Both. Different roles.
- Pick Savvy Navvy if you sail tidal waters (UK, Brittany, Channel), plan multi-day passages, and value automatic route optimisation over chart depth.
- Pick Boating by Garmin (Navionics) if you sail one region long-term, want the best chart detail on a phone, or already own a Garmin plotter.
- Many sailors run both. Navionics as the primary chart, Savvy Navvy as the planning brain — ~£75/yr, still cheaper than one paper almanac.
At a glance.
Scored across ten dimensions.
Filled dots = score out of 5, weighted equally. Adjust to taste if (say) plotter integration matters more to you than chart detail.
Clean, simplified — less depth detail.
Industry-standard data, SonarChart contours, community edits.
Headline feature — tides, weather, draft.
Manual building; dock-to-dock auto-route less refined.
Best-in-class for UK / N. Europe — fair tide automatically.
Overlays exist, but no route optimisation.
GRIB overlay on route, colour-coded sea state.
Forecast overlay feels bolted-on.
Region downloads, syncs plans offline.
Mature full-offline charts for a decade.
~£59/yr, one tier, all regions.
~£15–25/yr per region — cheap for one coast.
App-first, fast, clean.
Functional but dated under the new skin.
Phone/tablet only, no MFD.
Native sync with Garmin plotters.
Smaller user base.
Millions of users → edits, SonarChart, reviews.
If you can use Google Maps, you can use this.
Steeper — more buried settings.
Within a couple of points — they're close, and the winner depends entirely on the kind of sailing you do.
When each one wins.
Pick Savvy Navvy for
- UK, Brittany, Channel cruising — the tidal-stream routing alone justifies the subscription.
- Multi-day planning — five waypoints, optimised departure times across weather and tide windows.
- New cruising grounds — a defensible starting route you verify against the chart.
- Planning from the sofa — the web app is genuinely usable on a laptop.
Pick Navionics for
- Single-region sailors — one chart region at ~£15–25/yr is genuinely cheap.
- Garmin plotter owners — plan on the phone, push to the MFD at the helm.
- Depth-sensitive cruising — SonarChart contours are unmatched in shallow approaches.
- Reference-first sailors — if you treat the app as “the chart on a phone,” Navionics wins.
The honest verdict.
“Savvy Navvy is the future, Navionics is for dinosaurs” is wrong. So is “real sailors use Navionics.” They solve different problems.
Savvy Navvy is a planning tool — it turns “Plymouth to Falmouth on Saturday” into a route with the right departure, fair tide, and wind angles. Once afloat, you look at it less.
Navionics is a chart — the thing you look at while navigating: high-res depth contours into an anchorage, accurate buoys, community hazards. Planning is more work; navigating is unbeatable.
In strong tidal waters, Savvy Navvy is the bigger win. In near-tideless waters (most of the Med), Navionics becomes the better single-app choice. The sailors who get the most run both — plan in Savvy Navvy with a coffee, navigate with Navionics at the helm. ~£75/yr total.
FAQ.
Is Boating by Garmin the same as Navionics?
Yes. Garmin acquired Navionics in 2017 and rebranded the app to 'Boating by Garmin' in 2024. The charts are still Navionics under the hood.
Can I trust auto-routing?
Not blindly — neither app's auto-route should be followed without a manual review. Savvy Navvy's is the more refined, but both can route you closer to hazards than you'd choose. Use it as a starting point, then check the chart.
Which one for RYA Day Skipper / Yachtmaster prep?
For coursework you still want paper charts and a tidal atlas — the exam is taught that way. As a supplement, Savvy Navvy is more educational because the tidal-stream visualisation makes concepts click. See our free RYA practice quizzes.
What about Aqua Map, iSailor, or C-Map?
All real options — Aqua Map (US), iSailor (Europe), C-Map (Raymarine ecosystems). Savvy Navvy and Navionics are the two most-asked-about in the forums, which is why this page focuses on them.
Try them yourself.
Boating by Garmin
Chart detail, plotter integration, single-region sailors. 7-day free trial.
Try Boating by Garmin →Affiliate links — TideLab may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. The verdict above is the same one we'd give a sailing friend.