Coastal Explorer vs TZ First Mate
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Coastal Explorer
Plan and log your cruises with detailed nautical charts and weather forecasts. Enhance your experience with a subscription for offline access, real-time navigation, and integration with marine electronics.
- View NOAA and USACE nautical charts
- Create routes and waypoints
- Cloud synchronization
- ActiveCaptain points of interest
- US Coast Pilot information
- Marine weather forecasts
- Tide and current predictions
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Coastal Explorer™ is a sophisticated, full-featured, easy-to-use cruise planning and logging tool designed specifically for the pleasure boater. And it becomes a complete navigation system with the purchase of a chart subscription. The free Coastal Explorer app provides these great planning features: * View NOAA and USACE nautical charts for the US in vector format * Create routes, waypoints, boundaries, and other navigation objects * Cloud-synchronization of your navigation objects * ActiveCaptain points of interest * US Coast Pilot information * Marine weather forecasts and observations for the US * Tide and current predictions for the US Purchasing a chart subscription turns Coastal Explorer into a complete navigation system that includes: * Downloadable charts, tide and current predictions, Coast Pilot, and ActiveCaptain places for offline use * Interfacing with compatible networked marine electronics devices, including GPS, compass, depth sounder, anemometer, AIS, autopilot, and more * Customizable instrument panels * Route following with cross-track error, distance and time to go, estimated time of arrival, etc * Track and event recording * Integrated blogging Subscriptions automatically renew unless auto-renew is turned off at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. See our Terms of Service at https://www.rosepoint.com/legal/terms_of_service.
TZ First Mate
Easily log fishing catches and photos directly from your phone while on the water. Data syncs wirelessly to your compatible Furuno MFD and backs up to the cloud. Access MFD system details and report issues.
- Create catches and photos
- Wireless synchronization to MFDs
- Cloud backup of user objects
- View MFD system details
- Report issues via log
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The Furuno TZ First Mate mobile App allows you to quickly create Catches and Photos while you are boating or fishing. These objects are then automatically synchronized with your NavNet TZtouch2 and NavNet TZtouch3 when your phone is connected to the MFD’s Wireless Hotspot. As soon as your phone has access to the internet the TZ First Mate App will also synchronize and backup all contents of the user objects database (Catches, Photos, Marks, Routes and Boundaries) to the TZ Cloud (cloud.mytimezero.com). Lastly, TZ First Mate can be used to get MFD details such as System ID, Software Versions, and report issues via a Report Log.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: TZ First Mate at 100% against Coastal Explorer's 11%. TZ First Mate also leads on rating (5.0 vs 2.8) and in-app purchases (none vs 2). Coastal Explorer's advantage is update cadence (every 2 weeks vs every 3 months) and ratings volume (16 vs 3). 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. Coastal Explorer sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $19.99 per month. TZ First Mate asks for nothing beyond the download.
TZ First Mate holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 2.8. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Coastal Explorer has 16 ratings behind it against 3, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 11% of Coastal Explorer's written reviews are positive against 100% of TZ First Mate's.
Coastal Explorer ships an update every 2 weeks, TZ First Mate every 3 months. The most recent releases landed on September 21, 2026 and October 12, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Coastal Explorer | TZ First Mate |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 2.8 (16 ratings) | 5.0 (3 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 11.1% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 16 — better | 3 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks — better | Every 3 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 14.0 | 8.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 54 MB | 70 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Rose Point Navigation Systems, Inc | 株式会社フルノソフテック |
Customer experience
Coastal Explorer
TZ First Mate
In-app purchases
Coastal Explorer
- Monthly Subscription$19.991 Month
- Yearly Subscription$49.991 Year
TZ First Mate
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Coastal Explorer free?
Is TZ First Mate free?
Which has better reviews, Coastal Explorer or TZ First Mate?
Do Coastal Explorer or TZ First Mate have ads?
Which is updated more often, Coastal Explorer or TZ First Mate?
Other comparisons
