Galvanic Sailing vs TideRoute Sailing
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side β with what reviewers say about each.
Galvanic Sailing
Read full descriptionHide full description
Every phone or tablet on the major mobile platforms, anywhere on board or remotely, becomes more than a multi-function display (MFD). Most boats run one app or instrument for the chart, another for the weather, and more for the traffic, the anchor alarm, the logbook and the crew: Galvanic Sailing connects them together in one app. Putting all the information together, in everyone's hand, raises awareness and safety on board. Your logbook writes itself, your maintenance falls due on real engine hours and miles under way, and the Galvanic Voice intelligent alert system raises the man-overboard alarm by itself, even when nobody saw the fall. FREE COMPANION APP: unleash its full functionality with the Galvanic Voice, the intelligent marine voice alert system that speaks aloud when it matters. The Galvanic Voice connects your mobile devices together with the Galvanic Pulse bracelets, for MOB detection and fatigue assessment, with the NMEA 2000 sources available on board, and with dedicated weather forecast servers and chart providers. WHAT IT DOES FOR YOU Provided suitable NMEA 2000 sources are available on board: - Someone falls overboard and nobody sees it: when the crew wear Galvanic Pulse bracelets, the boat knows and raises the alarm by itself. - The boat knows automatically whether it is in harbour, at anchor or under way, offshore or near the coast, and adjusts its alerts. You never have to tell it. - At anchor, the boat checks the wind, the barometric pressure and the drag, and sounds the alarm when one of them goes wrong. From the dinghy, a compass points you back to the boat. - Your logbook writes itself: every trip and everything in it, the name of your location, your anchorages and harbours, the distance, the wind, who was aboard and every alert, recorded automatically without pressing a button, searchable by place and exportable as CSV or PDF. - Know what your engine really burns, leg by leg, and log your fuel stops automatically. - Your position, track and AIS traffic on the chart, with satellite and seamark layers (offline mode available). - Predicts where your boat and the other ship meet at the point of closest approach, and guides you to the most sensible manoeuvre. - Learns and predicts your boat's real sailing performance, from what it has actually sailed and with the actual crew. - Create watch schedules that automatically remind the crew, with reminders for duties and vigilance on watch, and know who is too tired to be on watch, with fatigue shown as a blood alcohol equivalent. - Everyone in their own role: owner, captain and crew each see and change what their role allows, on board and remotely. - Lets the captain and the owner define the sailing rules and the settings that should be enforced and monitored. - Never miss a service: due dates from real engine hours and miles under way. - The weather ahead, with multiple forecast models next to the live readings from your own instruments (offline mode available). - Every instrument, laid out the way you want to see it, including historical charts and the sustained wind as the WMO defines it. - Every alert on record, searchable and exportable. - The most serious alarms reach your phone when you are ashore, with the highest priority your phone allows (internet connection required). Functions that use the boat's own data require suitable NMEA 2000 sources on board. DESIGNED FOR A CONNECTED AND A DISCONNECTED BOAT Takes advantage of the internet when it is available, with the boat in your hand from anywhere, encrypted end to end, and keeps working without it: alerts, crew, anchor watch, logbook and the maintenance list are shared on board with no connection, and charts and forecasts come with you for the water you sail into. NO GALVANIC VOICE YET? Use what works on your phone alone, and explore everything else possible with the Galvanic Voice using real data recorded on a real boat.
TideRoute Sailing
Read full descriptionHide full description
TideRoute Sailing plans and runs your passages, under sail or under power: routing, multi-model GRIB, current and tide, ORC polars, marine charts. Free to start. US NOAA CHARTS Free interactive nautical charts from the Great Lakes to Florida: tap a light to see its details. The Gulf Stream is in the routing, with a wind-against-current alert. THE ROUTING, AND WHY IT IS FASTER Draw your route, pick a departure time, run the calculation. The isochrone algorithm looks for the fastest track from your polar, the wind, the swell, the current, the day/night cycle and your motoring rules, while clearing the coast. Measured on Groix-Ouessant, same GRIB and same polar, 100 % sailing: 16 h 57 for 100 miles, against 20 h 40 for 152 miles on a well-established consumer router. Three hours forty less, 18 %. The gap comes from the algorithm, not from the engine. AND FOR MOTORBOATS Raise the "Motor below" setting above any speed under sail and enter your motoring speed: the routing becomes a power calculation, current, tide, swell and coastline included. Against a 5-knot tidal race, an 8-knot motor cruiser stakes its day on the time of passage. THE CURRENT IS PART OF THE CALCULATION Current is not a decorative overlay: it enters the routing. Useful wind is taken in the water frame, and speed over ground follows. β’ From the Baltic to the Mediterranean, 412 current areas of at least 1 knot, surveyed over a full spring cycle β’ Fine mesh where current makes the day: our own 100 m model on the English coast, Ifremer 250 m in Brittany and the Channel, BSH on the Elbe and the Belts, Copernicus Marine elsewhere β’ Tide computed on board: heights, high and low waters, at any date, with no network β’ Best departure time: a sweep compares the departures in your window and keeps the one that passes the races at the right moment WEATHER AND MODELS β’ ECMWF and GFS offshore, up to 10 and 16 days β’ AROME 1.3 km and ARPEGE 0.1Β° (Meteo-France), ICON-EU 7 km and ICON-D2 2.2 km (DWD) β’ The finest model for the area is offered; the GRIB follows the extent of your route THE SOLENT, MODELLED FOR ITSELF General-purpose current sources work on a 1.5 km grid β three cells across a channel three miles wide. We built our own: a hydrodynamic model of the Solent, the Isle of Wight, Hurst and the Needles on a 100 m mesh. Developed with AI assistance, from open data, checked against published tide gauge records. Harmonic tide: currents for any date, months ahead. YOUR POLAR, MEASURED UNDER WAY Start from the monohull and multihull library, from the ORC database β thousands of certified boats β or from your own CSV and .pol files. Then build your own at sea. The capture workshop (experimental) fills an angle / wind-speed grid cell by cell as you sail: it waits for a settled regime, discards the minutes after a manoeuvre, flags doubtful cells. Interpolate the gaps, correct by hand, merge outings, export to .pol or .csv. That is your boat, not the sister-ship's. The display then puts your speed against the target: 96 % upwind, you are still looking; 103 %, you are holding the right trim. ON BOARD β’ Instrument display (NMEA 0183, Signal K) β’ Alarms: anchor drag, shallow water, strong wind, cross-track error, battery β’ AIS, tracks, passage table, GPX export β’ OpenStreetMap and OpenSeaMap charts: marks, soundings, seagrass β’ Offline: cached charts, GRIB kept on board, tide computed without network β’ Comparator: overlay several routings and replay them GFS wind routing is free, without limit. Auto-renewing subscription: it renews unless cancelled at least 24 hours before the end of the period, and can be managed in your App Store account settings. Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Galvanic Sailing at none against TideRoute Sailing's 3. TideRoute Sailing's advantage is update cadence (every 3 days vs every 6 days). On price, ads, device support and iOS requirement there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price Β· Rating Β· Positive reviews Β· Number of ratings Β· Update frequency Β· Ads Β· In-app purchases Β· Monetization Β· Best chart rank Β· Devices Β· Requires iOS
Both are free to download. TideRoute Sailing sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $6.99 per month. Galvanic Sailing asks for nothing beyond the download.
Galvanic Sailing ships an update every 6 days, TideRoute Sailing every 3 days. The most recent releases landed on November 5, 2026 and November 7, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Galvanic Sailing | TideRoute Sailing |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Update frequency | Every 6 days | Every 3 days β better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No β better | Yes |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 15.5 | 15.0 β better |
| Further details β not scored | ||
| Size | 155 MB | 60 MB |
| Age rating | 12+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Galvanic Works S.L. | GanSoft SARL |
In-app purchases
Galvanic Sailing
No in-app purchases
TideRoute Sailing
- Monthly$6.991 Month
- Yearly$44.991 Year
- Lifetime$200.00
Questions
Is Galvanic Sailing free?
Is TideRoute Sailing free?
Do Galvanic Sailing or TideRoute Sailing have ads?
Which is updated more often, Galvanic Sailing or TideRoute Sailing?
Other comparisons















