Best Free ADS-B & Flight Tracking Tools (2026)

With a 20-dollar SDR dongle and open-source decoders you can watch the aircraft overhead on your own map, run a radar display on a round screen, or fire off a notification when a specific tail number takes off.

Top picks

1. skylight — Project the aircraft passing overhead onto your ceiling in real time, from an RTL-SDR — with a live sky layer (sun, moon, stars, ISS) and where each… (★ 3,336, MIT)
2. plane-notify — Real-time ADS-B notifications for specific aircraft takeoffs and landings. Supports output many platforms. (★ 2,549, GPL-3.0)
3. tar1090 — Provides an improved webinterface for use with ADS-B decoders readsb / dump1090-fa (★ 1,933, see repo)
4. ESP32-Plane-Radar — Open-source ESP32 firmware for a 1.28″ round display that shows live ADS-B aircraft around your location as a sonar-style plane radar. (★ 1,056, MIT)
5. SoftRF — :airplane: Multi-functional, compatible DIY general aviation proximity awareness system (★ 1,030, GPL-3.0)
6. micro-radar — A tiny open-source flight radar for your desk (★ 775, MIT)
7. airplanejs — App that picks up ADS-B radio signals from airplanes and plots them in real time on a map in your browser (★ 737, MIT)
8. adsb_deku — Rust ADS-B decoder + tui radar application (★ 732, MIT)
9. readsb — ADS-B decoder swiss knife (★ 689, see repo)
10. pyModeS — Python decoder for Mode S and ADS-B signals (★ 670, GPL-3.0)
11. FlightScnr_Pi — Desktop flight and marine radar: a real-time aircraft and marine vessel tracker powered by a Raspberry Pi and 4" round screen. (★ 638, see repo)
12. adsb-receiver — Create your own ADS-B receiver. (★ 634, MIT)

FAQ

Are these projects really free?

Yes. Every entry is an open-source repository. Some maintainers accept donations, and licences differ, so check the licence on the project page before commercial use.

Where do the downloads come from?

Straight from GitHub: the project's release page for binaries, or a source archive of the default branch.

How were these projects chosen?

We search GitHub for aviation and flight keywords, then filter for relevance, activity and star count, and drop anything abandoned or unrelated.