Comparison

ForeFlight Mobile EFB vs BeachSea

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

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.

Highlights
  • Touch Planning on Map
  • Interactive Weather Layers
  • Geo-referenced Plates & Charts
  • Global Hazard Awareness
  • Digital Logbook
  • Synthetic Vision
Features
Read 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

About

BeachSea

Features
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BeachSea tells you whether the sea looks okay at your beach right now, in plain language, the evening before and while you are standing on the sand. Save the beaches you swim at and BeachSea shows the wind, waves, water and air temperature, the tide trend and sunset for each one, in the beach's own local time. It reads those numbers for you rather than leaving you to interpret them, and it stays quiet when there is nothing worth saying. The warning it exists for is offshore wind. Wind blowing from the beach out to sea flattens the water near the shore, so it looks inviting while it pushes anything that floats away from land. Tell BeachSea which way your beach faces and it can see that happening, along with a swell that is turning rough and water cold enough to cut a swim short. It also tells you when conditions favour rip currents, and teaches you what to do about one: how to spot the gap in the breaking waves from the beach, and how to get out by swimming parallel to the shore instead of fighting the pull. It never claims to know where a rip is, because nothing can. After heavy rain it mentions runoff, which is why health authorities everywhere suggest waiting a day before swimming. At European beaches it also shows the official bathing water rating when that rating is Poor or Sufficient. Before you go in, tap "I'm going in the water". The screen turns black with huge text, keeps itself awake, and shows one arrow pointing back to shore with the distance, plus the wind and a plain word if things are turning. It needs no signal once it is open. With an Apple Watch, the arrow moves to your wrist. Pick Swim, Surf, Paddle or Boat and your watch runs the session as a workout of that type, saved to Fitness, pointing you back to shore with its own GPS and compass. Your phone can stay on the sand: the watch already has the forecast, and it buzzes if conditions turn while you are out. A home screen widget keeps your beach a glance away, and an optional morning alert reaches you around 8am at the beach, not on your own clock, when a morning looks rough. BeachSea is guidance, not a guarantee. Conditions change faster than any forecast and no app can see the water in front of you, so obey the posted flags, swim near lifeguards, and when in doubt, stay out. Available in English, French, Dutch, German, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian. No account, no advertising and no tracking. Made by My Daily Apps.

Screenshots

ForeFlight Mobile EFB4 screens
BeachSea4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: BeachSea at none against ForeFlight Mobile EFB's 18. ForeFlight Mobile EFB's advantage is chart position (#14 vs unranked). On price, ads, device support and iOS requirement 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. ForeFlight Mobile EFB sells 14 one-off in-app purchases. BeachSea asks for nothing beyond the download.

Scorecard2 real differences · 9 level
ForeFlight Mobile EFB versus BeachSea: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterForeFlight Mobile EFBBeachSea
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.4 (3.3K ratings) — better—
Positive reviews68.2% of reviews—
Number of ratings3.3K — better—
Update frequencyEvery 2 weeks—
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFree with in-app purchases—
Best chart rank#14 — better—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, Apple Watch — betteriPhone, Apple Watch
Requires iOS18.017.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size592 MB8 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperForeFlightShyam Steenhaut

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

BeachSea

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

14 purchases

ForeFlight Mobile EFB

One-time14
  • Basic Plus US - 3 months$70.00
  • Starter LATAM - 1 Year$129.99
  • Starter US - 1 Year$129.99
Show 11 more
  • 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
None

BeachSea

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is ForeFlight Mobile EFB free?
ForeFlight Mobile EFB is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is BeachSea free?
BeachSea is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do ForeFlight Mobile EFB or BeachSea have ads?
Neither ForeFlight Mobile EFB nor BeachSea shows ads.

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