Comparison

Six ways to keep aircraft maintenance records

This compares approaches, not products — no vendor is named here, and none is being described sideways. We wrote the table about ourselves, so the useful part is where we put ourselves last. There are three of those, and they're called out below.

Comparison of six approaches to keeping general aviation maintenance records. The final column is MyTailLog.
Axis	Paper + a filing cabinet	A spreadsheet	Photos on your phone	A human digitization service	A flight-school ops platform	MyTailLog
Time to searchable records	Never — you flip pages	However long you spend typing	Instant to store, never searchable	Days to weeks, hands-off	However long you spend typing	Minutes per page, plus your review time
Cost	Free (a binder)	Free	Free	Per aircraft, in the hundreds — it is labour, so it can't be cheap	A monthly subscription	Free; there is no billing in the app at all
Who holds the data	You, physically	You — it's a file	You — it's a camera roll	You, once it's delivered	They do, on your behalf	You; MIT-licensed, so you can hold the server too
What you leave with	Nothing to leave	The file	The photos	Whatever was delivered to you	Whatever their export gives you	A ZIP of every row as JSON + the original scans, re-importable — and it can already be sitting in your own Dropbox or Drive
If it shuts down	Doesn't apply	Doesn't apply	Doesn't apply	You keep the delivered files	You migrate on their timeline	Run the same code yourself — and the monthly archive in your own cloud doesn't need us to exist
Automatic offsite copy	No — a hangar fire is a hangar fire	Only if the file lives in a synced folder	Whatever your phone's backup already does	No — you're sent a copy once	Their backups, on their terms, not a copy you hold	Monthly or quarterly to your own Dropbox and/or Google Drive; connect both for two independent copies
Answers questions, or just stores files?	Stores	Answers only what you built formulas for	Stores	Stores — accurately	Some: status and due lists	Answers: plain-English Q&A citing the entries, gap audit, equipment rebuilt from the logs
Tracks what's due	You and your A&P remember	If you built the formulas and keep them current	No	No — it's transcription, not tracking	Yes	Yes: Part 91 recurring items, ADs, email reminders with your own lead times
Per-entry correctness guarantee	The entry is the record	Exactly what you typed	The image is exact; nothing is structured	Strongest — a person read every entry	Exactly what somebody typed	Weaker — a model reads it, scores its own confidence, and you review it against the scan
Scheduling, dispatch, invoicing	—	—	—	—	Yes — that is the job	No, and not planned. Explicitly out of scope
Works with no signal	Perfectly	If the file is on the device	Yes	No	Usually web-only	iOS app (TestFlight beta) browses everything offline and captures offline; no Android app
Open source / self-hostable	Doesn't apply	Doesn't apply	Doesn't apply	No	No	Yes — MIT
Is it the legal record?	Yes — this is the record	No	No	No	No	No — an index of the paper, never a replacement for it

Time to searchable records

Paper + a filing cabinet: Never — you flip pages
A spreadsheet: However long you spend typing
Photos on your phone: Instant to store, never searchable
A human digitization service: Days to weeks, hands-off
A flight-school ops platform: However long you spend typing
MyTailLog: Minutes per page, plus your review time

Cost

Paper + a filing cabinet: Free (a binder)
A spreadsheet: Free
Photos on your phone: Free
A human digitization service: Per aircraft, in the hundreds — it is labour, so it can't be cheap
A flight-school ops platform: A monthly subscription
MyTailLog: Free; there is no billing in the app at all

Who holds the data

Paper + a filing cabinet: You, physically
A spreadsheet: You — it's a file
Photos on your phone: You — it's a camera roll
A human digitization service: You, once it's delivered
A flight-school ops platform: They do, on your behalf
MyTailLog: You; MIT-licensed, so you can hold the server too

What you leave with

Paper + a filing cabinet: Nothing to leave
A spreadsheet: The file
Photos on your phone: The photos
A human digitization service: Whatever was delivered to you
A flight-school ops platform: Whatever their export gives you
MyTailLog: A ZIP of every row as JSON + the original scans, re-importable — and it can already be sitting in your own Dropbox or Drive

If it shuts down

Paper + a filing cabinet: Doesn't apply
A spreadsheet: Doesn't apply
Photos on your phone: Doesn't apply
A human digitization service: You keep the delivered files
A flight-school ops platform: You migrate on their timeline
MyTailLog: Run the same code yourself — and the monthly archive in your own cloud doesn't need us to exist

Automatic offsite copy

Paper + a filing cabinet: No — a hangar fire is a hangar fire
A spreadsheet: Only if the file lives in a synced folder
Photos on your phone: Whatever your phone's backup already does
A human digitization service: No — you're sent a copy once
A flight-school ops platform: Their backups, on their terms, not a copy you hold
MyTailLog: Monthly or quarterly to your own Dropbox and/or Google Drive; connect both for two independent copies

Answers questions, or just stores files?

Paper + a filing cabinet: Stores
A spreadsheet: Answers only what you built formulas for
Photos on your phone: Stores
A human digitization service: Stores — accurately
A flight-school ops platform: Some: status and due lists
MyTailLog: Answers: plain-English Q&A citing the entries, gap audit, equipment rebuilt from the logs

Tracks what's due

Paper + a filing cabinet: You and your A&P remember
A spreadsheet: If you built the formulas and keep them current
Photos on your phone: No
A human digitization service: No — it's transcription, not tracking
A flight-school ops platform: Yes
MyTailLog: Yes: Part 91 recurring items, ADs, email reminders with your own lead times

Per-entry correctness guarantee

Paper + a filing cabinet: The entry is the record
A spreadsheet: Exactly what you typed
Photos on your phone: The image is exact; nothing is structured
A human digitization service: Strongest — a person read every entry
A flight-school ops platform: Exactly what somebody typed
MyTailLog: Weaker — a model reads it, scores its own confidence, and you review it against the scan

Scheduling, dispatch, invoicing

Paper + a filing cabinet: —
A spreadsheet: —
Photos on your phone: —
A human digitization service: —
A flight-school ops platform: Yes — that is the job
MyTailLog: No, and not planned. Explicitly out of scope

Works with no signal

Paper + a filing cabinet: Perfectly
A spreadsheet: If the file is on the device
Photos on your phone: Yes
A human digitization service: No
A flight-school ops platform: Usually web-only
MyTailLog: iOS app (TestFlight beta) browses everything offline and captures offline; no Android app

Open source / self-hostable

Paper + a filing cabinet: Doesn't apply
A spreadsheet: Doesn't apply
Photos on your phone: Doesn't apply
A human digitization service: No
A flight-school ops platform: No
MyTailLog: Yes — MIT

Is it the legal record?

Paper + a filing cabinet: Yes — this is the record
A spreadsheet: No
Photos on your phone: No
A human digitization service: No
A flight-school ops platform: No
MyTailLog: No — an index of the paper, never a replacement for it

Where we lose

A comparison table whose author wins every row is an advertisement. These are the rows we don't win, stated in full rather than buried:

A human beats a model on per-entry certainty.Paying someone to read every entry gives you a person's guarantee on each one. We give you a confidence-scored draft: a percentage on every field, the scan cropped to where each value was read from, and the flagged ones held back from bulk-confirm. That catches what the model knows it's unsure about — it cannot catch what the model was confidently wrong about. Your review is what closes that gap, and it is real work.
No scheduling, dispatch, or billing — ever.If you run a club, a school, or a leaseback and you need a booking calendar, tach-to-invoice dispatch, rental rates, or membership dues, an ops platform does that and we deliberately do not. It is on the out-of-scope list, not the roadmap, because building a second-rate scheduler would cost the records depth that's the entire point of this.
Mobile is a beta, and iOS only. The native app is in TestFlight: it browses every entry, document and scan fully offline and captures pages offline, but editing existing entries is still done on the web, and there is no Android app.

When to pick something else

An ops platform — if the thing keeping you up at night is who has the plane on Saturday and whether the renter got billed.
A digitization service— if you would rather pay money than spend evenings reviewing, and you want a person's name attached to every entry.
Paper and a binder— if you fly a hundred hours a year, one book covers it, and you can find what you need in it. It is still the legal record either way, and there's no shame in that being the whole system.
The spreadsheet you already have — if it already answers your questions. Only switch if the answers are missing; if you do, the spreadsheet imports as CSV, so what it costs you is reviewing the paper, not re-typing the data.

Where this approach is genuinely different

One thing, mostly: what happens to a record after it's captured. A photo is storage. A transcription is accurate storage. Here, extraction is the beginning — the entries feed a searchable cross-logbook timeline, a status grid, a Part 91 forecast, AD/SB compliance with FAA reference lookup, an equipment list rebuilt from what the logs say was installed and removed, weight & balance revisions, oil wear-metal and consumption trends, a records-gap audit, and plain-English questions answered with the source entries cited.

The second thing is the exit. MIT license, a full ZIP of your rows and original scans on demand, and a read-only public API you consent to per-app. Portability that survives us losing interest is a stronger promise than portability that depends on us staying nice.

The row that resets the table

Only one column answers “yes” to is it the legal record, and it's the filing cabinet. Under 14 CFR 91.417 the physical logbooks are the system of record, and every other column here — ours included — is an index, a convenience, or a search tool sitting on top of them. Whatever you choose, keep the paper.

More on how the pieces work in Help & documentation, and on cost, privacy and export in the FAQ.