library
Pro Completely free
Since Corona SDK became Solar2D, it's completely free, as only some third-party plugins are paid.
Pro Open Source
Since Corona SDK became Solar2D, it's completely open source under MIT license.
Pro Well supported
Pro Tracks distance, duration, speed, pace and calories burned
RunKeeper displays your route using Google Maps and tracks distance, duration, speed, pace and calories burned. You can also input your runs manually (useful when running on treadmills) to add them to your "workout logs".
Pro Simple interface
The interface is clean and easy to use.
Pro Gives audio cues
Pro Great for Interval Training
Interval lengths can be set and RunKeeper will let know when to start and stop running via audio messages.
Pro Tracks shoe mileage
You can add several pairs of shoes to this app and select which you are wearing for each activity. It will keep an overall count of a shoe's mileage to help you know when to buy new shoes.
Pro Tracks shoe mileage
You can add several pairs of shoes to this app and select which you are wearing for each activity. It will keep an overall count of a shoe's mileage to help you know when to buy new shoes.
Pro Website has detailed statistics
Stats such as top speed, speed of each interval, fastest/slowest parts of a course, etc. Where applicable, graphs and maps routes will be display for a visual representation.
Pro Add photos to your runs
To make the memorable runs easy to remember why they were memorable.
Pro Works with Pebble smartwatches
You will have to download the app both on your phone and Pebble.
Pro Can chart weight
Pro Perfect localization for interface and voice
Pro Works with Android Wear
Pro Integrates with many accessories
Cons
Con Free, but not completely
Con Making a device build requires internet connection
To build your app for the device (iOS/Android/AppleTV) Corona requires to fetch resources from online. This would include base application template and plugins. This allows not to perform local build or use Xcode or Android Studio to do a build. Even Large games/apps would build very fast with good internet connection.
Your code never leaves computed. Corona SDK would transfer some information to determine which plugins and pieces has to be transferred in order to make a final steps in build.
As a bonus - you get basically one button press to get from your Corona Simulator game to game on a device.
Con Intervals are not supported in stopwatch mode
Since this allows both "GPS" and "stopwatch" mode, and tracking several sports, it should allow you to use intervals in stopwatch mode. I would like to use intervals for treadmill running or stationary bicycle.
Con Warm-up and cool-down time are included in overall pace
Warm up and cool down are options you can toggle for a run. If you toggle them on, those are included in your overall pace calculation, but they are.
Con Warm-up and cool-down time are included in overall pace
Warm up and cool down are options you can toggle for a run. If you toggle them on, those are included in your overall pace calculation, but they are.
Con Charts don't overlay
While charts do exist for pace, elevation, and cadence, they're all independent graphs. It would be nice to see pace overlaid with elevation, as some other apps do.
Con Does not announce intervals correctly when also using audio stats
If you are using both intervals and audio stats, and then happen to occur at the same time, the stats are announced first, and then your interval announcement after. You end up starting your interval late, even though it's tracking that interval already.
Con GPS sometimes fails
The GPS sometimes fails on devices that rely on WIFI for GPS (Apple ipod touch). However, GPS can be fixed manually later.
Con Slow and heavy for old smartphones
Con Does not announce split pace properly when using kilometers
Con Doesn't optimize for WGS-84 GPS on map
The track path draw on map is wrong cause WGS-84 GPS format.