And it isn't trying to become one. If you're deciding what to put on your iPad, the useful thing is a straight account of what each tool is for — including where SkyBrief is the wrong answer.
Getting this out of the way first, because it's the part that decides most people's answer:
If any one of those is a requirement for you, buy a full electronic flight bag. That's the honest answer, and we'd rather give it than sell you the wrong tool.
Two jobs an EFB treats as secondary, done properly:
Making the go/no-go call. A full EFB will show you the weather — it's very good at that — but it hands you the raw picture and leaves the interpretation to you. That's fine at 500 hours. At 40 hours, staring at a METAR you half-understand and a TAF that disagrees with it is exactly where bad decisions get made. SkyBrief reads the same data against your personal minimums and gives a plain-English verdict with the reasons listed, so you can argue with it.
Getting you through the checkride. Written prep, oral prep and weather judgement live in the same app you brief with, so studying uses live weather instead of a textbook screenshot from 2019.
| SkyBrief | Full EFB ForeFlight, Garmin Pilot | Test-prep app Sporty's, King, Gleim | |
|---|---|---|---|
| METARs & TAFs | Yes, decoded | Yes, raw + decoded | — |
| Plain-English briefing | Yes | Raw data only | — |
| Go/No-Go vs your personal minimums | Yes | — | — |
| Weather charts & imagery | Yes, free | Yes | — |
| Route weather & nav log | Yes | Yes | — |
| Weight & balance | Yes | Yes | — |
| Moving map / own-ship | No | Yes | — |
| Georeferenced plates in flight | No | Yes | — |
| ADS-B traffic & weather | No | Yes | — |
| File a flight plan | No | Yes | — |
| Written test prep | 938 questions, free | — | Yes, paid |
| Mock written exams | Yes, free | — | Yes, paid |
| Examiner (DPE) debriefs | Yes, free | — | — |
| Logbook | Yes, free | Yes | — |
| Automatic flight logging | Yes, GPS | Yes | — |
| Flight school dispatch | Yes | Varies by tier | — |
| Scholarship directory | 45 programs | — | — |
| Free tier | Substantial | Trial only | — |
Competitor capabilities are summarised from their published descriptions and change over time; tiers differ within each product. Check current features and pricing with each vendor before deciding — we are not going to pretend to track their roadmaps.
A full EFB is a professional tool priced accordingly, and it is worth the money to the pilots who need what it does. SkyBrief costs a fraction of one, and its training suite — the whole question bank, the mock exams, the logbook, the charts — is free rather than a trial.
That gap matters most to the people with the least slack in their budget. If you're paying $180 an hour for a wet 172, an EFB subscription on top of a test-prep subscription is real money that could have been another half hour of dual.
SkyBrief covers what you actually use at this stage — decoding weather, making the call, and the written. You do not need a moving map to fly the pattern, and your school's aircraft likely has panel GPS anyway.
This is where an EFB starts earning its keep — georeferenced plates and in-flight charts are genuinely valuable. Plenty of people run both: SkyBrief on the ground, the EFB in the air.
Buy the EFB. If you want a second opinion on the go/no-go against your own minimums, SkyBrief's free tier is there without a subscription.
Different question entirely — the comparison is against paper, spreadsheets and group chats. See SkyBrief for flight schools.
The whole training suite, the logbook and every weather chart, with no trial clock.
Download on the App Store