Beeledger vs HiveTracks: which beekeeping app fits how you inspect?

You keep bees, you want your records on your phone, and you are choosing between HiveTracks and Beeledger. The short version: HiveTracks is the established record keeper, free on mobile, with dashboards, maps and group tools in its paid Pro plan. Beeledger is built around talking through a whole apiary with the phone in your pocket, with no signal needed, for a flat price. I build Beeledger, so read this with that in mind. I have tried to be fair, and every fact about HiveTracks links to where I found it.

Short answer

Choose HiveTracks if:

• you want charts, dashboards, a filterable map and yield comparisons across apiaries, on a computer;
• you run a club or a business and need groups, roles and per-apiary access for many beekeepers;
• you sell honey and like the idea of a public page and a QR code for each harvest;
• you are happy tapping through a guided inspection, and want a free app with a bee weather forecast and suggested to-dos.

Choose Beeledger if:

• you want to talk through a whole row of hives with gloves on and the phone in your pocket, and get one record per hive;
• you work out of signal and want voice to work there too;
• you want splits, combines, moves, dead colonies and tasks to come straight from what you said;
• you inspect in Spanish or French as well as English, or want unlimited hives on a free plan and voice at a flat $49 a year.

At a glance

	HiveTracks	Beeledger
Price	Mobile app free; Pro $6.99 a month or $69.99 a year	Free plan; Voice plan $6.99 a month or $49 a year, taxes included
Free tier	Mobile app: inspections, notes, photos, treatments, to-dos and reminders, weather forecast. No hive limit mentioned	Manual logging, unlimited hives and apiaries, photos, export. No card
Trial	30-day free trial of Pro	30 days of the paid features, no card up front
How voice works	No voice input mentioned on its site, store listing or help center; inspections are guided forms	One recording for the whole apiary, split into one record per hive
Offline	Mobile app records offline and syncs when back online	Recording, photos and typing work offline; processed when back in range
Languages	English (the only one I could confirm)	English, Spanish and French, in the app and in what you say
AI features	None mentioned; automatic recommendations from your records and from what other beekeepers do that season	AI summaries per hive, per apiary and for the whole operation (paid plan)
Analytics and export	Pro: dashboards, charts, map with filters, cross-apiary yield reporting, CSV export	Written AI briefings; export of all your records on both plans
Team members	Pro: groups (club or business), admin and member roles, per-apiary access	Up to 3 people on a Voice plan account

Checked on 17 October 2026. Prices may have changed.

Tapping a form or talking through the apiary

Picture a row of twenty hives on a warm afternoon. The bees are up, your gloves are sticky with propolis and the smoker wants a hand. This is where the two apps part ways.

HiveTracks is built around structured inspections on the screen. Its help center describes three ways to inspect: Quick, More Guidance and Record More Details, and you check an inspection summary before you finalize it. For a new beekeeper that guidance is worth a lot, because the app asks the questions you might forget. Most people fill it in between hives or once the lid is back on.

Beeledger is built around not touching the phone. You press record at the first hive, put the phone in your pocket and work. You say each hive’s name as you reach it (“Alpha 3”, written on the lid with a marker) and talk the way you would to a friend standing next to you. Beeledger splits that one recording into one record per hive. It copes with “scratch that”, with going back to a hive you already closed and with thinking out loud, and it does not record an observation you did not confirm. There are no QR codes or NFC tags to scan.

If you want to judge that for yourself, the film is ten unedited minutes of a real inspection, with the full transcript next to it.

No signal behind the hill

Both apps work without a connection, which matters to anyone whose apiary sits in a valley or at the end of a farm track.

HiveTracks’ help center says the mobile app works offline and syncs to the cloud on its own when the phone reconnects. It also gives a sensible warning: if you tap “Refresh Data” before your offline records have synced, those local records are replaced by the cloud copy. So let the phone find signal first.

Beeledger records voice, photos and typed notes with no connection, keeps everything on the phone and syncs when you are back in range. One honest difference: the splitting into per-hive records happens after the sync, so you see the finished records once you have signal again, not while you stand in the apiary.

Colony changes and tasks from what you say

HiveTracks has solid planning tools. You create a to-do by picking a category, the hives and a due date. It shows up on a calendar next to a weekly weather forecast, and the app suggests recommendations based on your own records and on what other beekeepers are doing that season.

Beeledger takes the same information from speech. Say “come back in two weeks and treat this one for varroa” and it becomes a dated task on that hive. Two weeks later, say you treated it, and the task can be marked done. If the match is uncertain, it is shown as a suggestion for you to confirm, never ticked silently.

The same goes for colony changes. A split creates the new hive. Captured swarms, bought nucs, combining two colonies, moving a hive to another apiary, a dead colony and a new colony in an empty box are all picked up from what you say. They are applied only when it is clear they were done: “I should split this one next week” is recorded as a plan, not carried out.

Dashboards or a written briefing

This is where HiveTracks Pro earns its price. On a computer you get dashboards with charts per apiary, honey harvest graphs and a green or red status bubble for each apiary. There is a map you can filter for queenless hives, low stores, diseases and pests or dead hives. Every main table can be exported to CSV with your filters applied. If you like to sit down in winter and compare yields across apiaries, that is a strong set of tools.

Beeledger puts its effort somewhere else: a short written briefing per hive, per apiary and for the whole operation, built from your own records. It tells you what needs action first and what to watch next, and it turns old points into questions to check on the next visit, in your language. It is part of the paid plan and included in the trial. You can export all your records at any time, on the free plan too.

Where HiveTracks is better

• Track record. HiveTracks says it started in 2010 in North Carolina and has supported more than 40,000 beekeepers in more than 150 countries. On Google Play it shows 10K+ downloads and 920 reviews averaging 4.7. Beeledger has been public on Google Play since October 2026 and has few reviews so far.
• Analytics. The desktop dashboards, the filterable map and cross-apiary yield reporting are the deeper toolset for anyone who wants to study their numbers.
• Groups for clubs and businesses. Pro groups come in two types, clubs and businesses, with admin and member roles, per-apiary access and invitations by link, QR code or email. Beeledger’s Voice plan covers up to 3 people on one account: fine for a family or two partners, not for a club.
• Selling honey. Pro’s Honey Story and Harvest Profiles give each harvest a public page and a QR code for the jar label.
• Help while you learn. Guided inspection levels, the bee weather forecast and suggested to-dos are useful when you are still learning what to look for, and they are all in the free app.

Pricing

	HiveTracks	Beeledger
Free	Mobile app	Free forever: manual logging, unlimited hives and apiaries, photos, export
Paid, monthly	Pro: $6.99	Voice: $6.99
Paid, yearly	Pro: $69.99 (“save 27%”), single license	Voice: $49, up to 3 people
What the paid plan adds	Desktop dashboards and trends, cross-apiary yield reporting, CSV export, groups, Honey Story	Unlimited voice inspections (fair use), AI summaries, video, phone and web, up to 3 people
Trial	30 days	30 days, no card up front

Checked on 17 October 2026. Prices may have changed.

The monthly price is the same. On a yearly plan Beeledger costs $20.99 less. HiveTracks’ help center describes $69.99 a year as the price of a single license; I could not confirm how it prices a group where several members need Pro. Beeledger’s prices include taxes, with no per-hive pricing and no credits. The details are on Beeledger’s pricing page.

Who should pick which

Pick HiveTracks if you mostly write things up after the inspection, enjoy reading your data on a big screen, coordinate beekeepers in a club or a business, or sell honey and want a page per harvest. It is also the safer bet if a long history matters to you.

Pick Beeledger if your problem is the inspection itself: gloves, bees in the air, twenty hives and no free hand. If you would rather talk than tap, often work out of signal, or keep bees in Spanish or French, that is what it was built for.

Not sure? Both have a free option, and both paid plans have a 30-day trial. Use each one on a real apiary visit and keep the one you actually opened the next week. For the wider field, see the best beekeeping apps compared, and for the other voice apps, Beeledger vs Beentry and Beeledger vs HiveBloom.

How I compared them

On 17 October 2026 I read HiveTracks’ page for beekeepers, its Google Play listing and the help center articles linked above (Pro features, offline sync, inspections, to-dos, recommendations, dashboards, maps, export, groups). Beeledger’s facts come from its code and its live pricing page on the same day. I did not run a hands-on test of HiveTracks for this page, so everything about it comes from its own published pages.

What I could not confirm: any app language other than English, whether every member of a group needs a Pro license, and whether the trial asks for a card. The trial length is also inconsistent on HiveTracks’ side: the page for beekeepers offers 30 days, while the help center still says 7. I found no mention of voice input anywhere I looked. If any of this changes, I will update the page.

FAQ

Is HiveTracks free?

Yes, the HiveTracks mobile app is free. Pro adds desktop dashboards, trends, yield reporting, CSV export and groups for $6.99 a month or $69.99 a year, with a 30-day trial. Prices checked on 17 October 2026.

Does HiveTracks work offline?

Yes. HiveTracks’ help center says the mobile app records offline and syncs automatically when the phone reconnects. Let unsynced records sync before you use “Refresh Data”, or they are replaced by the cloud copy.

Can you record inspections by voice in HiveTracks?

I found no voice input on HiveTracks’ site, store listing or help center as of 17 October 2026. Inspections are guided forms you fill in by tapping. Beeledger is built around voice: one recording for the whole apiary, split per hive.

Is Beeledger cheaper than HiveTracks?

Per month they cost the same, $6.99. Per year Beeledger’s Voice plan is $49 against $69.99 for HiveTracks Pro, and it covers up to 3 people. Both have free plans that do different things. Prices checked on 17 October 2026.

Which is better for a beekeeping club?

HiveTracks. Its Pro groups have a club type, admin and member roles and per-apiary access, designed for many members. A Beeledger account holds up to 3 people.