FlightAware Alternatives: Free and Paid Trackers Compared

For most people, GodsView AI is the best free FlightAware alternative: every tracked flight on one live map, a "what's flying over me" page for your city, a live list of emergency squawks, and ships, satellites and storms alongside, free in the browser and on iPhone. If you need gate times and delay predictions for an airline flight, FlightStats or Flightradar24 cover that.

FlightAware is built around one question: is this flight on time? That's useful, but its paid plans start at $44.95 per month, the free Basic account caps you at 5 alerts, and the map filters aircraft, including most military traffic.

Every competitor fact below links to the provider's own page, checked on November 5, 2026. For the reverse question, see our Flightradar24 alternatives.

Open the GodsView live flight tracker

How do the FlightAware alternatives compare?

"Unfiltered" means the network says it doesn't remove aircraft at an owner's request. It doesn't mean every aircraft appears, because many military flights never broadcast ADS-B. Our military aircraft tracking explainer covers why.

What does GodsView do that FlightAware doesn't?

GodsView is a live world map. Flights sit on it next to ships, satellites, earthquakes, wildfires, storms and weather warnings, so you can see a hurricane and the aircraft routing around it in the same view. Aircraft positions come from OpenSky, adsb.lol and adsb.fi; the methodology page lists every source.

See what's flying over you

FlightAware works flight by flight: you need a flight number first. GodsView city pages start from where you are. When we checked planes over New York at 7:59 pm local time on November 5, 2026, it showed 21 aircraft within 25 km of the city centre and 68 within 60 km. The closest was a Bell 407 helicopter, N84BL, 6 km away at 1,100 ft. Six nearby aircraft used the PIA or LADD privacy programmes: identity hidden, position still shown.

The same idea works anywhere with what's overhead, and for airports such as JFK.

Watch emergency squawks live

FlightAware has no single page listing every aircraft in an emergency. GodsView's emergency squawks page does, worldwide. When we checked it at 00:59 UTC on November 6, 2026 (the evening of November 5 in the US), one aircraft was squawking 7700: SNOOP35, an RC-135, at 14,575 ft about 39 km from Sunrise Manor, Nevada. It was one of 10,825 aircraft checked at that moment. Our explainer on what squawk 7700 means covers the codes.

Alerts and military aircraft for a quarter of the price

GodsView Plus costs $10.99 per month or $99.99 per year as of November 2026. FlightAware's cheapest plan with unlimited alerts, Premium +, is $44.95 per month. Plus removes ads and the 30-minute limit and adds flight, place and topic alerts, the military flight tracker layer, live cameras, weather radar, satellite imagery, Starlink and ISS pass layers, and advanced 3D. FlightAware filters most military aircraft from its map, so that layer isn't something it offers at any price.

The free tier is real: banner ads, live viewing that pauses after 30 minutes, and a free account (no payment) for the full map. City pages, including planes overhead and emergency squawks, work without one. The GodsView AI iPhone app is free on the App Store and uses the same account and plan as the web; Android is in testing. Analysts can step up to GodsView Pro at $129.99 per month for boards, exports and the GodsView AI agent; see pricing.

What GodsView doesn't do: it has no gate or delay data and no public developer API. For checking whether your airline flight will make its connection, FlightStats or Flightradar24 fit better.

See what's flying over you

What does FlightAware cost, and what do you get?

FlightAware joins live positions to airline schedules, so a flight page shows gate times, delays and arrival estimates. Its plans, per the premium page as of November 2026:

• Basic (free): 5 flight alerts, 3 months of past flight activity, with ads.
• Premium + ($44.95 per month): unlimited alerts and 5 months of past activity. Ad-free tracking isn't listed for this tier.
• Enterprise ($99.95 per month): adds fleet tracking, tail numbers, 8 months of past activity and ad-free tracking.
• Enterprise WX ($149.95 per month): Enterprise plus premium weather.

Is Flightradar24 better than FlightAware?

They overlap heavily. Both show schedules, delays and airport boards, and both filter some traffic. Flightradar24's support documentation says it blocks flights at owners' request through programs such as the FAA's LADD list and limits most military aircraft.

The difference is price. Flightradar24's US App Store listing shows Silver from $2.99 per month, with annual and Gold options. Silver adds 90 days of history, filters and alerts; Gold extends history to 365 days and adds weather layers and aeronautical charts. Is Flightradar24 free? breaks down every tier.

Which alternative is best for flight status and delays?

FlightStats is the most status-focused option. Owned by the aviation data company Cirium, its homepage lists a free flight tracker, airport delays and on-time performance reports. Subscriptions start at $2.99 and add alerts and historical status. It's built around status pages rather than a live map.

Which cheaper phone apps replace FlightAware?

Plane Finder

Plane Finder is free, with Premium at $3.49 per month or $19.99 per year on the US App Store as of November 2026. The listing describes unlimited custom alerts, playback back to 2011, live airport boards and an augmented reality view.

AirNav Radar (formerly RadarBox)

AirNav Radar's subscription page lists Spotter at $17.99 a year (no ads, 30 days of history) and Pilot at $34.99 (90 days). It doesn't list flight alerts.

Where can you see unfiltered flight data for free?

Community networks show what their volunteer receivers hear and say they don't remove aircraft on request.

• ADS-B Exchange says on its homepage that it's powered by more than 25,000 receivers. The map is free with ads, and its member hub sells ad-free Premium for $2.99 per month. See ADS-B Exchange vs Flightradar24.
• airplanes.live is community-run and says on its about page that it will never filter or obfuscate aircraft data.
• adsb.lol publishes an open-source API under the BSD-3-Clause license, built as a drop-in replacement for the ADS-B Exchange Rapid API.
• adsb.fi runs an open data API for personal, non-commercial use, limited to 1 request per second.

None of these is a flight status service, and each shows aircraft only. GodsView draws on adsb.lol and adsb.fi too, and adds ships, satellites and hazards on the same map. If the codes are new to you, read how ADS-B flight tracking works.

Which FlightAware alternative should you pick?

• You want a free live flight map, on the web or your iPhone: GodsView. It also shows what's over your city and every live emergency squawk.
• You want flight alerts without paying $44.95 a month: GodsView Plus at $10.99, which adds the military layer too. Plane Finder Premium and Flightradar24 plans also include alerts.
• You follow military aircraft: the GodsView military layer, or ADS-B Exchange and airplanes.live.
• You want flights in context with ships, satellites and storms: GodsView is the only one here that puts them on one map.
• You need gate and delay details for an airline flight: FlightStats or Flightradar24. How to track a flight explains flight numbers, callsigns and hex codes.
• You're building an app or research project: adsb.lol or adsb.fi open data, within their terms.

What can't any flight tracker show you?

Every service here depends on aircraft transmitting ADS-B or Mode S within range of a receiver. Over oceans, deserts and poles, coverage thins unless a provider buys satellite data, and many military aircraft don't broadcast at all.

Positions lag by seconds to minutes. Delay predictions come from schedules and airline feeds, not the radio signal, which is why ADS-B networks show where a plane is but not when it'll reach the gate. None of these maps is a safety tool; for a gate change, trust the airline's own app.

Open the GodsView live map