ForeFlight Mobile EFB vs Garmin Pilot
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
ForeFlight Mobile EFB
This app simplifies flight planning, briefing, and filing for pilots. It offers interactive weather layers, detailed charts, and hazard awareness tools for enhanced situational awareness. Logbook features track flight hours and currency.
- Touch Planning on Map
- Interactive Weather Layers
- Geo-referenced Plates & Charts
- Global Hazard Awareness
- Digital Logbook
- Synthetic Vision
Read full descriptionHide full description
Download for a 30-day free trial of our top subscription plan! Visit our website for more information on available plans and add-ons. ForeFlight is the leading flight app for VFR and IFR pilots everywhere, making flight planning and flying easier, safer, and more enjoyable. FLIGHT PLANNING, BRIEFING, & FILING Plan flights with Touch Planning on the Map or full-featured form-based Flights view. Tap out a route in seconds and quickly see if flights will be affected by weather or TFRs. Helpful Route, Altitude, and Procedure Advisors make planning easy and accurate. Generate a graphical preflight briefing and file your flight plan directly from the app. Print a professional-grade Navlog for inflight reference. WEATHER Interactive weather layers include animated radar, global satellite and winds aloft, global icing, turbulence, and surface analysis, graphical AIR/SIGMETs, flight category, visibility, and more. View decoded METARs, TAFs, and MOS forecasts. Thoughtfully organized Imagery view puts a full range of forecast tools at your fingertips. PLATES, CHARTS, & MAPS Both VFR and IFR operations are covered with all of the essentials required for planning and navigation: data-driven Aeronautical Maps, VFR Sectionals, High/Low Enroute charts, SIDs, STARs, approach and taxi charts, and terrain, satellite, and street map views. GEO-REFERENCED APPROACHES & TAXI CHARTS Plates and taxi charts enable the real time display of your GPS location on the chart. They can also be overlaid on the Maps view along with weather and hazards for the ultimate situational awareness. GLOBAL HAZARD AWARENESS TECHNOLOGY Plan and fly with more confidence in all conditions and terrain. Top-down-view Hazard Advisor map layer, Terrain Profile View, and 3D Synthetic Vision seamlessly integrate into the map display to depict a clear picture of terrain and obstacle hazards anywhere in the world. When paired with an AHRS source, Synthetic Vision provides a backup attitude display. LOGBOOK Logbook makes it easy to log and share flights, track hours, review currency, record certificates and ratings, receive electronic instructor endorsements, and create experience reports. Your data is automatically synced across all your devices and protected in secure cloud storage. ADDITIONAL FEATURES INCLUDE: Built-in documents catalog with FAR/AIM, charts supplements, and more Airport, FBO, and fuel price information for thousands of locations Dynamic data-driven Aeronautical Maps Weight & Balance Glide Advisor Automatic chart and data data updates Chart color inversion for better night flying experience Access to web planner
Garmin Pilot
This app offers comprehensive tools for general aviation and corporate pilots, including flight planning, interactive maps, weather briefings, and navigation. It streamlines pre-flight preparation, filing, inflight navigation, and post-flight logging with an intuitive interface.
- Pre-flight planning with aviation weather data
- Interactive maps with track-up navigation
- Flight plan filing via Leidos Flight Service or DUATS
- En-route navigation with moving map and GPS panel
- Electronic logbook with automatic GPS data generation
- Real-time weather and traffic information (with compatible hardware)
Read full descriptionHide full description
*30 Days Free Trial on initial download!* Plan. File. Fly. Log. Garmin Pilot is the most comprehensive suite of tools for the iPad designed specifically for general aviation and corporate pilots. Flight planning, charts, interactive maps, weather briefing resources and navigation capabilities; it’s all included. The app’s intuitive interface mirrors those on the newest Garmin touchscreen avionics so you can go seamlessly from preflight to inflight. Plan Garmin Pilot’s powerful capabilities start with pre-flight planning, providing pilots with the most comprehensive aviation weather information to make better-informed flight decisions. Pilots can check NEXRAD radar, visible and infrared cloud imagery, METARs, TAFs, AIRMETs, SIGMETs, PIREPs, NOTAMs, winds and temperature aloft, TFRs and lightning data. With Garmin Pilot, data can be displayed over Garmin’s interactive maps that support track-up navigation, VFR sectional or an IFR low or high en-route chart to visualize the weather for your route. Add text-based weather widgets and use the exclusive NavTrack feature to view weather along the planned route. File With Garmin Pilot, users can easily enter a flight plan and interactively edit it on the map. Pre-loaded forms make it quick to save and reuse data for frequently flown routes. And when the flight plan is ready, Garmin Pilot makes it simple to file, amend or close the flight plan via Leidos Flight Service or DUATS. Fly Garmin Pilot provides full en-route navigation capability on its moving map. Pilots can also navigate with Garmin’s patented panel, a GPS-driven instrument pack with a graphical HSI directional display and indicators for groundspeed, altitude and vertical speed. After takeoff, pilots can continue to view real-time weather in the U.S. and traffic information by wirelessly connecting to Garmin’s GDL 50 series portable ADS-B Receiver (sold separately). Log Garmin Pilot includes a comprehensive electronic logbook that syncs with flyGarmin. The logbook automatically generates entries based upon GPS data collected during the flight, tracks currency, supports manual entries, endorsements and creates reports. Garmin Pilot U.S. Standard: - Rich, interactive maps support Track-Up navigation - Charts: VFR Sectionals, low and high IFR en-route, airport diagrams and approach procedures - Ability to view Jeppesen Terminal Charts (Jeppesen echart subscription required) - Weather Maps: Animated radar, Infrared and Visible Satellite, AIRMETs, SIGMETs, Lightning, TFRs and more! - Extensive text products: METARs, TAFs, Winds Aloft, PIREPs, AIRMETs, SIGMETs, Area Forecasts and NOTAMs - AOPA Airport Directory - Weight and Balance - Checklists - Flight plan filing via Leidos Flight Services - Garmin patented navigation panel - Terrain and Obstacles - Smart Airspace - Fast Find predictive Waypoint Entry - Logbook - Optional VFR Premium: Synthetic Vision (SVX), Terrain and obstacle alerting, and Garmin SafeTaxi® - Optional IFR Premium: VFR Premium plus geo-referenced Garmin FliteCharts® Garmin Pilot has regional offerings for Africa, Asia, Australia, Canada, Europe and Latin America. Features include: - Worldwide Jeppesen NavData - Rich, interactive maps support Track-Up navigation - Radar and Satellite imagery for Western Europe, U.S., Canada and Australia - Ability to view Jeppesen Terminal Charts (Jeppesen echart subscription required) - Worldwide METARs, TAFs, AIRMETs, SIGMETs, NOTAMs and winds aloft - VFR Flight Plan Filing - IFR autorouting and Flight plan filing in Europe - Terrain and Obstacles with alerting - Synthetic Vision (SVX) - Smart Airspace - Logbook - Optional VFR charts from DFS, IGN and NATS and IFR enroute charts from EuroControl - Optional Garmin FliteCharts® and SafeTaxi® diagrams available on a country-by-country basis *Note: Use of GPS running in the background may decrease battery life.* *Note: One subscription to Garmin Pilot may be used on three devices.*
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: ForeFlight Mobile EFB at 68% against Garmin Pilot's 42%. ForeFlight Mobile EFB also leads on chart position (#14 vs #53). Garmin Pilot's advantage is rating (4.7 vs 4.4). On price, ratings volume, update cadence and ads 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. ForeFlight Mobile EFB sells 14 one-off in-app purchases and Garmin Pilot sells 18 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Garmin Pilot holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 4.4. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 3.2K and 4.1K respectively. Written reviews complicate that: 68% of ForeFlight Mobile EFB's written reviews are positive against 42% of Garmin Pilot's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
ForeFlight Mobile EFB ships an update every 2 weeks, Garmin Pilot fortnightly. Both last shipped on September 23, 2026.
| Parameter | ForeFlight Mobile EFB | Garmin Pilot |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.4 (3.2K ratings) | 4.7 (4.1K ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 68.5% of reviews — better | 41.8% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 3.2K | 4.1K — better |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks — better | Fortnightly |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free with in-app purchases |
| Best chart rank | #14 — better | #53 |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 18.0 | 18.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 587 MB | 633 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | ForeFlight | Garmin DCI |
Customer experience
ForeFlight Mobile EFB
Garmin Pilot
User reviews
ForeFlight Mobile EFB
From 3.2K App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Excellent flight planning and navigation tool
- 🔒 Enhances safety and situational awareness
- 👍 Comprehensive and user-friendly features
- 👍 Seamless integration with avionics
- 👍 Responsive and helpful customer support
Room to improve
- 🐛 Occasional crashes and stability issues
- 🔋 High battery consumption on mobile devices
- 🚫 Limited functionality for non-US/Canada users
- 💰 Expensive subscription model for some users
Garmin Pilot
From 4.1K App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Excellent EFB app
- 🚀 Seamless integration with Garmin avionics
- 👍 User-friendly interface
- 👍 Reliable and stable
- 👍 Great features like engine monitoring and data recording
Room to improve
- 🐛 Clunky and multi-step process to view plates
- 🐛 Issues with NOTAM updates and database concierge
- 🐛 Frequent crashes and lockups
- 🐛 Winds aloft data often inaccurate
- 🐛 Lacks support for some aircraft models
Bugs and requests
ForeFlight Mobile EFB
Reported bugs
3 issues- Weather data not updating correctly
- Issues with syncing user waypoints and annotations
- Incompatibility with certain iOS versions and device models
Requested features
5 requests- Ability to add multiple landing legs in a single flight plan
- Improved map annotations and drawing tools
- Customizable logbook and flight data export options
- Better support for Apple Watch and other wearables
- More comprehensive coverage of international airports and charts
Garmin Pilot
Reported bugs
5 issues- Crashes when viewing weather data
- Weight and balance profile import/export issues
- Database concierge not working as expected
- Inability to file VFR flight plans in some regions
- Groundspeed and track data not working on certain devices
Requested features
9 requests- Ability to mark up and annotate charts
- Vertical navigation view
- Cabin altitude/hypoxia warning
- Apple Watch app
- Passenger app for flight following
Show 4 moreShow fewer
- Google Maps integration with user waypoints
- Ability to import GPX/CSV waypoints
- Printable logbook reports
- More detailed weather imagery and forecasts
In-app purchases
ForeFlight Mobile EFB
- Basic Plus US - 3 months$70.00
- Starter LATAM - 1 Year$129.99
- Starter US - 1 Year$129.99
Show 11 moreShow fewer
- Starter CA - 1 Year$129.99
- Starter EUR - 1 Year$129.99
- Starter APAC - 1 Year$129.99
- Starter ME & SA - 1 Year$129.99
- Essential APAC - 1 Year$259.99
- Essential ME & SA - 1 Year$259.99
- Essential US - 1 Year$259.99
- Essential CA - 1 Year$259.99
- Premium LATAM$390.00
- Premium ME & SA$390.00
- Premium US - 1 Year2 variants$390.00
Garmin Pilot
- Canada Premium$74.99
- Latin American Premium Upgrade$74.99
- Europe Premium Upgrade$74.99
Show 15 moreShow fewer
- U.S. Premium Upgrade$99.99
- Africa Standard$109.99
- Pilot Asia Standard$109.99
- Australia Standard$109.99
- Canada Standard$109.99
- Europe Standard$109.99
- Latin American Standard$109.99
- U.S. Standard$109.99
- Garmin Pilot Africa Premium$184.99
- Garmin Pilot Canada Premium$184.99
- Garmin Pilot Asia Premium$184.99
- Garmin Pilot Europe Premium$184.99
- Garmin Pilot Latin America Premium$184.99
- Garmin Pilot U.S. Premium$209.99
- Worldwide Premium$599.99
Questions
Is ForeFlight Mobile EFB free?
Is Garmin Pilot free?
Which has better reviews, ForeFlight Mobile EFB or Garmin Pilot?
Do ForeFlight Mobile EFB or Garmin Pilot have ads?
Which is updated more often, ForeFlight Mobile EFB or Garmin Pilot?
Which is more popular, ForeFlight Mobile EFB or Garmin Pilot?
Other comparisons















