Aloft Air Control vs DroneDeploy Ground App
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Aloft Air Control
This platform streamlines drone operations and airspace management. It offers advanced tools for team, fleet, and airspace coordination, including LAANC and UTM capabilities. An accompanying web app provides enterprise-level features for advanced users.
- Drone operations management
- Airspace management
- LAANC capabilities
- UTM integration
- Team and fleet management
- Next-gen tools
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Air Control is the new platform from Aloft (formerly Kittyhawk). Air Control is rebuilt from the ground up to bring new levels of automation and compliance to our industry-leading drone operations and airspace management solutions. Air Control combines the best of our full-stack platform with next-gen tools for team, fleet, and airspace management with LAANC and UTM capabilities. For advanced LAANC tools, fleet management tools, reporting, and other enterprise features, you can access the all-new web app at https://air.aloft.ai/. For more information, see https://aloft.ai/air-control/. To learn more about using your app within a team or organization, or to review our SOC2 and ISO27001 audits, please contact enterprise@aloft.ai. For direct support, you can contact our team at any time at support@aloft.ai.
DroneDeploy Ground App
Capture and manage ground-level project data for construction and industrial sectors. Document job sites with 360° photos and standard images, then sync to a platform for analysis and collaboration.
- 360° photo and walkthrough capture
- Standard photo capture
- Sync to DroneDeploy platform
- Project data analysis and annotation
- Team collaboration tools
- Integration with industry tools
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The DroneDeploy Ground app empowers businesses in construction, engineering, and other industrial sectors to efficiently document and manage ground-level data, providing a powerful complement to drone-based insights. DroneDeploy Ground is the next-generation ground capture app for project teams, including former StructionSite users. Note: This app is intended for enterprise users with an active DroneDeploy license. Simplify Ground-Level Data Capture in 3 Easy Steps: 1. Log in to your DroneDeploy account (trial or active license required). 2. Connect your 360 camera to capture 360° panoramas and 360° Walkthroughs, or use your device's camera to capture standard photos. 3. Sync your captures to the DroneDeploy platform for processing, sharing, and analysis. Once uploaded, your captures are processed and accessible through the DroneDeploy platform, where you can: • Collaborate with your team and stakeholders. • Inspect, compare, and annotate project data over time. • Integrate seamlessly with leading industry tools like Procore, Autodesk Build, and more. Supported Hardware: • Insta360 X5 • Insta360 X4 • Insta360 RS 1-inch • Ricoh Theta X • Ricoh Theta Z1 Visit our website for a complete list of supported hardware and to learn more about the DroneDeploy ecosystem. For Business and Professional Use: The DroneDeploy Ground app is a free companion tool for licensed DroneDeploy enterprise customers. A valid enterprise account is required for uploading and processing captures
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: DroneDeploy Ground App at 4.5 against Aloft Air Control's 3.2. DroneDeploy Ground App also leads on monetization model (free vs freemium) and update cadence (weekly vs every 3 weeks). Aloft Air Control's advantage is ratings volume (154 vs 33). On price, ads, in-app purchases 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. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
DroneDeploy Ground App holds the better App Store score, 4.5 against 3.2. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 154 and 33 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 33% of Aloft Air Control's written reviews are positive against 41% of DroneDeploy Ground App's.
Aloft Air Control ships an update every 3 weeks, DroneDeploy Ground App weekly. The most recent releases landed on September 13, 2026 and September 22, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Aloft Air Control | DroneDeploy Ground App |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.2 (154 ratings) | 4.5 (33 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 32.9% of reviews | 41.1% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 154 — better | 33 |
| Update frequency | Every 3 weeks | Weekly — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Freemium | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 18.6 | 16.4 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 170 MB | 434 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Aloft Technologies, Inc. | DroneDeploy |
Customer experience
Aloft Air Control
DroneDeploy Ground App
User reviews
Aloft Air Control
From 154 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Great and Clear Tool
- 🚀 Exceptional for sUAS flight planning
- 🚀 Easily get LANNC approval under part 107
- 👍 Fantastic with clear graphics and easy LAANC requests
- 👍 Easily get LAANC approval
Room to improve
- 🐛 Terrible Mapping
- 🐛 LAANC request glitch
- 🐛 Can't log in
- 🐛 Can't Register
- 🐛 Most Unreliable app made in US
DroneDeploy Ground App
From 33 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Easy to use
- 👍 Makes life easy
- 👍 Functional and quick uploads
- 👍 Smooth capture process
- 👍 Responsive and snappy
Room to improve
- 🐛 Freezes, lags, slow
- 🐛 Buggy and unreliable
- 🐛 Extremely hard to login
- 🐛 Glitchy
- 🐛 App doesn't work on new iPhone
Bugs and requests
Aloft Air Control
Reported bugs
6 issues- LAANC approvals not showing
- Login screen freezes
- Incompatible with older devices
- Crashes and freezes
- Issues connecting to DJI controllers
Show 1 moreShow fewer
- Unreliable weather data
Requested features
8 requests- Expand the boundaries of LAANC
- Add FaceID login
- Improve landscape mode support
- Add 2FA to accounts
- Improve DJI integration
Show 3 moreShow fewer
- Add option to re-upload failed missions
- Add dark mode option
- Add advanced analytics dashboard
DroneDeploy Ground App
Reported bugs
68 issues- Spam email
- Freezes, lags, slow
- Constantly have to fight to log in
- Processing walks takes forever and is unreliable
- Fails to process a walk
Show 63 moreShow fewer
- Extremely hard to login into
- Lots of errors
- Reset password and still 50/50 shot
- Massive pain to get back into the app
- Have to redownload the app
- Glichy
- App doesn’t work on the new iPhone
- Won’t even open
- Very difficult if not impossible to use at times
- Won’t select the correct icon
- Can’t zoom in anymore
- Selection something approx an inch up and left from where clicking
- App constantly crashes
- Won’t load selected items
- Still feels like a beta version
- App often crashes and becomes unusable
- Disconnects from the camera
- States universal link is not recognized
- Does not upload
- Footage is sped up and unusable
- Only works on apple devices
- Does not stay connected to camera
- Cannot get any walks to stay active
- Camera has disconnected from the app automatically
- Cannot sync walks unless iPad is connected to WiFi
- Drawings need more than two supported file formats
- Need to upload drawing in advance
- No photos of the drawing supported
- New interface is glitchy and does not work well
- Crashes constantly
- Will not let you upload photos
- Does not allow you to sync
- Error message saying there’s no space on the device
- Force closes
- Never works
- Fails constantly
- Can’t login half the time
- App crashes a lot
- Crosshairs misalign all the time
- When clicking an existing pin, crosshairs put you way below the pin and create a new pin
- Very high chance of having to do a 360 walk again because of an error
- Difficult to upload in the background
- App needs to be open to upload
- Takes a long time to upload
- App and website are always crashing
- App doesn’t stay connected to the camera
- Icons don’t show up after you’ve taken photos
- App crashes frequently
- Takes 30 + seconds between photos
- Takes a good 10+ seconds to take your next photo
- Persistent bugs
- Frustrating user interface
- Logging points takes almost twice as long
- Deleting images or removing false points is unnecessarily complicated
- App freezes while a photo uploads
- Missing folders on ground app
- Cannot upload any photos because folders are missing
- Issues with the app not uploading data
- Occasionally completely loses photos
- Cannot delete anything on the app
- Have to delete the app to redownload
- Won’t save good uploads
- Not optimized for iPad
Requested features
8 requests- New update for Insta X4 air compatibility
- Android app support
- Downloadable PDF with active 360 photos
- Support for Insta360 One R camera
- iPad optimization
Show 3 moreShow fewer
- Ability to add pins to drawings in the app without internet
- Support for more than two drawing file formats
- Background uploads
In-app purchases
Aloft Air Control
No in-app purchases
DroneDeploy Ground App
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Aloft Air Control free?
Is DroneDeploy Ground App free?
Which has better reviews, Aloft Air Control or DroneDeploy Ground App?
Do Aloft Air Control or DroneDeploy Ground App have ads?
Which is updated more often, Aloft Air Control or DroneDeploy Ground App?
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