Ship Radar Apps: 7 Live Ship Maps Compared

A ship radar app is a live map that shows where vessels are right now, the way a flight tracker shows planes. Despite the name, almost none of them use radar. They plot AIS signals, the position reports that ships broadcast about themselves over VHF radio, and some add satellite data for the open ocean.

That difference explains most of the frustration people have with these apps: a ship that "vanishes" mid-ocean, a navy vessel that never appears, a small boat that shows up only near the coast. This guide compares seven live ship maps, explains what each one is good at, and shows you how to pick the one that fits why you are tracking a ship in the first place.

What Ship Radar Apps Actually Show

Every app in this list starts from the same raw material. Ships fitted with an Automatic Identification System transmit their identity, position, course, speed and navigational status several times a minute. Shore stations and satellites pick up those messages, and the app draws each one as an arrow on a map.

The update rate is fast when a ship is moving. According to the US Coast Guard, a Class A AIS unit broadcasts its position every 2 to 10 seconds while underway and every 3 minutes while at anchor.

Carriage is mandatory for most commercial traffic. Under IMO rules, AIS must be fitted on all ships of 300 gross tonnage and upwards on international voyages, cargo ships of 500 gross tonnage and upwards on domestic voyages, and all passenger ships regardless of size. That is why cruise ships, ferries, tankers and container ships dominate every live map, while yachts and fishing boats appear only when their owners choose to fit a transponder.

If you want the full technical picture, our guide to how AIS works walks through the message types and the receiver network behind them.

Ship Radar vs AIS: Two Different Signals

Real marine radar works the other way around. The ship sends out microwave pulses and reads the echoes that bounce back from anything solid: other hulls, buoys, coastlines, rain squalls. It sees every object in range, whether that object wants to be seen or not.

Marine radars work on two main bands. As defence electronics maker Leonardo DRS explains, S-band radar operates at 2 to 4 GHz and X-band at 8 to 12 GHz. X-band is the most widely used because it works with smaller antennas that fit on most boats and gives better target resolution.

AIS is cooperative. A ship only appears if its own transponder is on and a receiver hears it. So when you search for a "radar ship" view online, what you get is a picture of what ships report about themselves, not what a radar would see. For following a cruise, a cargo shipment or a relative at sea, that is exactly the data you want: it carries the ship's name, destination and ETA, which a radar echo never could.

Our Top Picks at a Glance

Here is how the seven live ship maps compare before we go into each one.

How We Evaluated These Ship Radar Apps

We compared each app against its provider's own published feature lists and store listings, then looked at what a non-professional user actually needs from a live ship map. Five criteria decided the ranking:

• Coverage: how much of the world the map shows in real time, and whether satellite positions fill the gaps beyond coastal range.
• Search: whether you can find a ship by name, MMSI or IMO number without knowing where it is.
• Arrival information: whether the app shows a destination, an ETA or a predicted route rather than a bare dot.
• Readability: how much maritime knowledge you need to understand what the screen is telling you.
• Free access: what you can do without paying, since most people searching for a ship radar want to check one ship, once, right now.

No single app wins on all five. The largest maps are also the most data-heavy, and the friendliest apps cover fewer niche features, so the ranking below reflects the best balance for everyday users.

#1 MarineTraffic: The Largest Live Ship Radar Map

MarineTraffic is the name most people have in mind when they search for a ship radar live view, and for good reason. Its Google Play listing says the app is connected to the largest network of land-based AIS receivers and that more than 300,000 vessels a day report their positions through it. Since the company became part of Kpler, it also draws on a combined terrestrial and satellite network that Kpler says tracks more than 661,000 vessels daily.

The app lets you view ships on a live map, search for vessels and ports, see what is near you, check voyage history with key events along the route, and overlay live wind and 48-hour wind forecasts. Paid add-ons unlock extras such as augmented reality, which identifies ships through your phone camera.

The limits are well known. Free users see terrestrial positions only, so a ship far offshore can show as out of range until it nears the coast again. The interface is built for professionals, with dense vessel pages full of codes and abbreviations. MarineTraffic is the best raw map, but it expects you to interpret the data yourself.

Choose it if you want the widest live picture of ship traffic and you are comfortable reading AIS fields. We compared its free and paid tiers in detail in a separate guide, and it remains the benchmark every other app on this list is measured against.

#2 VesselFinder: Clean Maps and Port Arrivals

VesselFinder describes itself as a free AIS vessel tracking site that shows real-time ship positions detected by a global AIS network. Its map is noticeably cleaner than MarineTraffic's, with a choice of standard, simple, dark and satellite base maps, nautical charts, and weather layers for temperature, wind speed and waves.

The mobile app adds predicted routes and ETAs to the next port, plus lists of expected vessels, arrivals, departures and ships currently in port. That makes it a strong pick if your question is "when does this ship get in?" rather than "where is every ship in the channel?"

VesselFinder also runs a data-sharing programme: if you host an AIS receiver and feed its data into the network, you get a free premium account. For hobbyists near a busy coastline, that is a practical way to unlock more features.

The drawbacks mirror MarineTraffic's. Some features are reserved for premium accounts, and the presentation is still raw data: a ship's speed, heading and status, with no explanation of what they mean. Many other trackers, including CruiseMapper and one of the Ship Radar 24 sites, embed VesselFinder's map or data, so what you see there is often VesselFinder underneath.

#3 Primo Nautic: Plain-Language Updates for One Ship

Primo Nautic takes a different approach. Instead of showing you every ship in the ocean and leaving you to make sense of it, it focuses on the ship you actually care about and explains what is happening in plain language.

You search by vessel name, MMSI or IMO number and pick why you are tracking: a loved one on a cruise, a family member working at sea, a friend travelling, a cargo shipment, your own boat, or general ship enthusiasm. The AI then writes its updates for that purpose. A seafarer's partner gets a warm, reassuring summary of where the ship is and what the weather is like at its position; an importer gets a precise, logistics-focused update.

Two features matter most for arrival questions. A dual ETA shows the captain's reported ETA next to an AI-calculated route ETA, with a confidence score, so you can see when the two disagree. Smart notifications alert you to arrivals, departures and delays without you refreshing the map.

It is not the tool for watching a whole harbour or studying traffic patterns across an ocean. Where Primo Nautic stands out is turning one ship's raw AIS data into an update you can read at a glance without knowing what "SOG" means. It runs on iOS and Android and has a free plan.

#4 MyShipTracking: A Free, Simple Radar View

MyShipTracking is the lightweight option. It offers a live map of ships and ports, basic vessel details, and a network that, according to its own site, includes more than 1,200 receiving stations worldwide, with an open invitation for users to host a receiver and extend coverage in their area.

Its appeal is speed and simplicity. You open the map, tap a ship, and see its name, type, speed and destination without digging through a wall of menus. For a quick check of what just sailed past your window, that is often enough.

The trade-off is depth. Coverage depends on its terrestrial network, so open-ocean gaps are common, and there is little in the way of predictions, alerts or context. It shows you raw data, cleanly, and stops there. We covered how it stacks up against VesselFinder in a head-to-head comparison if you are deciding between those two.

#5 ShipFinder: Satellite Data on a Free Account

ShipFinder, now run by Singapore-based Elane Global, positions itself as a vessel intelligence platform built on terrestrial and satellite AIS. It says it tracks more than 200,000 vessels daily and holds more than ten years of historical tracks.

Its free account is unusually generous on the one feature every other free tier withholds: it includes satellite AIS tracking for one vessel. That matters if the ship you care about spends long stretches far from shore, because terrestrial-only apps lose it there. The free account also includes three days of historical data with track playback and port calls, route predictions and ETAs, heatmaps, vessel alerts, and a fleet list of up to 10 vessels.

The platform is aimed at maritime professionals, so the interface leans toward fleet management rather than casual browsing. If you only want to see one ship on a map mid-ocean without paying, though, ShipFinder's free satellite slot is worth knowing about.

#6 CruiseMapper: A Cruise Ship Radar with Itineraries

If your only interest is cruise ships, CruiseMapper is the specialist. It combines a cruise ship radar view with itinerary schedules, port schedules showing which ships arrive and depart each day, cabin reviews, and what it describes as the largest collection of cruise ship deck plans: 1,320 vessels and 8,928 individual deck plan images.

Its live positions come from AIS data transmitted to VesselFinder, integrated into each ship page with the current itinerary route, speed, and previous and next port of call. For families following a relative on a cruise, seeing the planned itinerary next to the live position is genuinely useful: you can tell at a glance whether the ship is on schedule.

The limits are scope and freshness. CruiseMapper covers cruise ships and some ferries, not the cargo ship or tanker a seafarer might be working on. Its positions inherit the same terrestrial and satellite gaps as the underlying data source. For a broader look at following cruise ships, including official cruise line apps, see our earlier guides on cruise tracking.

#7 Ship Radar 24: The Name Behind the Search

A large share of "ship radar 24" searches come from people expecting a ship version of the well-known flight tracker. There is no official ship product from that flight tracker. Instead, the Ship Radar 24 name is used by more than one independent website.

One version runs its own map with filters for ship type, speed, build year, length and navigational status, plus marine overlays such as wave heights, sea temperatures, currents and bathymetry, some of them reserved for a paid tier. Another Ship Radar 24 site states on its own page that its map is provided by VesselFinder and based on AIS signals.

That makes Ship Radar 24 fine for casual browsing and weather layers, but it is worth knowing what you are looking at. These sites are not operated by the major AIS networks, one of them has publicly flagged difficulties with its data provider, and its terms describe it as an information service not intended for navigation. If you need dependable arrival information, the underlying providers above are the more direct choice.

Why a Ship Disappears from the Live Map

Every ship radar app shares the same blind spots, because they all depend on AIS. Knowing them saves a lot of worry when a ship you are following goes quiet.

Range is the most common reason. The IMO guidelines give a typical AIS range at sea of 20 to 30 nautical miles, depending on antenna height. Shore stations extend that along coasts, but mid-ocean a ship is only visible if a satellite picks up its signal, and satellite positions are usually a paid feature.

Some ships are simply not on the map. The same IMO guidelines note that warships, naval auxiliaries and government-operated ships are not required to carry AIS, and that a master may switch AIS off on professional judgement.

Small craft are harder to see. MarineTraffic's support documentation explains that satellite tracking is less effective for vessels with Class B transponders, whose weaker signal is harder for satellites to pick up. A last position that stops updating usually means a gap in reception, not a problem on board.

What to Look for in a Ship Radar App

The right app depends less on map size and more on the question you are trying to answer. Before you download one, check these points:

• Satellite coverage: if the ship crosses oceans, a terrestrial-only map will lose it for days, so look for satellite positions in the plan you intend to use.
• Search by identifier: name search is convenient, but MMSI or IMO search is the only reliable way to find the right ship when several share a name.
• ETA and predictions: a destination field typed by the crew is a starting point; a predicted route or independent ETA tells you whether that estimate still holds.
• Alerts: notifications for arrivals, departures and delays save you from refreshing a map all day.
• Readability: if you are not a mariner, an app that explains speed, status and weather in plain words will answer your question faster than a denser map.
• Data source: some sites repackage another provider's map, so check whose AIS network you are actually looking at.

If you mainly want to watch traffic, our guide to the live ship traffic map covers how to read vessel icons, filters and density layers.

Conclusion

Ship radar apps are AIS maps, not radar, and that single fact explains their strengths and their gaps. They show you a ship's name, position, speed and destination because the ship broadcasts them, and they lose ships that are out of range, switched off, or never required to transmit.

MarineTraffic offers the widest live picture, VesselFinder the cleanest map with strong port arrival lists, and MyShipTracking the quickest free lookup. ShipFinder stands out for including satellite AIS on a free account, CruiseMapper for pairing live cruise positions with itineraries, and Ship Radar 24 for casual browsing with weather overlays. Primo Nautic fits a different need: following one ship and understanding what its data means for you.

Pick the map that answers your actual question. For watching a whole coastline, go wide; for knowing when one ship arrives, go focused and make sure the ETA comes with context.