So you finally bought the iPad. Maybe a used iPad mini 6 off Marketplace, maybe a shiny new mini 7 still in the box. Either way, congratulations — you have just purchased the easy half of the decision. The hard half is figuring out which Electronic Flight Bag app actually deserves a spot on the home screen.
Here is the thing nobody tells the brand-new iPad owner: the tablet is just a screen. The app is the airplane. Pick the wrong subscription and you will spend a year fighting menus instead of flying. Pick the right one and the iPad almost disappears into the panel. So let us walk through the three apps a first-time buyer actually considers — ForeFlight, Garmin Pilot, and iFly EFB — and figure out which one fits which pilot.
The honest framing
All three of these apps are genuinely good. Pilots get tribal about EFBs the way they get tribal about Cessna versus Piper, and most of the heat is just sunk-cost loyalty. The truth is that any of these will keep you legal, current, and situationally aware in a 172 on a Saturday. The differences live in the corners — what panel you fly behind, how deep your weather habit goes, and how much you want to spend.
ForeFlight: the industry standard
Boeing acquired ForeFlight back in 2019 and has been quietly fattening it up ever since. It is what your CFI almost certainly uses, what most charter pilots use, and what airline crews increasingly use for personal flying. The weather product is genuinely best-in-class — the imagery is crisp, the radar is fast, and the route briefing reads like a meteorologist wrote it. IFR plates are georeferenced and gorgeous on glass.
Pricing runs $99/year for Basic, $299/year for Pro Plus, and a Performance Plus tier above that for owners who want W&B and full synthetic vision. Heads up — some Apple authorized resellers and avionics shops occasionally bundle a one-year ForeFlight Basic trial with iPad purchases, so it is worth asking before you click "subscribe."
Garmin Pilot: the panel-sync play
If your airplane has a Garmin panel — G1000, G3X Touch, GTN 650/750, even just a GNX 375 — Garmin Pilot is almost the obvious choice. The Connext wireless flight plan transfer is the killer feature. You build the route on the iPad in the FBO, walk to the airplane, and it shows up in the panel. No keypad fighting at the hold-short line.
Pricing is $79/year up to $179/year depending on whether you want IFR procedures and SafeTaxi. The weather is good. The plates work. The map is honestly cleaner than ForeFlight's in a few spots. But if you fly behind a Dynon or Avidyne panel, you lose the headline feature and the math gets harder.
iFly EFB: the value contender
iFly has been the quiet, scrappy alternative for years, and AOPA gave them a notably positive product review in February 2026 — worth reading if you are price-sensitive. Pricing runs $69-$159/year, which is meaningfully cheaper than the other two, especially over a multi-year horizon.
The interface is more utilitarian and less polished, the weather sourcing is solid but not as deeply integrated, and the ecosystem is smaller. But for a VFR weekend pilot who wants legal charts, a moving map, and traffic in, iFly delivers. The AOPA review specifically called out the value proposition for new pilots who are not yet sure how much EFB they actually need.
Side-by-side
| Feature | ForeFlight Basic | Garmin Pilot Standard | iFly EFB Basic |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly equivalent | ~$8.25 | ~$6.60 | ~$5.75 |
| Panel sync (wireless) | Stratus / Sentry | Garmin Connext | Limited (ADS-B in) |
| Weather sources | Best-in-class imagery + briefings | Strong, Garmin DataLink optional | Solid, fewer layers |
| Terrain & synthetic vision | Yes (higher tier) | Yes | Yes |
| IFR procedure plates | Yes, georeferenced | Yes, georeferenced | Yes, georeferenced |
How to actually decide
Three honest questions in order:
- What panel do you fly? Garmin glass tilts hard toward Garmin Pilot. Mixed or legacy panels make ForeFlight or iFly easier defaults.
- How weather-obsessed are you? If you study prog charts for fun, ForeFlight earns its premium. If you mostly want a moving map and a METAR, iFly or Garmin work fine.
- What is your CFI using? Painful but real — your instructor's app becomes your app for the first 100 hours, because that is the one you will get help with.
If you are still stuck, default to a one-month trial of whatever your home-field FBO has decals for. The community knowledge alone pays for the difference.
Where AeroCopilot fits
We are not building an EFB. ForeFlight, Garmin Pilot, and iFly all do the in-cockpit chart-and-plate job better than we ever intend to. AeroCopilot lives upstream of the cockpit — preflight planning, weather interpretation, regulatory questions, briefing prep. Pick whichever EFB makes sense from the table above, and let AeroCopilot handle the "should I even go today" conversation before you ever open the EFB.
Sources
- AOPA, "Product Review: iFly EFB" (Feb 2026): https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2026/february/pilot/product-review-ifly-efb
- AOPA Technology Topic Hub — EFB: https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/news-by-topic/technology/efb
- AOPA, "8 Flight: EFB comparison" (May 1, 2025)
Disclaimer: This article is editorial commentary, not a paid endorsement. Pricing and feature tiers change frequently — verify current rates with each vendor before subscribing. AeroCopilot has no commercial relationship with ForeFlight, Garmin, or Adventure Pilot (iFly).
— AeroCopilot Editorial Team