so ive been using litchi for probably 3 years now and its honestly fine but the lack of updates is starting to bother me. feels like they just kind of abandoned it after the whole DJI SDK drama. dronelink keeps coming up whenever i search for alternatives and some people swear by it but the subscription model is annoying to think about when litchi was a one time purchase.

mostly doing real estate and some agriculture survey work, nothing crazy, just need reliable waypoint missions with decent altitude control and maybe terrain following when im doing hillside properties. does dronelink actually do terrain follow well or is that still kind of janky? and does it work offline because i fly in some pretty dead zones.

not looking to switch just to switch, genuinely curious if anyones done this comparison recently since a lot of posts i find are from like 2021

switched about 8 months ago and honestly dont miss litchi that much. dronelink terrain following is pretty solid now, way better than it was when i tried it in beta. the offline thing works but you have to remember to cache your maps before you leave because it wont remind you and ive been burned by that twice on rural jobs.

the subscription stings initially but if youre doing real estate work youre probably writing it off anyway. my main gripe is the interface is a bit dense when youre trying to quickly edit a mission on the fly at the site, litchi felt a little more intuitive for quick changes. dronelink rewards people who plan everything at home the night before which honestly is probably the right workflow anyway.

tangentially related but have you looked at UgCS? its more overkill for real estate but the terrain following is probably the best ive seen in any consumer-ish app. its also not cheap lol. just throwing it out there since you mentioned hillside properties, some of those sloped site surveys get complicated and litchi terrain follow always made me a little nervous on steep gradients