Minimums vs PilotBrief
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Minimums
This app analyzes aviation weather reports (METARs and TAFs) to determine if airport conditions meet your custom takeoff, landing, or alternate minimums. Set up personalized alerts for weather changes and view conditions on a map.
- View METARs and TAFs for global airports
- Check custom takeoff, landing, and alternate minimums
- Create custom weather change alerts
- Customize units for visibility, wind, pressure, and temperature
- Map view with flight category, ceiling, and visibility
- Translated or raw METAR/TAF display
- Sunrise, sunset, and night time information
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• View METARs and TAFs for thousands of airports around the world • Tells you if your airports are above, at, or below your custom minimums for takeoff, landing, and alternate • Create custom alerts to be notified as soon as the weather changes (utilizes push notifications) • Customize visibility, wind speed, altimeter setting, and temperature units • Option to display information as either translated or raw • Map view with flight category, ceiling, and visibility View your own personalized list of airports or weather stations and quickly determine if they are above or below your takeoff, landing, or alternate minimums. No more digging through TAFs to see if your favourite alternate will hold - if it's green, it's good for the duration of the TAF! If it's yellow, it's at minimums. If it's red, the weather goes below your minimums at some point during the forecast. Minimums can be completely customized based on ceiling and visibility and is useful for all pilots, from airline to student. Simply set your personal, company, or legal limits for all of your airports, and quickly see which ones will work. You also have complete control over how TEMPO and PROB conditions should affect this analysis. Please note that minimums must be set manually by each user - a database of IFR minimums is not included in the app. However, with Data Sharing enabled, the app can suggest commonly used minimums for each airport. Set up alerts that will notify you when the weather meets your own custom criteria. For example, you might ask Minimums to alert you when the visibility at a certain airport goes above 1 mile. Or maybe the ceiling at your destination is 300 feet and the minimums are 500 feet. Just create an alert to tell you when the ceiling goes above your desired value. Minimums uses push notifications so you don't have to constantly refresh the app. As soon as we detect your criteria has been met, we'll send your phone a notification letting you know. Alerts are currently available for ceiling, visibility, flight category (VFR, MVFR, IFR, LIFR), lowest cloud layer, and new metar issued. Units can be customized as follows: - Visibility (miles or meters) - Wind Speed (knots or meters per second) - Pressure (inches of mercury or hectopascals) - Temperature (celsius or fahrenheit) - Time (UTC or Local) - Metars/TAFs can also be displayed as translated (decoded) or raw Sunrise, sunset, and night times are also included with night defined as the center of the sun's disc being 6º below the horizon. Light and dark mode available - follows your system settings. Weather data is provided by the National Weather Service and airport names and cities are provided by Our Airports. Free version limitations: • Maximum 5 airports in your station list • No suggested minimums, but you can see which airports have suggestions available • No push notifications for alerts DISCLAIMER: Never use Minimums as your sole source of aviation weather information. Always consult official meteorological sources for your country. While we strive to make Minimums completely error-free, sometimes the wrong information can be displayed. Gauld Developments takes no responsibility for any damages incurred as a result of the use of this app.
PilotBrief
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PilotBrief provides real-time aviation weather briefings for pilots across North America. Features: • Interactive map with color-coded flight categories (VFR, MVFR, IFR, LIFR) • Live METAR and TAF weather reports for thousands of airports • NOTAMs and TFRs displayed on map • Airport webcam feeds • Detailed airport information including runways, frequencies, and elevation • Search by ICAO code, airport name, or city • Premium features: route weather briefings, go/no-go advisor Plan your flights with confidence. Check weather conditions at a glance with our intuitive color-coded map, or dive deep into individual airport weather data. Designed by pilots, for pilots.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: PilotBrief at none against Minimums's 1. Minimums's advantage is iOS requirement (12.4 vs 15.1). On price, ads and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Minimums sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. PilotBrief asks for nothing beyond the download.
| Parameter | Minimums | PilotBrief |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.8 (35 ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 83.3% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 35 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Fortnightly | — |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 12.4 — better | 15.1 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 14 MB | 34 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Tailwheel Labs Ltd. | Mike Christie |
In-app purchases
Minimums
- Premium$6.99
PilotBrief
No in-app purchases








