After nearly three years of behind-the-scenes development, what started as a casual hobby project has now opened its hangar doors to the world. ELEVATEX, a new flight tracking platform for the sim community, is officially in open beta, and you can try it out right now.
Originally dubbed SimWidget when development began in 2022, ELEVATEX has come a long way from its humble beginnings. In a forum post published yesterday, the development team announced the open beta, outlining the project’s evolution over the past three years and inviting users to join in as the app enters this new phase of public testing.
What is ELEVATEX?
In simple terms, ELEVATEX is a real-time flight tracker built specifically for sim pilots. It works with Microsoft Flight Simulator (both 2020 and 2024), X-Plane, Prepar3D, FSX, and DCS. The goal, of course, is to give users a detailed overview of their flights—down to 1-second position updates—while offering a dashboard of performance stats, environmental data, and integrations with tools like SimBrief and VATSIM.
It’s free to use and includes:
- Real-time aircraft tracking with high refresh accuracy
- Flight summaries including environmental metrics like CO₂ emissions and fuel burn
- A growing aircraft database, curated by an in-house editorial team
- SimBrief integration for quick access to flight plans and weather
- Visual representation of ATC sectors, particularly useful for VATSIM flyers
ELEVATEX has been quietly brewing in alpha for months. A significant codebase overhaul last summer helped lay the groundwork for a more stable and responsive user experience. The team says feedback from testers has been largely positive—though they admit things haven’t always gone smoothly. Delays and long silences have tested the patience of early followers, but the open beta marks a fresh chapter.
“Performance is one of the main foundations of our application,” the team said in their announcement. That said, RAM usage is still an issue they’re actively working to optimize. Frequent updates are promised—“Our alpha testers know how many times a day we can put updates out,” they quipped.
The developers say a public roadmap is coming within the next week. It will outline features planned not just for the remainder of this year, but also 2026, and they’ve hinted at a few “secret ones” as well.
For now, anyone interested can join the open beta via the official ELEVATEX website. Account creation is handled in-app, and there’s a Getting Started guide on the site to help you set things up.
ELEVATEX joins a competitive field of flight tracking tools that includes established platforms like Volanta and SimToolkitPro. While each platform has its own strengths, ELEVATEX enters the scene with an interesting mix of features. The open beta phase will likely serve as a crucial period for feedback and refinement, as the team works to carve out a place within this already well-served niche.
We’ll be keeping an eye on its development—and if you give it a try, let us know how it goes!
