Cobalt vs Plotter
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Cobalt
Enhance your flight simulation experience by connecting your PC sim to your iPhone. Track your flight live, control aircraft systems remotely, message ATC, and automatically log your flights. Enjoy features like lock screen tracking and dynamic island integration.
- Live flight map tracking
- Lock screen and Dynamic Island integration
- Remote aircraft systems control
- In-app ATC messaging
- Automatic flight logbook
- Flight grading and passport
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Cobalt is the ultimate companion for your flight sim. Connect Microsoft Flight Simulator or X-Plane to your iPhone. Experience a live map, lock screen tracking, systems remote control, ATC messaging, and a logbook that writes itself. YOUR FLIGHT, OFF THE SCREEN. The sim stays at the desk. The flight comes with you. Install the free Cobalt Bridge on your PC, and your phone finds it on the network. Then you get a live map of the aircraft you're actually flying, next to the rest of the network. Works with MSFS 2020, MSFS 2024, X-Plane 11, and X-Plane 12. Any aircraft. LEAVE THE ROOM. TRACK THE FLIGHT. Altitude, progress, and a ticking ETA stay on the Lock Screen and Dynamic Island. Step away and the flight still lives on your phone. A top of descent alert brings you back for the approach. If the phone drops, the Bridge keeps recording and fills the gap when you return. A REMOTE FOR YOUR AIRCRAFT. Autopilot, lights, engines, cameras, and pause, wired to the sim. Reach for the airplane from the couch, or from anywhere with Cobalt Peak. MESSAGE ATC. FROM ANYWHERE. When a controller needs you, the thread is already on your phone. VATSIM and IVAO messages land in one inbox. Reply without getting back in the seat. KNOW THE LANDING, NOT JUST THE RATE. Every arrival is graded from the telemetry you actually flew. You remember the landing, not just the number. YOUR FLYING, AS A PASSPORT. Hours, stamps, and routes become the Cobalt Atlas. A passport of the places you've flown. A LOGBOOK THAT WRITES ITSELF. Every leg lands in the book as you fly it. Route, phases, hours, and aircraft, current the moment you shut down. ONE GLANCE. ALL THE DATA. Live widgets keep cruise, altitude, and ETA on the Home Screen and Lock Screen. You never have to unlock just to check in. Apple Watch complications. A full iPad layout with the map always visible. THE MAP IS THE APP. Your aircraft on a dark live map, next to VATSIM, IVAO, and PilotEdge traffic and every online controller. Your SimBrief route in magenta, your flown track behind you. Search a callsign and jump to it. SETUP. Cobalt Bridge is a small desktop app. It auto-detects the sim. No plugins to start tracking, no config files. Your phone pairs on its own. cobaltsim.com/setup FREE TO FLY. Live map, Lock Screen, logbook, and the Atlas are free. Cobalt Peak adds remote systems, live camera, ATC messaging, Relay when you leave home, full history, and the Bridge on up to three PCs. Same account on every device. The sim stays at the desk. The flight comes with you. COBALT PEAK SUBSCRIPTION Peak is offered as an auto-renewing subscription, Peak Monthly (1 month) or Peak Yearly (1 year), or as a one-time Lifetime purchase. Payment is charged to your Apple ID when you confirm the purchase. The subscription renews automatically unless you cancel at least 24 hours before the end of the current period, and your account is charged for the renewal within the 24 hours before the period ends. Manage or cancel anytime in your App Store account settings. Terms of Use (EULA): https://cobaltsim.com/eula Cobalt Terms: https://cobaltsim.com/terms Privacy Policy: https://cobaltsim.com/privacy
Plotter
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Plan your flight by hand with Plotter on iPhone and iPad. Place a transparent navigation ruler on the map, align the rotating grid and keep your measurements, drawings and study notes in one workspace. A MANUAL PLOTTER ON YOUR MAP • Move, rotate and resize the ruler. Turn its gridded disk independently of the body. • Align the grid with map meridians, read reciprocal directions and choose nautical or statute miles. • Zoom in for shorter distances: distance marks recalibrate to the map scale. • Record your own readings, then compare them with calculated references when you choose. DRAW AND KEEP YOUR WORK Use Apple's drawing tools for pens, markers, erasers, colors and line widths. Apple Pencil works on supported iPads. Drawings stay attached to geographic positions when you pan or zoom. Add your own VOR, VOR/DME, NDB, airfield and reporting-point symbols, names and notes. Routes, drawings, symbols and student notes remain saved on your device when you reopen the app. Share a complete study document or export route JSON/GPX and navigation-log CSV. MAPS THAT TRAVEL WITH YOU Choose a whole-world package of approximately 4.05 GB or 8.53 GB, or download the visible area at your preferred detail level. Check size, follow progress, pause and resume. Offline coverage ends at the downloaded area and detail level; zooming further adds no new data. Initial downloads need internet and sufficient storage. PLAN AND LEARN Use route, wind-correction, heading, time, fuel and E6B calculations with your own inputs. View NOAA METAR observations and their timestamps. Optional GPS recording works while the app is active. The interface supports English, Arabic, French, German, Italian, Russian, Spanish and Turkish. Map place names depend on the available source data. No separate Plotter account is required. SUBSCRIPTION Map and study tools require a monthly auto-renewing subscription. Eligible users receive a 3-day free trial, then the U.S. reference price is USD 4/month. Apple shows the actual local price, currency and trial eligibility before you confirm. Without a trial, payment applies when you confirm the purchase. Payment is charged to your Apple Account. The subscription renews monthly unless canceled. To avoid trial renewal, cancel at least 24 hours before it ends in Settings > your name > Subscriptions. Deleting the app does not cancel the subscription. Expiry does not automatically delete saved work or downloaded files. Plotter is a planning and learning aid. The basemap is not an official or certified aeronautical chart. Use current official charts, NOTAMs, weather briefings and approved aircraft data. User symbols are annotations, not a live navaid database. Sharing a route does not file an ATS flight plan. New METAR requests require internet; map offline mode does not disable weather or Apple connections. GPS recording stops in the background. Privacy: https://akincijet.com/plotter/privacy/ Terms of Use (Apple EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Support: https://akincijet.com/plotter/support/
Screenshots
Verdict
Cobalt and Plotter are too close to call on the numbers: across 6 compared parameters — price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases among them — neither pulls far enough ahead to decide it. What separates them is feature set and interface, not measurable difference.
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. Cobalt sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $14.99 per month and Plotter sells 1 in-app purchase, starting at $4.00 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Cobalt ships an update every 4 days, Plotter every 3 days. The most recent releases landed on November 5, 2026 and October 31, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Cobalt | Plotter |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 5.0 (2 ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 33.3% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 2 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 4 days | Every 3 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Freemium | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 18.0 | 17.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 81 MB | 122 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Noah Livingston | Yigit Can Akinci |
In-app purchases
Cobalt
- Peak Monthly$14.991 Month
- Peak Yearly$114.991 Year
- Peak Lifetime$289.99
Plotter
- Plotter Monthly3 Days trial$4.001 Month









