How to Choose an EFB App

An electronic flight bag replaces the paper stack: charts and plates, airport information, weather briefing, flight planning and the nav log, weight and balance, and your logbook. In flight it becomes a moving map with your position, traffic, terrain and weather in one picture. For most general-aviation pilots it is the single most-used piece of equipment after the airplane itself, which is exactly why it's worth choosing deliberately instead of defaulting.

• Data currency. Charts and procedures must track the AIRAC cycle without ceremony. Ask how updates download and how you can tell, at a glance, that everything aboard is current.
• Weather depth. Radar, winds aloft, METARs/TAFs, PIREPs and AIRMETs/SIGMETs, and how legible they are when layered over your actual route rather than in a separate tab you'll never open in flight.
• Planning workflow. How many taps from "idea" to a fueled, briefed, filed plan? Drag-to-edit routing and an automatic brief matter more in daily use than any spec-sheet feature.
• Offline reliability. You will lose signal, both in the air and on ramps in the middle of nowhere. Everything that matters (charts, plates, terrain, your plan) must work with zero bars.
• Situational awareness. Traffic display, terrain alerting and 3D terrain, the features that earn their keep on a black night or a hazy day.
• Logbook integration. If the app detects and logs the flight automatically, your logbook is finally accurate. If logging is manual, it will drift.
• Pricing clarity. Understand what the advertised tier actually includes and what lives in a higher plan. The honest comparison is the yearly all-in number for the features you'll really use.

ForeFlight (a Boeing company) and Garmin Pilot are the long-standing leaders, mature, deep, and proven over many years, with capability tiers at different price points: ForeFlight starts at $130 a year and Garmin Pilot at $110, with the headline features typically in higher tiers. Both prices were read from the vendors' own pricing pages in August 2026. If your operation already lives inside one of those ecosystems, that integration is a real argument for staying.

Ascent is the newer entrant, built for iPhone and iPad, and it makes a different bet: one plan at $89.99 a year with everything included: moving map, geo-referenced charts, the full weather stack, traffic, 3D terrain, offline AIRAC downloads and automatic flight logging, with charts and the 3D map working fully offline. No tiers to decode. Being newer also means an honest trade: less legacy depth than the incumbents, and iOS only. There is a 30-day free trial, so the evaluation costs you nothing but a flight.

Whatever you're evaluating, fly the trial like it's your only EFB for one real cross-country:

• Plan the whole flight in-app: route, fuel, weight and balance, brief.
• Put the device in airplane mode on the ramp and check what still works.
• Fly with the moving map and note every moment you reach for another tool.
• Change the plan mid-flight. Divert to your alternate and watch how fast the app keeps up.
• After shutdown, see what the logbook captured without your help.

Every EFB is a supplemental aid to situational awareness. Cross-check official sources, and remember the final authority rests with the pilot in command.