Boating Weather vs Good Buoy
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Boating Weather
Get detailed marine weather forecasts for coastal zones in the United States. View wind speed, wave height, surf conditions, and small craft advisories. Perfect for planning boating trips, fishing, or sailing.
- National Weather Service forecasts
- Wind speed, wave height, surf forecast
- Small craft advisories
- Favorites for easy location switching
- Default location setting
- Intuitive and quick design
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Need to know what the marine forecast is before you go boating or during your boating trip? The Boating Weather App for iPhone and iPod Touch is the answer. This intuitive app will show you the wind speed, surf and wave height for your coastal zone in the United States. Marine weather data is provided by the National Weather Service (NOAA). Features: - One touch National Weather Service forecast for today, tonight and this week. - Shows wind speed, seas wave height and surf forecast. - Add a location to Favorites for easy reference when switching between zones - Shows small craft advisories. - Set your default location to show your local boat weather forecast. - Simple, intuitive design, quick loading Whether you want to go on a boating trip, out fishing or for a quick sail, the Boating Weather iPhone App will tell you in a snap what the seas are doing! Thank you for choosing our marine weather application. We understand that some users have encountered issues due to recent changes in the NOAA API endpoint. Our team has worked diligently to resolve these issues and has updated the application accordingly. To benefit from these changes, we kindly request that you update or re-install the application. Should you continue to experience difficulties, please don't hesitate to contact us at support@bluewhaleapps.com. Our team is committed to assisting you promptly.
Good Buoy
This app provides a comprehensive boating dashboard with real-time weather conditions, live buoy camera feeds, and nautical chart overlays. It also records trips, tracks water roughness, and monitors your body's response to motion, helping you plan better days on the water.
- Conditions dashboard (wave height, wind, temp, pressure)
- Live buoy camera feeds
- Nautical chart overlay
- GPS trip recording with roughness gradient
- Motion and stress sensing
- Color-coded condition ratings
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Good Buoy is a new kind of boating app — one built around the experience of being on the water, not just getting there. We bring together buoy, phone, and watch data into a clean, glanceable dashboard so you can plan smarter days and capture the ones worth remembering. Conditions dashboard Four metrics that matter — wave height, wind speed, water temperature, and air pressure — each with trend charts and instant, color-coded ratings. Know before you go. Buoy cameras Numbers describe the ocean. Cameras show it. Browse live imagery from offshore NOAA buoy cams for visual context on sea state, visibility, and the conditions data alone can't convey. Nautical chart overlay Chart data and navigational marks, layered cleanly over Apple Maps. Trip recording Turn your iPhone into a trip recorder. GPS routes with distance, speed, and a roughness-colored gradient trail that shows where the ride got bumpy. Motion & stress sensing Numbers fade. The memory of a rough ride doesn't. Your iPhone measures how rough the water felt, while your Apple Watch tracks how your body responded to it. Every trip ends with a picture of how the day really felt — so you can look back, learn, and plan smarter ones ahead. Spend less time checking apps. Spend more time on the water.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Good Buoy at Free against Boating Weather's $1.99. Good Buoy also leads on update cadence (weekly vs every 6 weeks) and rating (5.0 vs 4.8). Boating Weather's advantage is ads (none vs shown) and ratings volume (3.4K vs 4). On 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
Good Buoy is free to download; Boating Weather costs $1.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Good Buoy holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.8. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Boating Weather has 3.4K ratings behind it against 4, so its average is the more settled of the two.
Boating Weather ships an update every 6 weeks, Good Buoy weekly. Both last shipped on October 31, 2026.
| Parameter | Boating Weather | Good Buoy |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $1.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 4.8 (3.4K ratings) | 5.0 (4 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 66.2% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 3.4K — better | 4 |
| Update frequency | Every 6 weeks | Weekly — better |
| Ads | No — better | Yes |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free — better | Ad-supported |
| Best chart rank | #76 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPod | iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch — better |
| Requires iOS | 15.6 — better | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 16 MB | 14 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Blue Whale Apps Inc | GOOD BUOY LLC |
Customer experience
Boating Weather
Good Buoy
Bugs and requests
Boating Weather
Reported bugs
3 issues- Forecast data stuck on old dates
- App freezing or not loading properly
- Location detection issues
Requested features
5 requests- Add support for more geographic areas
- Provide longer-range weather forecasts
- Implement a widget for quick weather access
- Include NOAA marine area forecasts
- Improve app performance and stability
Good Buoy
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Boating Weather
No in-app purchases
Good Buoy
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Boating Weather free?
Is Good Buoy free?
Which has better reviews, Boating Weather or Good Buoy?
Do Boating Weather or Good Buoy have ads?
Which is updated more often, Boating Weather or Good Buoy?
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