Every serious person who has been planespotting reaches the same point eventually.
The paper notebook fills up, the phone photos pile up in no particular order, and the question of what you have actually seen becomes harder to answer than it should be.
Three tools now compete to solve that problem properly: Planebase, Spot2Log, and Spotter.
They come from very different eras of planespotting and they ask very different things of you in return, so it is worth looking honestly at what each one actually offers before you commit your logbook to any of them.
The Established Name in Planespotting: Planebase
Planebase has been part of the planespotting world since 2013, and for a long time it was the closest thing the hobby had to a professional grade database, built for Windows and maintained by AIRPAC.
That history counts for something.
What has changed is access.
Planebase has moved to a members only model, and its own site is explicit that new users will only be considered if they are introduced and sponsored by an existing member.
Even the companion mobile app, PlaneBase Mobile, will not function on its own.
It requires a valid PlaneBase installation and licence behind it, so it exists purely as an add on for people already inside the system.
Pricing is not published anywhere public either, which means the real barrier to Planebase is not really the cost.
It is getting in at all. For a spotter who already knows a member, that may not matter.
For anyone starting today with no connections to the existing community, Planebase is effectively closed.
What Happened To Spot2Log
Spot2Log tells a different story, and it is a useful warning about what can happen to a tool you buy once and trust to stay that way, especially when you are planespotting.
It began life as a straightforward Windows program, Spot2Log.exe, sold as a single purchase in the traditional shareware style, letting you record registrations, markings, livery and airline details alongside your own photos.
If you go looking for it today, the old Spot2Log.com address redirects straight to SpottingLog, a cloud based platform built around a subscriber account rather than a program you install and own.
The features have genuinely improved in some ways.
SpottingLog offers a database of more than six hundred thousand aircraft, unlimited photo uploads and a progressive web app that works across phone, tablet and desktop without needing an app store.
None of that comes for free anymore, though, and it does not come once.
The free trial runs for seven days, and after that the choice is £30 every six months or £48 pounds a year.
What used to be a single payment is now a bill that returns every year for as long as you want to keep using your own logbook.
Where Spotter Fits In: The Best Solution for Planespotting…
Spotter takes the position that both of the above leave open when it comes to Planespotting.
It is a Windows desktop application built specifically for the moment a spotter actually cares about, marking off a registration the instant it is seen, and it asks for a single payment of £4.99 with nothing sponsored, nothing subscribed to and nothing billed again.
Type a registration or a Mode S hex code into the search box and Spotter fills in the aircraft type and operating airline automatically, the same convenience SpottingLog offers, without an account behind it.
From there, a sighting can carry photos, notes on conditions, a Static Visit tag for airshows and museum visits, and grouping into named trips with their own mini reports.
Spotter also builds its own offline spotting map from every location you have logged, tracks airline fleets against your own sightings so you know exactly which aircraft you still need, and supports CSV and Excel import and export so your records are never locked inside the app itself.
Everything is stored on your own PC rather than uploaded anywhere, which settles the privacy question that a cloud subscription never quite avoids.
There is also no account to create and no sponsor to find. Download the installer, open the app and start logging within minutes of deciding to.
Comparing The Real Cost Over Time
Set the three side by side over a few years and the difference becomes hard to ignore.
SpottingLog at its cheaper annual rate comes to roughly £144 pounds across three years, with no end point unless you cancel and lose access to your own data.
Planebase asks a cost that is not measured in pounds at all, since the real requirement is finding an existing member willing to sponsor you in, with whatever fee follows disclosed only after that.
Spotter asks for £4.99 once, and that is the total cost of ownership whether you use it for three months or thirty years, with every future update included in that same payment.
Put simply, the price of a single subscription month elsewhere buys Spotter outright, forever.
Which One Should You Choose For Your Planespotting Needs…
If you already have a way into Planebase through an existing member and value its long established database, there is no reason to give that up.
If you want a modern, cloud connected tool that follows you across every device and you are comfortable paying a recurring fee to keep it that way, SpottingLog is a genuinely capable option, and its size of database is a real strength for anyone chasing rarer types across multiple countries.
If what you actually want is everything a proper spotting logbook should do, registration lookup, photos, trips, an offline map and full ownership of your own data, without an account, a sponsor or a bill that comes back every year, Spotter is built for exactly that spotter, and it asks for less than the price of a single coffee to get there.
Getting Started With Spotter
Spotter runs on Windows 8.1, 10 and 11, installs in moments, and costs £4.99 for life. Buy today!
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