Bordcrew, plan2sail, Splid and Sailto all want to end the same chaos: group chats, spreadsheets and scraps of paper before the trip. They go about it differently. A comparison by Sailto that also says where Sailto isn't the best choice.
In short
For a crew that mainly wants track, photos and chat in one app while under way, Bordcrew is the most well-rounded choice. If you only want to split the costs fairly, Splid will do. plan2sail is aimed at iPad users who want to keep their trip and miles logbook offline. Sailto is the choice when organising the crew comes first: joining via a link without installing an app, profiles with licences and allergies, cabin plan, a kitty with two models and suggested settlement — and, of the apps compared here, the only one with a layer for clubs and sailing schools that organise many trips per season. This comparison is by Sailto, as of September 2026.
Every crew knows the moment: the yacht is booked, the WhatsApp group has 200 messages, and somewhere in there are photos of three sailing licences, a nut allergy and the question of who actually paid for the diesel. This is exactly the chaos four apps want to end: Bordcrew, plan2sail, Splid and Sailto.
They go about it very differently. And because we build one of them ourselves, let's say it up front: this comparison was written by Sailto. We've tried to stay fair and we point out where others are ahead. The information on the other apps comes from their websites and app store pages and reflects how they present themselves publicly, as of September 2026. If you find a mistake, write to us.
Bordcrew is a native app for iPhone and Android. It accompanies the whole trip: voting on cruising area and dates, route planning in legs, tasks, provisioning and packing lists, checklists for check-in, safety briefing and check-out, a logbook with GPS track on OpenSeaMap, weather, group chat with push notifications, photos by day, kitty, PDF export of crew list and logbook. Basic use is free; you pay for photo storage.
plan2sail comes in two forms: as an app for iPhone and iPad — free according to the App Store, optimised for the iPad, usable offline, with Apple Pencil support in the miles logbook — and as a web application at plan2sail.app that the crew logs into from a browser. It combines trip planning, crew and contacts, a kitty with settlement, packing and shopping lists, notes and documents, an overview of route and weather, and a miles logbook.
Splid isn't a sailing app but a cost splitter for groups — free to use, offline, with multiple currencies. It has been popular on sailing trips for years because it does exactly one thing well: settling the kitty. It does nothing else.
Sailto is a web app that runs in the browser and can be added to your home screen. It focuses on the crew: invite link, profiles with licences, allergies, emergency contact and cabin preference, cabin planner, a kitty with two models and suggested settlement, shopping and packing lists with templates, polls, trip calendar, safety briefing with confirmation from each person, boat check-in, logbook and sea miles log, documents. Plus a layer for clubs and sailing schools. Organising is free; extras cost a one-off fee per trip. The data sits on a server in Germany; for AI features, payment and map tiles, Anthropic, Stripe and OpenStreetMap are involved as well.
| Bordcrew | plan2sail | Splid | Sailto | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Platform | iOS, Android (native) | iOS and iPad (native), plus a web app | iOS, Android | Web app, any device |
| How the crew joins | Link, app installation required | App from the store or login in the browser | App, usable without registering | Link in the browser, account, no installation |
| Crew profiles (licences, allergies, emergency contact) | Roles, arrival status | Crew and contacts | no | yes, structured |
| Cabin plan | no | no | no | yes, with snorer flag; drag and drop in the Trip Pass |
| Kitty | yes | yes, with settlement | yes, core feature; over 150 currencies, PDF and Excel export | split mode free, pot mode in the Trip Pass, suggested settlement, receipts, PDF |
| Shopping and packing lists | yes | yes | no | yes, with system, organisation and custom templates |
| Polls and votes | Cruising area and dates | no | no | yes, six types |
| Safety briefing | Checklist with digitally captured signature | no | no | Checklist with confirmation from each crew member |
| Boat check-in and check-out | Handover and return report with photos | no | no | Checklist with photos |
| Logbook | daily, GPS-based, photos | Miles logbook, fillable with the Apple Pencil | no | Logbook, PDF, sea miles log |
| GPS track and map | yes, in the background, OpenSeaMap | Route overview | no | Map with route and track in the Trip Pass |
| Weather | yes | Overview | no | no |
| Chat | yes, with push | no | no | no |
| Photos | yes, timeline by day, storage paid | no | no | yes, gallery with albums, comments and map pins in the Trip Pass |
| AI features | no | no | no | Meal planner, cruising area info in the Trip Pass |
| Clubs and sailing schools | no | no | no | yes, dedicated layer |
| Language | German | app German, web app six languages | multilingual | German and English |
| Price | free; photo storage €2.99 to €7.99/month | free | free | free; Trip Pass €14.99 one-off, Plus €24.99/year, organisations from €249/year, each incl. VAT |
Information as of September 2026. The details on Bordcrew, plan2sail and Splid come from the providers' websites and app store pages; features and prices may have changed since. If you spot a discrepancy, write to us and we'll correct the table.
Feature lists are long; the decision is short. It comes down to three questions.
With eight people, getting everyone on board is the real bottleneck. Bordcrew is a native app: every crew member downloads it from the store — including the aunt who has never installed an app and the friend whose phone storage is full. It's doable, but it costs exactly the group-chat messages you wanted to avoid. plan2sail can either be installed or opened in a browser.
Sailto runs in the browser only. The crew opens the invite link, creates an account in a minute and is in, on iPhone, Android, tablet or laptop. An account is still needed so that kitty and cabins are assigned to a person. If you want the app experience, add Sailto to your home screen.
Splid is the quickest because it wants the least: create a group, share a link, enter expenses.
This is where the paths diverge most clearly. Bordcrew is strongest on board. GPS track in the background, logbook with photos, weather, chat with push notifications: these are things a native app does better than a browser, and Bordcrew does them well. If you want to document the trip and keep the crew together in one app while under way, that's the place for you.
Sailto is strongest before the trip. The weeks between booking and casting off are when crews really need organisation: who's coming, who holds which licence, who sleeps where, how much goes into the kitty, what's being cooked, who brings what. Sailto doesn't store this as a chat history but as data on each profile, and builds the cabin plan, shopping list, safety briefing record and settlement from it. For chat and weather on board, the crew uses what it already has: WhatsApp and Windy.
To be honest: if you mainly want to experience and capture the trip, you don't need Sailto. If you have to organise it, Bordcrew gets you some of the way but reaches its limits with cabins, crew data and settlement models.
For a group of friends who fly to Croatia once a year, all four apps are free to use and the differences are a matter of taste.
It's a different story when someone organises repeatedly: the club committee with its Whitsun flotilla, the sailing school with twelve training trips, the skipper who puts together a new crew four times a season. There, what counts is what can be reused. Sailto has a dedicated layer for this: boats with cabin layouts that carry over to every trip, skipper management, custom packing list and checklist templates, a dashboard for the season and branding for the crews. Bordcrew, plan2sail and Splid are built for the individual crew and don't name clubs or schools as a target group on their sites.
All four are free to use; the models behind them differ.
Bordcrew earns its money from photo storage: 100 photos at reduced size are free, and HD storage costs between €2.99 and €7.99 a month or €29.99 to €79.99 a year, depending on the amount. The organiser pays and the crew uses it too. For one week with lots of photos that's good value; as an ongoing subscription for one trip a year, less so.
Sailto earns its money from additional features, not storage: organising is free for good, for unlimited trips and crew members. The Trip Pass for a one-off €14.99 unlocks the AI meal planner, cruising area info, map with track, drag-and-drop cabin planner and pot mode for the whole crew, and can be split via the kitty. Plus for €24.99 a year covers all trips; organisations pay from €249 a year. All amounts are final prices including 19% German VAT. Details on the pricing page.
plan2sail and Splid are free for basic use; for plan2sail, the App Store lists no in-app purchases.
Bordcrew, if the crew wants to experience the trip on board in one app: track, photos, chat, logbook. Especially for crews who want to keep the trip as a memory afterwards, and for anyone who doesn't mind everyone installing an app.
plan2sail, if the skipper plans on an iPad and wants to keep a miles logbook, ideally offline and with the Apple Pencil.
Splid, if the kitty really is the only problem and everything else happens in the chat.
Sailto, if organising the crew is the problem: lots of people, licences and allergies, cabins, two settlement models, a safety briefing with a record, and nobody wants to talk eight people into installing an app. And whenever a club or school runs several trips per season.
For the sake of completeness: Sailto has no chat and no weather data, and it doesn't work offline — without a connection you can neither read nor write data. The GPS track comes with the Trip Pass and is less convenient in the browser than in a native app that records in the background. That's a deliberate decision: there's Windy for weather, WhatsApp for chat and Navionics for charts, and all three do their job better than a crew app could replicate. Sailto takes care of the rest.
Bordcrew accompanies the trip. Sailto organises the crew. Splid splits the costs. plan2sail plans on the iPad. If you know which of these problems is yours, you've already made your choice.
If it's the organising: Sailto is free, for unlimited trips, with no crew limit and no app to install. How a trip comes together with it step by step is explained in our guide to planning a sailing trip.
It depends on what needs organising. Bordcrew covers the trip on board most broadly, with chat, GPS track, logbook, photos and kitty in one native app. Sailto focuses on the crew and the time before the trip: invite link, profiles, cabins, kitty, lists and safety briefing in the browser. Splid only splits costs; plan2sail focuses on trip planning and a miles logbook and runs both as an iPad app and in the browser.
With Bordcrew, yes — the app comes from the App Store or Google Play. The same goes for Splid, although Splid works without registering. Besides its app for iPhone and iPad, plan2sail also has a web application with a login. Sailto runs solely as a web app in the browser: the crew opens an invite link, creates an account and is in, with no installation and on any device. If you like, you can still add Sailto to your home screen as an icon.
All four apps are free for basic use. Bordcrew charges between €2.99 and €7.99 a month for HD photo storage, with the organiser paying for the crew. Sailto charges a one-off €14.99 per trip for the whole crew for additional features, or alternatively €24.99 a year, each including German VAT. plan2sail is free according to the App Store, and so is the basic version of Splid. Figures for the other apps follow their own public pages, as of September 2026.
Of the apps compared, only Sailto has a dedicated layer for organisations: a boat catalogue with cabin layouts, skipper management, custom packing list templates, a season dashboard and branding. Bordcrew, plan2sail and Splid are built for individual crews and don't name clubs or schools as a target group on their sites.
Bordcrew records the track in the background, shows it on an OpenSeaMap chart and keeps a daily logbook with photos. plan2sail keeps a miles logbook that can be filled in with the Apple Pencil. Sailto has a logbook with PDF export and a sea miles log; the map with route and track is part of the Trip Pass there.
For pure cost splitting, yes. What's missing is everything around the kitty: who is actually in the crew, who sleeps where, who has which allergy, who has heard the safety briefing. As soon as those questions come up, an app that connects crew and kitty is less work than three separate tools.
As of September 2026. The information on Bordcrew, plan2sail and Splid comes from the providers' websites and app store pages and reflects how they present themselves publicly. Apps change quickly; if you spot a discrepancy, write to us and we'll correct the article.