StrataWx vs Active Sky FS, row by row.

If you read nothing else: an activated StrataWx keeps flying for 14 days when our licence server cannot be reached, three global models build every column instead of one, and a surface report is trusted by how far away it is rather than by whether it exists. Their product page states that Active Sky FS cannot be used offline.

• 14Days of licence grace
• 3Global models per column
• 30NM of full METAR trust

Eight rows, decisive first, and each one states its own source inside the sentence rather than behind a footnote number. Where their published material does not cover something, the row says not published, which is a statement about their documentation and not about their engine.

Licence grace

StrataWx An activated install keeps flying for 14 days if our licence server is unreachable. Activate once, and the grace covers the licence check only. Live and historical weather still need a connection, because they read real observations as they happen. Sandbox needs none.

Active Sky FS Their product page states that it cannot be used offline. That is HiFi's published wording about their own product, on their own product page. Check it there before you buy: their pages are the only place their terms are ever current.

Account and session terms

StrataWx No account to create, and no login session to hold. Your key activates the install on the machine you fly. A licence is stood down only after two consecutive definitive rejections from our server, so one failed check mid-flight cannot lock you out.

Active Sky FS Their product page states that one login per user account is permitted. The same page states that you may be logged in only once at a time. That is their published account policy, quoted as policy, not our reading of how it behaves.

Hybrid mode

StrataWx Today's real winds under a sky you author. Hybrid lays the real wind, temperature and pressure under a ceiling, crosswind, chop and visibility you set by hand. Fly the approach you want, in the air that is actually out there.

Active Sky FS Their product page lists live, historical and custom weather, plus a Passive mode. It does not list a mode that puts live winds under an authored sky. They do author weather: their page describes manual control of wind, cloud, precipitation, visibility and temperature.

Models per column

StrataWx Three global models build every column. GFS, ECMWF and ICON, vector-averaged across 11 pressure levels. Where the three disagree, that uncertainty modulates the clear-air turbulence profile rather than inventing turbulence of its own.

Active Sky FS Not published. Their page describes synthesis from METARs, TAFs, GRIB and sigmets, without naming which models feed a column or how many. That is a statement about their documentation, not their engine.

Weather at a field with no report

StrataWx A METAR is trusted to 30 NM and fades to zero by 140. The curve between the two is smooth, blending the reported surface wind into the model gradient as you leave the station behind, so a field with no report of its own never inherits a distant station's wind.

Active Sky FS Not published. No page, changelog or reseller listing we have read documents how a surface report is trusted with distance from its station. Again: their documentation, not their engine.

Wind field continuity

StrataWx The cruise wind drifts. It does not step. Upper-air columns are blended bilinearly across the surrounding grid cells, on U and V components rather than degrees, because averaging 350 and 010 as numbers gives 180 and blending them as vectors gives 000.

Active Sky FS Not published. Their material does not describe how columns are blended between grid cells. This row makes no claim about their engine: it is a claim about ours, and you can check it in the sim.

Cloud transitions

StrataWx Decks are tracked by identity across serves. A drifting base is eased on the same slot rather than re-slotted, and a departing deck dissolves before it is dropped. The engine's 500 m match tolerance is held under the panel's 600 m on purpose, so a deck the engine eases is never one the panel snaps. The panel eases toward the target every 200 ms, at one of four speeds you choose.

Active Sky FS Their 17 July 2026 beta notes describe improved cloud smoothing. The same notes name edge cases where cloud layers may instantly transition or become corrupt. They ship transition control and configurable smoothing of their own, so this is not a claim that we smooth and they do not.

Route files

StrataWx Open a plan file you already have. No account anywhere. Import a SimBrief OFP by username, or just open a .fms, .pln, .fpl or .lnmpln, and get wind, temperature and hazards at every waypoint's planned altitude.

Active Sky FS Their product page lists Navigraph and SimBrief integration. They integrate with more of the ecosystem than we do, and the section below says so at length. The narrow claim in this row is only that reading a file you already own needs an account with nobody.

A comparison that only runs one way is an advertisement. Here is the other direction, in the same component and at the same size. If any of these seven is the thing you actually need, buy theirs; we would rather you were happy than converted.

Wake turbulence

StrataWx We do not ship it. There is a wake model in our tree with tests around it, and nothing in the shipping build imports it. Until that changes it is not a feature, it is a file.

Active Sky FS Their product page lists wake turbulence. It describes customizable clear-air turbulence, thermals, drafts and wake turbulence effects working alongside the simulator's own. Their air-effects model is deep and it is shipping today.

Voice weather

StrataWx Text, not voice. StrataWx writes an ATIS per field, with an hourly information letter, a runway in use and a phonetic transmission string, and serves it over the local API. Nothing speaks it aloud.

Active Sky FS Voice briefings on the radio. Their product page describes voice weather briefings and in-flight updates through a simulated ATIS, ASOS and Flight Watch service. That is a polished thing to have and we have no equivalent.

Second screen

StrataWx Nothing on a phone or a browser. StrataWx is a desktop app plus a small in-sim panel. There is no companion client and no second-screen control of any kind.

Active Sky FS A web companion app. Their material lists a web companion among the features that keep working in Passive mode, and their X-Plane 12 product adds a mobile companion for network control.

Third-party API

StrataWx A local API, and nobody building on it. StrataWx serves weather, ATIS and route briefings on loopback for anything on your own PC to read. No other product has been built against it.

Active Sky FS A documented API other developers build against. Their material describes an Active Sky API, a PMDG wind export and a common data export that other add-ons consume. An ecosystem that depends on you is a real asset, and it is theirs.

Navigraph

StrataWx No Navigraph integration. StrataWx bundles its own offline airport and runway database instead, so ICAO lookup, METAR geolocation and the ATIS runway in use need no external data account. That is a different trade, not a better one.

Active Sky FS Their product page lists Navigraph data integration. If your flight bag is already built around Navigraph, that is a convenience we simply do not offer.

Simulators covered

StrataWx Two, and both of them are MSFS. MSFS 2024 and MSFS 2020. A build for X-Plane 12 is a separate product and is not part of this comparison. If you fly anything else, we have nothing for you today.

Active Sky FS Six simulator families. The Active Sky line covers MSFS, X-Plane 12, X-Plane 11, P3D v4 and v5, P3D v6 and FSX. Breadth like that is not assembled quickly and we are nowhere near it.

The purchase

StrataWx $29.99 a sim. $35.99 for both MSFS sims. One-time, with free updates forever, and a $6.99 cross-grade if you add the other MSFS simulator later. What the difference buys is the eight rows above it.

Active Sky FS Theirs is the cheaper purchase. One purchase covers both MSFS 2020 and MSFS 2024, and their changelog states that 2024 support arrived with no upgrade fee for people who already owned it. We do not print their number here, because their store is the only place it is current.

Three limits belong to the simulator, not to either product. If a comparison page never tells you what its own category cannot do, it is not a comparison page.

$29.99 for one MSFS simulator, $35.99 for both, one-time, with free updates forever and a $6.99 cross-grade if you add the other MSFS simulator later. The full list is in the pricing section on the home page.

Windows 10/11 x64 · signed installer · instant download.

There is no numbered reference list here on purpose. Every row states its source inside the sentence: what Active Sky FS does comes from HiFi's own published pages, and what StrataWx does is a named mechanism in the shipping build.

Active Sky and Active Sky FS are trademarks of HiFi Technologies, Inc. StrataWx is an independent product, not affiliated with or endorsed by HiFi Technologies, Inc., Microsoft or Asobo Studio. Comparisons on this page are our reading of HiFi's published product pages on the date shown, and either product's features and pricing can change: check their store before you buy. Their product pages are at hifisimtech.com.

Last verified 2 August 2026.