Which digital pilot service is best? That depends very much on personal preferences, on the type of sport you play outside, and also on your mood to go deeper technically. Most of the services can be used on several devices: the route is planned on the PC with its large screen, on the go the smartphone is used for navigation, at home you upload a few pictures on the tablet. For this reason, registration is required for most portals. The information is updated on all devices via the account.
Many functions are chargeable, but you can usually test them free of charge for a certain period of time. You should do that, because there are definitely differences in the map display and functionality.
If you don’t want to plan everything yourself, tour portals like Komoot, Outdooractive or Bergfex in good hands, also with Alpine club active, the joint offer of the alpine clubs in Germany, Austria and South Tyrol, which is technically on the same basis as Outdooractive. Several tens of thousands of tours are stored there, many of which are official routes. The navigation function ensures that no one goes astray. You can plan routes yourself, record and publish their course while mountain biking, hiking or other outdoor sports, as well as upload the GPX data of other users or from other sources such as hiking books. There are differences in the weighting between official tours and the routes of the users, as well as in the search options.
After the trial days or weeks, you usually have to pay if you want to use functions such as offline use or voice navigation. There are also differences in the payment models: At Komoot you have to buy card packages once, the other providers offer monthly or annual subscriptions. A little tip: Many holiday regions have their own apps that were developed by Outdooractive and can usually be used free of charge.
Apps like Maps 3D (iOS only) or Locus Map (Android only). The focus is not on ready-made tours, but on the maps, with the help of which tours can be created, uploaded and tracked. Many users appreciate the multitude of configuration options. Basic functions are free, a one-time fee is charged for the extended version.
Took a slightly different approach Strava, which is mainly used by cyclists and runners: There it is less about route planning and more about tracking and training analysis as well as the exchange with other users.