ADS-B Exchange
Crowdsourced aircraft broadcast network and licensed aviation-data supplier.
Identity and relationship
ADS-B Exchange is an aircraft tracking/data network, treated here as a contribution analogue and adjacent aviation-data supplier. Its official About page dates the project to 2016 and describes community-hosted ground receivers. Current legal ownership was not independently checked in this bounded study.1
Collection, outputs and operating status
Official material describes passive ADS-B reception, with Mode S parameters and MLAT where available. Outputs include aircraft position, altitude, velocity and flight context, a global map and APIs. Current product and contributor pages were inspected on 2026-10-09 (America/Los_Angeles); no live feed, advertised latency or paid data delivery was benchmarked.16
The home page claims more than 25,000 active receivers and worldwide coverage. The feeder page says more than 20,000 feeders, which is a different metric and cannot establish a precise current receiver count. Its up-to-250-nautical-mile receiver range is an aircraft reception claim, not evidence of equivalent drone coverage.23
Deployment and participation
The network accepts existing receivers and offers purchased preconfigured/plug-and-play routes. The feeder page encourages simultaneous contribution to other aircraft networks; compatibility with a particular other provider’s supplied-kit agreement remains separate. It highlights dense and sparse locations, receiver performance comparisons and MLAT participation. Hardware price and exact uptime eligibility were not established in the captured material.3
The Member Hub lists a free Feeder account after linking feeder ID, with ad-free viewing, receiver data/statistics from elsewhere, alerts and advanced tracking tools. It lists Premium at $2.99/month; the captured page uses the dollar symbol but does not state currency/tax basis, and no checkout was inspected. No recurring cash contributor payment is advertised in these pages.4
API, licensing and published prices
The Community API is explicitly for non-commercial use, advertised at $10/month for 10,000 requests, JSON responses, location/hex/callsign/squawk querying, API key access through RapidAPI and 500 ms data updates. The captured page does not explicitly identify currency or taxes; price is therefore recorded as displayed, not a confirmed invoice amount. Feeder benefits should not be read as permission to redistribute this API data.5
The Enterprise page markets Live Positions, Live Operations, Daily Positions and Daily Operations. Its comparison table specifies API/gRPC for live positions, API for localized operations, JSON/CSV historical positions and CSV flight events. It requires annual minimum subscriptions and says historical backfills up to ten years are available only to subscribers, with no one-time extracts/project access. Enterprise price and full redistribution licence are unknown; commercial licensing is directed to enterprise. These are supplier availability claims, not tested deliveries.65
Contradictions, announcement limits and relevance
The homepage uses 500 ms language, while the product page promotes 250 ms and its table offers selectable 5 s, 500 ms or 250 ms for Live Positions. These should be recorded as product-dependent published choices, not one universally verified latency.26
The “Unmanned Aircraft” tab currently says “This is new for 2026!” and “Details to follow…”. It is an announcement placeholder, not evidence of available Remote ID collection, RF drone detection, geographic coverage or a drone data API.7
Analysis: the network is relevant to contributor recruitment, conditional software benefits and monetization of standardized broadcast observations. Its claims of transparency or unfiltered data do not imply every aircraft/drone is detectable or that all collected data is freely reusable. Remaining questions are drone-tab release scope, current enterprise licence/pricing, hardware prices and independently checked coverage quality.
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ADS-B Exchange official identity and technology, publication date unknown unless noted in text; capture 2026-10-10T04:58:26Z, original.html; “What Is the Exchange?” and “How ADS-B Exchange Works”. Capture is partial; see source record. ↩↩
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ADS-B Exchange official home, publication date unknown unless noted in text; capture 2026-10-10T04:55:23Z, original.html; “Independent network,” live and daily product descriptions. Capture is partial; see source record. ↩↩
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ADS-B Exchange feeder hub, publication date unknown unless noted in text; capture 2026-10-10T04:56:13Z, original.html; opening feeder count, “How it Works,” deployment and coverage sections. Capture is partial; see source record. ↩↩
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ADS-B Exchange member and feeder benefits, publication date unknown unless noted in text; capture 2026-10-10T04:58:25Z, original.html; account types and feature comparison table. Capture is partial; see source record. ↩
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ADS-B Exchange developer hub, publication date unknown unless noted in text; capture 2026-10-10T04:56:15Z, original.html; “What you get for $10/mo” and non-commercial/Enterprise sections. Capture is partial; see source record. ↩↩
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ADS-B Exchange enterprise data products, publication date unknown unless noted in text; capture 2026-10-10T04:56:17Z, original.html; product comparison table, annual commitment/backfill paragraph and delivery methods. Capture is partial; see source record. ↩↩↩
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ADS-B Exchange unmanned aircraft announcement tab, publication date unknown unless noted in text; capture 2026-10-10T04:56:19Z, original.html; Unmanned Aircraft section; placeholder only, not a product demonstration. Capture is partial; see source record. ↩