One of the greatest applications of API technology is the manner it has made timely and accurate flight surveillance data available to so many industries and even individuals. Whether you are in the logistics or aviation industries, or even involved in predictive data analysis, with the advent of the flight data API you are spoiled for choice.
If you are looking to integrate flight information and aviation data into your app, there are numerous services and platforms to consider. You can base your decision on the type of flight data services, aviation information, subscription costs, as well as the number of APIs each provider makes available to access their resources.
In this article, we will pick two of the more popular options. These are aviationstack.com and flightapi.io. We will take a look at their features, the flight data services and flight monitoring information they offer, and finally, we’ll illustrate why, all said, aviationstack.com is a superior alternative. You could also merge flight data with data from an open weather api.
Let’s get started making our comparisons.
Table of Contents
What Is The API Syntax Of aviationstack.com And flightapi.io?
The two platforms, aviationstack.com and flightapi.io, have similar structures for API call and response objects. Both make requests via simple HTTP or HTTPS calls. In addition, both require an API access key. Similarly, each returns a response in the form of a JSON object.
Here is an example of an API call for aviationstack.com to retrieve real-time flight data:
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https://api.aviationstack.com/v1/flights ?access_key = YOUR_KEY ?airline_name = BA &flight_date = 2021-07-02 |
A call for flightapi.io is similar:
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https://api.flightapi.io/airline/ YOUR_KEY ?num = 113 &name = BA &date = 20210702 |
Next, the table below compares the additional API related features of each service:
| Features | aviationstack.com | flightapi.io |
| API ease of use | All APIs have a uniform syntax. One query is sufficient | Some APIs require two calls. The first call for retrieving a magic key and the second for getting the required results |
| Documentation | Documentation is easy to read and easy to follow | The Documentation page on the website is hard to navigate. Some of the response JSON is simply too long to take in all the APIs at a glance |
Here is our overall rating when it comes to each product’s API syntax and API related features:
| aviationstack.com | flightapi.io | ||
| API related features |
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What Are The Subscription Plans and Costs For aviationstack.com And flightapi.io?
Both aviationstack.com and flightapi.io offer different service tiers and subscription plans at different costs.
| aviationstack.com | flightapi.io | ||
| Plan | Price ($/month) |
Plan | Price ($/month) |
| Free | 0 | Free | 0 |
| Basic | 49.99 *39.99 |
Lite | 49 |
| Professional | 149.99 *119.99 |
Standard | 99 |
| Business | 499.99 *399.99 |
Plus | 199 |
| Enterprise | Custom | Enterprise | Custom |
Comparing the numbers, it is clear that aviationstack.com is slightly more expensive than flightapi.io. In terms of costs, here is how we rate the two services:
| aviationstack.com | flightapi.io | ||
| Costs |  |
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What Are The Features Of An Aviation And Flight Data Server?
Each of our flight and aviation data service platforms offers unique features to suit different use cases and end-user pools. Here, we’ll compare the feature sets of aviationstack and flightapi.
| Feature | Description |
| API requests per month | The volume of API requests that can be made in a month |
| Autocomplete | The APIs’ ability to respond to requests based on search terms and predict or auto-complete user requests |
| Real time Flight tracker | Provides real-time flight information. |
| Track multiple flights | Track multiple flights with a single API |
| Historical flights | Serve data regarding past flights |
| Airline Routes | Provide detailed airline route information |
| Airport | Information about all airports worldwide |
| Airplanes | Individual aircraft information: registration number, model, date of first flight etc. |
| Aircraft types | General information about different categories of aircraft |
| Aviation taxes | All data regarding aviation taxes |
| Cities | Destination cities lookup |
| Countries | destination countries information: population, capital, currency, phone prefix, etc. |
| Flight prices | The prices of various flights |
How Do Features of AviationStack And FlightAPI Compare?
Let’s compare the various features offered by aviationstack.com and flightapi.io.
Comparison In Terms Of Number of API Requests In a Time Period
The number of API requests that can be made in a time period depends upon the subscription plan. Here is a comparison of aviationstack and flightapi in terms of the number of API requests that can be made on each service in one month:
| aviationstack.com | flightapi.io | ||
| Plan | Requests/month | Plan | Requests/month |
| Free | 500 | Free | 1000 per 7 days |
| Basic | 10,000 | Lite | 30,000 |
| Professional | 50,000 | Standard | 100,000 |
| Business | 250,000 | Plus | 500,000 |
At a first glance, it seems that aviationstack offers fewer API requests per plan than flightapi, but numbers are misleading. This is because flightapi requires multiple API calls for some of its data services. For example, to get nearby airport data, flightapi requires two queries. One to retrieve its magic key and the other to retrieve the information.
Because of this, overall, both services are on par when it comes to API requests per month.
| aviationstack.com | flightapi.io | ||
| API requests per month | |
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Comparison With Respect To Multiple Features
The table below shows a comparison of both aviationstack.com and flightapi.io offer in their different subscription tiers:
| Feature | aviationstack.com | flightapi.io |
| Autocomplete | Basic ✔ Professional ✔ Business ✔ |
Lite ✔ Standard ✔ Plus ✔ |
| Real-time Flight tracker | Basic ✔ Professional ✔ Business ✔ |
Lite ✔ Standard ✔ Plus ✔ |
| Track multiple flights | Basic ✔ Professional ✔ Business ✔ |
Lite x Standard x Plus x |
| Historical flights | Basic ✔ Professional ✔ Business ✔ |
Lite x Standard x Plus x |
| Airline Routes | Basic ✔ Professional ✔ Business ✔ |
Lite x Standard x Plus x |
| Airports | Basic ✔ Professional ✔ Business ✔ |
Lite x Standard x Plus x |
| Airplanes | Basic ✔ Professional ✔ Business ✔ |
Lite x Standard x Plus x |
| Aviation taxes | Basic ✔ Professional ✔ Business ✔ |
Lite x Standard x Plus x |
| Cities * comprehensive information ^ Limited information |
Basic ✔ * Professional ✔ * Business ✔ * |
Lite ✔ ^ Standard ✔ ^ Plus ✔ ^ |
| Countries | Basic ✔ Professional ✔ Business ✔ |
Lite x Standard x Plus x |
| Flight prices | Basic x Professional x Business x |
Lite x Standard ✔ Plus ✔ |
Feature Comparison
As you can see, aviationstack.com offers more flight tracking and monitoring services in addition to aviation data. Flightapi.io’s only advantage over aviationstack.com is that it provides data on flight pricing.
Here is our overall rating for the two platform’s feature offerings.
| aviationstack.com | flightapi.io | ||
| Flight data services | |
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| Aviation data services | |
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Summary And Overall Ratings
The table below summarizes our overall rating for both aviationstack.com and flightapi.io.
| Feature | aviationstack.com | flightapi.io | |
| API related features and documentation |
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More than one query request Documentation web page hard to scroll |
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| Costs | Slightly more expensive |
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| API requests per month | |
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| Flight data services | |
Many features unavailable |
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| Aviation data services | |
Little or no services |
The comparison chart shows that aviationstack.com is the clear winner in respect to both flight and aviation data. Aviationstack, while slightly more expensive, also offers a comprehensive list of services for flight monitoring and historical records, as well as a wide array of global aviation data.
Disclaimer: The information on this blog is applicable at the time of writing. The subscription plans, costs, and features can change with time.
