ADS-B Exchange is the flight tracker people use when the others go quiet. Flightradar24 and most commercial rivals hide aircraft enrolled in privacy schemes; ADS-B Exchange built its name on showing everything that broadcasts, from billionaires’ jets to military tankers. It is also the data source celebrity jet trackers such as the ElonJet account have relied on.
In January 2023 its founder sold it to JETNET, an American aviation data company, and many of the volunteers who feed it were furious. So is it still unfiltered, is it still worth using, and does it even have an app? Here is our ADS-B Exchange review.
ADS-B Exchange Promo Code: None needed
Best deal: free ad-free map for data feeders, otherwise $29.95 a year (about £22)
| Offer detail | What you get |
|---|---|
| Promo Code | None needed. ADS-B Exchange does not publish promo codes |
| Welcome offer | No free trial; feeders can switch on the ad-free map at no cost |
| Who qualifies | Individuals for personal use; commercial users must contact the company |
| Key terms | $2.99 a month or $29.95 a year, priced in US dollars |
| How to claim | Subscribe on the ADS-B Exchange store, or activate ad-free mode from the Feeder Status section of its MyIP page if you feed data |
ADS-B Exchange at a glance
- Owner: JETNET, Utica, New York (a Silversmith Capital Partners portfolio company at the time of the deal)
- Founded: 2016 by Dan Streufert; sold to JETNET in January 2023
- Platforms: web, including a mobile web app you add to your home screen; Tailvision by ADS-B Exchange for iPhone (launched August 2026)
- Free plan: yes; the global live map, with ads
- Paid from: $2.99 a month or $29.95 a year for ad-free (roughly £2.25 and £22)
- Offline use: no
- Ratings: Tailvision has only a handful of UK App Store ratings so far, too few to judge
Our verdict
ADS-B Exchange is still the go-to tracker for seeing aircraft that mainstream apps hide, and its owner-removal policy remains firm more than three years after the sale. The free map is powerful but built for enthusiasts, with a busy interface and no native app. For meeting a flight at arrivals, Flightradar24 is easier; for finding the plane nobody else will show you, this is the one.
Pros
- Does not hide aircraft at owners’ request, including private and military flights
- Free global map with MLAT and military traffic
- Ad-free plan is cheap at $29.95 a year, with replays back to March 2020
- Free ad-free access for anyone feeding a receiver
- Aircraft ownership details on the paid plan
Cons
- No native iPhone or Android app
- Interface is dense and aimed at hobbyists
- Priced in dollars only
- The 2023 sale split the volunteer community, and some feeders left
- Fewer passenger-friendly extras such as gates, delays or flight alerts
What ADS-B Exchange does and who it is for
Aircraft equipped with ADS-B or Mode S transponders broadcast their position, height and identity. Volunteers around the world pick those signals up with cheap receivers and send them to ADS-B Exchange, which plots them on a global map. The company now says it aggregates signals from over 25,000 receivers.
What sets it apart is what it leaves in. Its support pages say the map “displays unmanipulated flight activity” and that it does not accept requests from owners or operators to hide flights, aircraft or fleets.
It earns its place in moments like these:
- A grey four-engine jet is circling off the Norfolk coast and Flightradar24 shows nothing. ADS-B Exchange may well show it.
- You are a journalist checking whether a politician’s or company’s jet was where they said it was.
- You run a home receiver and want to see your own coverage in raw form.
It is not a travel app for passengers. There are no gate numbers, baggage belts or delay alerts.
The JETNET sale: what changed for unfiltered data
On 25 January 2023, JETNET announced it had bought ADS-B Exchange. At the time the network collected about 750,000 messages a second from more than 10,000 receivers. Hackaday and RTL-SDR.com reported a price of around $20 million. Founder Dan Streufert stayed on and promised the deal would let the company keep “maintaining our enthusiast roots and unfiltered data”.
The volunteers were less convinced. Many had fed their data for free to a community project and now saw it sold to a commercial data firm. RTL-SDR.com reported that several hundred of more than 9,000 feeders had disconnected by the time of its report. Jack Sweeney, the student behind the ElonJet account, told Insider: “The whole basis of the organization was that it’s a community.” Some developers who left went on to build airplanes.live, a community-owned alternative that went public in September 2023.
So what changed? On the core promise, less than critics feared. ADS-B Exchange’s current support pages still say it will not remove aircraft on request. The only routes it points to are the FAA’s Privacy ICAO Aircraft Address (PIA) programme, which gives aircraft a temporary address so they are harder to identify, and FAA coordination for sensitive government missions. The paid plan still lists “unfiltered, unblocked data” among its features.
What did change is the business. ADS-B Exchange now sells an enterprise API, streaming data, bulk downloads and custom exports, feeding JETNET’s aviation intelligence products. If your worry is that volunteer data is being sold, that worry is justified. If your worry is censorship, the map still shows what other trackers hide.
Is ADS-B Exchange free? Free map vs ad-free
Yes. The free map at globe.adsbexchange.com shows live traffic worldwide, including MLAT, military, commercial and private aircraft, with adverts.
The ad-free subscription removes adverts and adds premium map layers including satellite, detailed aircraft and ADS-B data, aircraft ownership information, replay and map history back to March 2020, weather radar for the US and Germany, and aeronautical charts.
ADS-B Exchange price and the cheapest way to pay
| Plan | US$ | Approx. £ |
|---|---|---|
| Free map | $0 | £0 |
| Ad-free, monthly | $2.99 | about £2.25 |
| Ad-free, yearly | $29.95 | about £22 |
Prices are set in US dollars on the ADS-B Exchange store, so your bank’s exchange rate applies. The subscription is for personal use; businesses should ask about commercial licences.
The cheapest way to pay: the annual plan, at about $2.50 a month. The free route: feed data from your own receiver and activate ad-free mode from the Feeder Status section of the MyIP page, with no account needed.
Is there an ADS-B Exchange app?
Yes, on iPhone, though it is not a copy of the website. In August 2026 JETNET released Tailvision by ADS-B Exchange, a free app that identifies aircraft overhead when you point your camera at the sky and shows a live radar of traffic around you. It works without an account within 30 nautical miles; a free ADS-B Exchange account extends that to 150 nautical miles and lets you connect your own receiver. For the full global map, open globe.adsbexchange.com in Safari or Chrome and add it to your home screen: on iPhone, tap the share icon and choose “Add to Home Screen”. Be wary of other App Store apps using similar names; they are not official.
Is ADS-B Exchange safe to use?
ADS-B signals are broadcast unencrypted, and the map is a public website widely used by journalists and researchers. If you plan to run your own receiver, check the radio rules where you live. The site is a web page, so there is no app privacy label to check; standard website advertising and cookies apply on the free map. When DailyStoke checked, we found no published regulator action against ADS-B Exchange or JETNET.
To cancel: sign in at store.adsbexchange.com/account, choose Manage Subscriptions, then Subscriptions, pick the plan and use the cancel link at the bottom of the page.
ADS-B Exchange vs Flightradar24 vs AirNav Radar
| ADS-B Exchange | Flightradar24 | AirNav Radar | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Native app | Tailvision (iPhone, nearby aircraft) | Yes | Yes |
| Ad-free from | $29.95 a year | £13.99 a year (Silver) | £13.99 a year (Spotter) |
| Free perk for feeders | Ad-free map | Contributor plan | Business plan |
| Passenger features | Few | Many | Many |
Pick ADS-B Exchange to see private, military and government aircraft that others filter out.
Pick Flightradar24 for the best app for everyday flight tracking.
Pick AirNav Radar if you want aviation charts and tower radio in a proper app.
Other options: Plane Finder for a single simple plan, FlightAware for US delays, and community-run airplanes.live if you object to JETNET’s ownership.
Who should use ADS-B Exchange?
Aviation enthusiasts, open-source investigators and journalists, without question. Receiver owners can feed it and get the ad-free map free. Everyone else is better served by a polished app first, with ADS-B Exchange bookmarked for the day a mystery aircraft goes over.
ADS-B Exchange FAQs
Is ADS-B Exchange still unfiltered?
Its support pages say it does not hide aircraft at owners’ or operators’ request. Aircraft can still use the FAA’s PIA programme to broadcast a temporary address.
Who owns ADS-B Exchange?
JETNET, an aviation data company in Utica, New York, bought it in January 2023. At the time of the deal, JETNET was a portfolio company of Silversmith Capital Partners.
Is ADS-B Exchange free?
Yes. The global map is free with ads. Ad-free costs $2.99 a month or $29.95 a year.
Does ADS-B Exchange have an app?
Yes: Tailvision by ADS-B Exchange, a free iPhone app for identifying nearby aircraft, launched in August 2026. For the full map, add globe.adsbexchange.com to your phone’s home screen.
Why do celebrity jet trackers use ADS-B Exchange?
Because it does not remove aircraft at owners’ request, while many commercial trackers hide jets enrolled in privacy programmes.
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