I made a tracker that I was going to give to my friends and recruiters at hiring events... if it works out, I planned on selling too... I preferred airplanes.live over adsbx so I wanted to use their API. I sent an email August 7th, and never got a response... so I ended up getting FR24 API and put airplanes.live as backup, making 24 calls a day per device. then my service got cut off. I sent another email, and guy went off asking how I enjoyed abusing their services and if I enjoy abusing other services too. then sent a copy/paste email offering 2 tiers of services at $25 and $50. I thought about just doing it, but I did a quick search and read more drama here about that guy and how he was banned from here...
Now I rather stop my contribution to that network (I have 3 devices that contribute to their adsb) and give me money to someone else.
I feel like he's sensitive and will just get upset at me and block my services right in the middle of me supplying feed to the trackers.
anyway, my question now is... Who else is out there with good service that's hobby oriented and not unhinged?
adsb.fi and adsb.lol are the ones I can think of. anyone else?
You are going to pay for something you complained was unreliable in your email? They told you what to pay ($25 or $50) and you are on here with attitude for some reason. Crazy toxicity in plane tracking.
They posted another of your emails.
What is the difference between the $50 option and the $25 option?
Might as well pay if I'm going to "abuse" airplanes.live system while contributing to the network :)
Please remember I only have about 5 devices while I test, and I plan to get about 10 more to hand out to friends... Eventually I'd like to get maybe 100 and sell, but that won't be for few more months.
I don't have commercial product I'm trying to sell. I get access in trade for my feeder.
But If I want some devs developing for sale, I would consider mirroring data from adsb.fi/adsb.lol/airplanes.live and perform api call to my API service.
In this way most people will be surprised by infrastructure operational costs.
I setup a feed and use he API because I wasn't to catch everything around my town. This guy seems to be already using other sites and now wants Airplanes.Live to support his 100 devices. How hard is contributing to something that you find important enough to complain about on reddit? Crazy.
J, cut the bs dude. My initial email told you I contribute. What you want to see a screenshot of my contributing?
My 100 devices? I have 5 running all for testing at my house so I can see what device works best! I emailed you asking to start paying so I can eventually (hopefully) sell them!!
This is why people can’t stand you. You’re a bullshitter.
Why are you telling me this? So you got a reply you didn't like asking for $25 or $50 it cover your usage. That is must less than FR24, what is the problem?
The shitty attitude from you J when I first asked, followed by doing a quick google search to find other people you treated like shit.
I would have gladly paid the $50 but I came here to ask for alternatives because I’d rather pay $100 to someone else that doesn’t treat customers so bad there are Reddit posts from members lol
the other members called you unhinged. not me it's the other reddit post with all the screenshots of you going off on people in emails. there's a reason why you have -89 karma here. lol
For what has been personal projects so far, the approach I took was caching vs my own feed. The rationale is there is a fair amount of data for models (the airplanes) and the routes that is not in the standard adsb feed data. Model/Airplane data based on tail numbers should be very persistent and could be cached indefinitely. Route data is also consistent enough and can be cached for a day from my experience. Some routes have multiple legs and that is all cached.
The adsb real time info can be cached for as long as you are comfortable sharing the same position (location, speed, altitude, etc).
I know the limits for each feed and can manage requests to stay within those with the ability to fall back to a 2nd provider.
I am a professional developer even though these were mostly generated via AI under my guidance and prompts to handle scalability based on experience.
As from their last email to me: API keys with guaranteed limits are coming. [GitHub Sponsors](https://github.com/sponsors/iakat/)]%5D) will be the first group eligible to use them. More details will follow when the system is ready.
ADSB.lol is awesome, other than they don’t publish their rate limits. So plan accordingly to get your software to back off automatically.
OpenSky Network is the big one you're missing, it's academic-backed with a free API and rate limits that won't surprise you. adsb.fi and adsb.lol are both solid hobby choices too. What kind of volume are you pulling per device?
I will check it out. I just reached out to adsb.fi. Nice group (way nicer)but it’s little pricey especially right now where I have 5 devices and maybe will have 20 to hand out to friends and stuff until I work all the kinks out to even try to sell it… and considering everyone is making these, I don’t see a huge market for it lol.
If you are using the Airplanes.Live API and not contributing, then why are you complaining? Feeders get API access. I am confused at this post, then I saw your email in Airplanes.Live Discord.
You expect them to power your 100 devices you are selling for free? Come on my man.
I'll copy paste your email here too so everyone can see.
Hello,
I’m working on a small ESP32 aviation display that shows nearby aircraft using Airplanes.Live data.
Initially, I’ll only have a few units for myself, friends, and coworkers, but it could eventually grow to around 50–100 units around the U.S. Eventually, I’d like the aircraft data to update about every 5–10 seconds. Right now, airplanes.live feed is on backup and only is requested when other adsb services fail. so it isn't requested as often. (maybe once every few mins). I have about 5 devices now while I test the service.
I already feed data to Airplanes.Live and would prefer to keep using your service.
What API or Business option would you recommend for this type of project, and what would the approximate cost be?
And the email everyone using the API gets, including me.
Airplanes.Live email I received. Seems reasonable, so I'm contributing a feed and my local app works fine.
---
This is not an AI generated reply. This email is going out to everyone
using the API.
If you are a feeder, you can access the API from the same IP as the feeder.
If you are not currently contributing, there is no better time to get started.
Due to commercial and corporate abuse, compounded by bot abuse and Claude code freeloaders,
the free API has been taken down in order to prevent our eventual bankruptcy.
We have been discussing this in our Discord for a month or more.
Agent AI and the advent of apps and scrapers have made hosting costs
unsustainable. It is further compounded by the AI boom increasing our
hosting costs nearly 300% in 2 years (18 months actually).
The Airplanes.Live API serves over 2 billion requests a week and growing.
We exceeded monthly hosting egress bandwidth in 4 days this month.
Our goals: Airplanes.Live needs to become sustainable long term.
We do not currently have ads.
We do not filter or remove traffic.
We are owned by enthusiasts and the community.
We ask anyone using our API data to host a feeder and sponsor their usage.
If you are an app, website, or otherwise using data in excess, sponsorship is for you.
You will need to purchase a minimum sponsorship and then let us know.
$25/mo Sponsorship
link removed
$50/mo Developer Sponsorship
link removed
If you are a business, then you need to commercially license the data to support Airplanes.Live.
If you offer Airplanes.Live data "free" in your commercial app, you still need a commercial license, even if you do not sell the data.
If you are a company, organization, or indie developer with something that generates 0.01 cent of revenue, you need to support Airplanes.Live.
If you are a startup using the data but have not release your product, you need to support Airplanes.Live.
FYI:
We built ADSBexchange before the sale to the private equity firm.
We refused to sell out and spent 2 years fighting for our intellectual
property and that of the contracted developers.
The contracted devs were paid $2.6M and moved on with their lives.
We retained our IP and built Airplanes.Live.
I literally told you in my primary email I was a feeder. That’s how I found out about you guys. To see what other small other adsb communities I can feed to. I won’t be feeding anymore, but I was.
Tell them. I'm just posting from their Discord to here so every can see the truth. Seems they gave you an answer you didn't like. Why do you expect them to cover the cost of all your 100 devices forever?
Tell them what? Where does it say cover my 100 devices. I’m literally saying it as small project, I plan on 100 units (maybe more or less, what am I damn fortune teller?) and asking what plans they got.
This was sent on August 7th. Never got a reply, so o made .live a backup with 24 calls a day. Spent money and got FR24 feed while I test (still testing)
Also it shows I contribute. The damn thing is suction cupped to my window at the house, one at work and one in California. lol
Go be the messenger and send them a screenshot
This is the truth pal. I know you’re J lurking here. I wouldn’t even bother to look at discord, I’ve seen the people complaining about shitty J here
So you lied to them about 10 devices when you planned on 100? Man, you are full of it. You are mad they don't reply to emails instantly? Are they employed and required to be at your beckon call? Maybe it went to SPAM? Maybe they are dealing with 1000 other people like you? That is my vote based on the emails they post for everyone to see.
You are using other services and selling desk radars, expecting them to make everything work for free. They you get mad when they decline to deal with your attitude? I wouldn't want you as a customer if I were them.
Instantly? I emailed on August 7th! Then I get an api request saying contact us at another email that wasn’t the one from website? Website said to email commercial@airplanes.live then api said contact@airplanes.live
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u/krasoffski 1d ago edited 1d ago
With big number of vibecoded devices services such as airplanes.live/adsb.fi/adsb.lol hit overwhelming number of requests.
If you plan to sell your devices, you need to think about your own api service with subscription tier for you devices.
From my side this looks like "I developed some software, but operational cost should not be my problem" =)
BTW, I also contribute to 5 adsb collectors, but use my own tar1090 API for my vibecoded radar (will opensource soon)