FlightByte vs Flightradar24 API
The Flightradar24 API is the flight map as an API: positions every few seconds from its ADS-B network, summaries with takeoff and landing times, tracks and years of history. It pushes nothing, and it has no schedules, gates or delays. FlightByte is the other half: the airline’s status of one flight, sent to you when it changes.
In thirty seconds
departure.gate.changed, arrival.baggage.changed and the rest.flight.reinstated for the ones that come back.Authorization: Bearer, plus a required Accept-Version: v1.x-api-key.Flightradar24 figures from its API site, documentation, OpenAPI file and terms of service, checked October 15, 2026. Plans change; if something here is out of date, tell us and we will fix it.
Flightradar24 API pricing, free tier and API key
What each plan costs, what you get without paying, and how a key is issued, from Flightradar24’s own pages on October 15, 2026. Apart from full airport data and the count endpoints, which Explorer lacks, every plan has every endpoint; what changes is the number of credits, the rate limit, how many items one request returns, and how far back history goes.
| Plan | Price | Included | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Explorer | $9 / month, or $99 / year | 30,000 credits | 10 requests a minute, 20 items a request, 30 days of history |
| Essential | $90 / month, or $990 / year | 333,000 credits | 30 requests a minute, 300 items a request, 2 years of history, full airport data and counts |
| Advanced | $900 / month, or $9,900 / year | 4,050,000 credits | No cap on items a request, all available history |
Credits are charged per returned item, and an empty answer costs one: 8 per flight for full live positions (6 light), 2 for a live flight summary (1 light), 40 for a flight track, 50 for a full airport. There is no overage; at zero credits requests answer 402 until the next cycle or a top-up, from $9 for 30,000 to $990 for 4,620,000, valid six months. Monthly credits are doubled on purchases and renewals until December 31, 2026.
Flightradar24 free tier
There is no free plan, and a Flightradar24 website subscription does not include the API. The sandbox is free and unlimited, with its own key.
It returns static, predefined responses in the production format and ignores query parameters: good for wiring up a client, not for watching a real flight.
Flightradar24 API key: how to get one
- Create a Flightradar24 account and verify the e-mail address.
- Buy a plan at fr24api.flightradar24.com, by credit or debit card; it is active once paid.
- Create a token under Key management. It is shown once.
- Send it as
Authorization: BearerwithAccept-Version: v1tofr24api.flightradar24.com/api.
A key needs an active subscription. Official SDKs exist for Python and JavaScript, and an MCP server for AI agents.
- Hobby, $9 / month
- 100 flights · 4,000 lookups
- Starter, $19 / month
- 500 flights · 20,000 lookups
- Growth, $49 / month
- 2,000 flights · 80,000 lookups
- Scale, $99 / month
- 5,000 flights · 200,000 lookups
- Free tier
- 3 flights a month, commercial use
- Getting a key: sign up
- free key on screen in a minute; paid plans by email
- Where the key goes
- x-api-key header
When the Flightradar24 API is the better choice
It answers questions about aircraft, and nobody answers them better.
You need to see the aircraft
Positions every few seconds, tracks, ground speed and squawk, from Flightradar24's own ADS-B receiver network. FlightByte says a flight is en route; it does not say where.
You ask about aircraft, not bookings
Everything inside a bounding box, a registration wherever it is, a type or an operator across the sky. FlightByte starts from one flight number on one date and nothing wider.
You need history
Positions back to 2016, flight summaries from June 2022, tracks for up to three years, depending on the plan. FlightByte keeps a live window and a delivery log for the flights it watched.
When FlightByte is
When a person is waiting on a flight, and what they act on is the airline’s word rather than the aircraft’s position.
The airline's view of the flight
Scheduled and estimated times, gate, terminal, baggage belt, a delay that grows from ten minutes to forty, a cancellation. None of them is in a transponder signal, and they are what a driver, a hotel or a traveller acts on.
Before the wheels move
A Flightradar24 flight exists once the aircraft transmits. A FlightByte subscription exists a week ahead, and the gate change, the delay and the cancellation reach you before takeoff, which is when they matter.
Pushed, not polled
Flightradar24 leaves push to you. FlightByte signs every delivery, retries eight times with backoff, logs each attempt, and ends the subscription itself when the flight is in.
What watching 500 flights a month costs, and what is left to build
With no push, the fair comparison is polling the cheapest endpoint that says a flight took off or landed: a light flight summary, one credit per flight, every five minutes for six hours, 72 polls a flight.
- 500 flights × 72 light summaries
- 36,000 credits
- Explorer (30,000) plus a $9 top-up
- $18
- or Essential, for the rate limit
- $90
- Gates, delays, cancellations
- not in the data at any price
- Plus
- a poller, a differ, a retry queue, a log
- 500 watched flights
- 500 line items
- Starter covers all 500
- $19
- or Growth (2,000) for headroom
- $49
- Plus
- nothing; delivery is the product
For takeoff and landing alone the two cost about the same, $18 against $19. What Flightradar24 cannot sell at any plan is a gate, a delay or a cancellation, because they are not in its data; those are most of what FlightByte sends. See pricing.
Using both
The two overlap on a handful of fields. The map below is where a Flightradar24 flight summary and a FlightByte flight meet, and where each one has nothing to say.
| Flightradar24 | FlightByte | Note |
|---|---|---|
flight | carrier.iata + flightNumber | “TK1848” becomes TK and 1848; flightKey adds the date and the leg. |
orig_iata, dest_iata | departure.airport.iata, arrival.airport.iata | Plus icao, name, city, timezone and a country. |
dest_iata_actual | diverted | A flight.diverted event when it happens. |
datetime_takeoff | departure.times.actualRunway.utc | Also .local; the gate time sits beside it. |
datetime_landed | arrival.times.actualRunway.utc | And a flight.arrived event at the gate. |
flight_ended | status.phase | A boolean there; landed and arrived kept apart here. |
reg | equipment.tailNumber | |
type | equipment.iata, equipment.name | ICAO type there, IATA type and a readable name here. |
| — | departure.times.scheduledGate | No schedule on the Flightradar24 side. |
| — | departure.times.estimatedGate, delayMinutes | No estimates or delays. |
| — | departure.gate, terminal, arrival.baggage | A gate appears only on historic gate events. |
lat, lon, alt, gspeed, squawk | — | No position data here. |
The calls, side by side. On the left, the question you would ask every five minutes; on the right, the one you ask once.
# Flightradar24 API GET https://fr24api.flightradar24.com/api/flight-summary/light ?flights=TK1848 &flight_datetime_from=2026-10-15T00:00:00 &flight_datetime_to=2026-10-15T23:59:59 Authorization: Bearer $FR24_TOKEN Accept-Version: v1 # one credit per flight returned; # ask again until datetime_landed is set
# FlightByte
POST https://api.flightbyte.dev/v1/subscriptions
x-api-key: $FLIGHTBYTE_KEY
{
"carrier": "TK",
"flightNumber": "1848",
"date": "2026-10-15",
"webhookUrl": "https://yourapp.com/hooks/flights",
"events": ["departure.gate.changed", "delay.increased",
"flight.departed", "flight.arrived"],
"metadata": { "bookingId": "BK-1042" }
}The quickstart has the receiver in Node and Python; Webhooks lists all 23 change types.
Questions people ask before choosing
Does the Flightradar24 API have webhooks?
How much does the Flightradar24 API cost?
Is there a free Flightradar24 API?
How do I get a Flightradar24 API key?
Authorization: Bearer with an Accept-Version: v1 header.Can I use both?
Watch your first flight tonight.
Nine dollars, a hundred flights, every gate, delay and arrival, pushed to you and signed.
A free key in a minute, no card. On a paid plan? Request a key