Afloat Plan Home vs PathCheck SafePlaces
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Afloat Plan Home
This app allows water sports enthusiasts to submit a plan for their activity, including details about their watercraft and emergency contacts. It tracks your location and sends alerts if you don't return on time, with offline capabilities and a first aid guide.
- Submit float plans via text
- Watercraft description
- Emergency contact notifications
- 10-minute location tracking
- Offline GPS data archiving
- SOS eVDSD signal control
- On-water first aid guide
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Afloat Plan Home for anyone who boats, kayaks, canoes, jet skis, or paddles Purpose: To submit a plan while recreating on the water. Let others know you arrived home safely. Have someone search for you if you don’t come back. Submit via text message all the details of your planned water sports activity. Choose 5 contacts to receive a description of your boat, kayak, jet ski, paddleboard, or canoe. Setting up the app is easy, and you only do it once. • Enter your name, address, phone number, and contact information. • Complete the description of your watercraft—hull numbers, registration, size, and colors. • List your emergency contacts so they are contacted if you are late and do not end your trip. File a float plan in just a few easy steps. Type in your starting location, what your destination is, and what the arrival or return time are. When you push submit, it sends a description of your watercraft, with your starting location and a Google map link, to your contacts. During the course of your activity, your location will be captured every 10 minutes and stored in the cloud. The app continues to acquire your GPS location via satellite and track your trip even when you are out of LTE range. When you are out of range, trip location data is archived locally on your smartphone or tablet. As soon as you reenter LTE range, your offline trip locations are synchronized with the cloud. In the event you don’t end your trip at the scheduled time, the app will send a notification for you to end your trip. After 15 minutes, it will remind you again to end your trip. If after 30 minutes you have not ended the trip, the app will send your trip map to your contacts with route information and your last known location. If you have a Sirius Signal model C-1002 SOS eVDSD, you can test and turn on your signal remotely. The app also shows the light’s battery status. The app also includes an offline interactive looped audio first aid treatment guide for common on-water emergencies.
PathCheck SafePlaces
This app helps notify users of potential COVID-19 exposure and supports contact tracing efforts in select jurisdictions. It privately records visited locations and provides updates from local health authorities.
- COVID-19 exposure notification
- Private location saving
- Contact tracing support
- Updates from healthcare authorities
- Open-source privacy-by-design tools
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PathCheck SafePlaces is the official app published by PathCheck Foundation to aid in COVID-19 exposure notification and contract tracing in the following jurisdictions: Haiti, Guam, Puerto Rico, and Teton County, Wyoming. PathCheck (formerly COVID Safe Paths) can privately save the places you visit and store them on your phone. Subscribe to Healthcare Authorities in your area for information about COVID-19 near you, where available. Receive alerts from your local Healthcare Authority with information about potential exposure to COVID-19. We are a global movement to develop free, open-source, privacy-by-design tools for residents, public health officials, and larger communities. The PathCheck program has spun out of initial privacy-first research conducted by MIT and TripleBlind, into a newly created non-profit called PathCheck Foundation, established with the initial purpose of supporting global rollout of the PathCheck app and associated tools for contact tracers and healthcare authorities. The goal of PathCheck is to help enable the reemergence and re-opening of economies and communities. Through global partnerships, we are prepared to support public health officials everywhere in the effort to slow the spread of COVID-19.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: PathCheck SafePlaces at 4.4 against Afloat Plan Home's 3.3. PathCheck SafePlaces also leads on update cadence (every 2 weeks vs every 2 months) and monetization model (free vs ad-supported). On price, review sentiment, ads and in-app purchases 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.
PathCheck SafePlaces holds the better App Store score, 4.4 against 3.3. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 15 and 57 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 60% of Afloat Plan Home's written reviews are positive against 67% of PathCheck SafePlaces's.
Afloat Plan Home ships an update every 2 months, PathCheck SafePlaces every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 24, 2026 and October 17, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Afloat Plan Home | PathCheck SafePlaces |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.3 (15 ratings) | 4.4 (57 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 60.0% of reviews | 66.7% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 15 | 57 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months | Every 2 weeks — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Ad-supported | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 | 9.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 20 MB | 38 MB |
| Age rating | 12+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Sirius Signal, LLC | Path Check, Inc |
Customer experience
Afloat Plan Home
PathCheck SafePlaces
In-app purchases
Afloat Plan Home
No in-app purchases
PathCheck SafePlaces
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Afloat Plan Home free?
Is PathCheck SafePlaces free?
Which has better reviews, Afloat Plan Home or PathCheck SafePlaces?
Do Afloat Plan Home or PathCheck SafePlaces have ads?
Which is updated more often, Afloat Plan Home or PathCheck SafePlaces?
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