Best dive log app? Eight questions to ask before you pick one
There is no single best dive log app, only the one that fits how you dive. These eight questions sort them out faster than any ranking, and one of them matters more than the rest.
· 2 min read
1. Can you get every dive out again?
This is the question that matters most, because your logbook outlives any app. Look for a full export you can open without the app: Excel or a spreadsheet, and UDDF, the open format other logbook programs read. If an app does not say how to export, ask, or assume it cannot.
2. Can you bring your old dives in?
Most divers do not start from nothing. Check that the app reads the files you have: a spreadsheet, UDDF, the files from your computer's own app, or whatever your agency's app provides. A preview before anything is saved is worth having, because imports go wrong at the edges.
3. Does it work without a signal?
Boats, remote islands and quarries have patchy coverage. A logbook that needs a connection to save a dive is a logbook that loses dives. Check that it keeps the log on the device and syncs later.
4. How do dives get in?
Some apps download straight from a dive computer by Bluetooth or cable. Others read files you export, or you type the dive in. Decide how much you value the first: it saves typing, and it is the one thing a file-based logbook cannot match.
5. What does it do with your dives?
A list of dives is the minimum. Ask whether it shows air consumption over time, your seasons, your sites on a map, your gear costs per dive, your certifications and their dates. These are what turn a log into something you read.
6. What does it cost, and what is free?
Free, paid once, subscription: all three exist. The useful questions are which features sit behind the paywall, and whether export and your own data ever do.
7. What happens to your data?
Read the privacy policy for who stores your dives, whether they are sold, and whether the app has ads. Where the data lives is a fact worth checking, not a slogan.
8. Does it speak your language?
Small, but daily. Check the app and its help in the language you dive in.
How Loggerfish answers
Every dive exports as Excel, UDDF or a full backup, free on every plan. It imports SSI spreadsheets, Garmin .fit files, Subsurface logs, UDDF and any spreadsheet, with a preview. It keeps the log on your device and works offline, syncs with a free account, and speaks English, German, Spanish, French and Polish. It shows air consumption over time, seasons and your year against the last in Pro, the optional paid plan, along with dive-site maps and the dive passport. Logging, import, export and sync are free. It has no ads, does not sell your dives and never uses your logbook to train AI.
What it does not do: on iPhone it downloads over Bluetooth from two dive computers only, the Mares Sirius and the Shearwater Peregrine TX, and every other dive computer comes in as a file. It has no Android app yet, and it is not a dive computer. If question 4 is your priority, check that your dive computer is supported before you choose.
Check Loggerfish against your answers
Free to start, no card. Your logbook, and every export of it, stays yours on every plan.
Names such as PADI, SSI, MySSI, Subsurface, Shearwater and Garmin belong to their owners and are used only to say which product we mean. Loggerfish is not affiliated with any of them. What a guide says about them comes from their own public pages, listed beside the statement with the day it was checked. If something is out of date, write to support@loggerfish.com and we will correct it.