Is there a good comparison of these types of utilities?
Mostly I’m trying to compare their functionality, and compatibility, rather than a “vs.” situation.
I’ve read about and tried both, but am having a harder time trying to determine where the crossover is, and what other apps, e.g. Axis and Ohs, should also be considered.
I’ve only used Spad.next. There’s a bit of a learning curve to it, but I haven’t encountered much I couldn’t do with it. I even wrote (with the help of internet examples) some scripts for it to fix some annoying behavior in the Aerosoft Twin Otter and the MSFS GA autopilot, and I used it to interface with an Arduino project of mine (moving a servo in response to changes in the pitch trim in MSFS).
I only use MobiFlight with good success, super helpful Developers on their Discord page.
I’ve only used Mobiflight, and I am FAR from an expert, but the amount of work the creator and the community have done to create such a powerful and free utility is astounding.
Is does require at least some basic familiarity with coding and variables, but there is always someone on their Discord who will point you in the right direction. And, the odds are, whatever you are looking to do has already been done and someone has the code for you. 
Mobiflight per-se is, as I understand it, primarily intended to control Arduino-based hardware projects, which I don’t currently have, but the Mobiflight WASM module which adds hundreds of events that are not available in the base sim to Simconnect is priceless to me, and is the only way I’ve found to automate quite a lot of aircraft systems.
Spad.neXt is really the core component of my simulator these days (other than the sim itself), as most of what I have in terms of hardware is wired up through it (often via the Mobiflght WASM module) Again, a lot of my sim functionality couldn’t easily be done any other way, although various combinations of FSUIPC + Linda etc can do a lot of what it does, but nowhere near as straightforwardly IMHO. I would not willingly be without it.
I did use FSUIPC extensively in P3D for automation as well as Spad.neXt, using its virtual joystick functionality and mouse macros, and mapping most of my controllers through it. I have FSUIPC7 for MSFS but I don’t currently use it directly for anything, it’s needed for Spad.neXt to work completely in my case.
AxisAndOhs I’ve never used, but I know people swear by it. Would be interesting to see a comparison between it and Spad.neXt, although I don’t think they’re direct competition for each other.
I’ll preface again with my “definitely not an expert here” comment, but you can map buttons from pretty much any controller. I have mapped buttons from my Velocity One Flight yoke onto a Mobiflight profile.
But what you said does mostly apply to my use case. I have a DIY Arduino auto pilot box that uses Mobiflight.
I just always kind of assumed that these tools essentially all do the same thing, but it looks like you already know a lot more about the others than I do.
Thanks everyone. Really helpful info.
I am ok with doing some programming… kinda fun, sometimes. I also have a few Arduinos, and recently got some rotary encoders, pushbuttons, and switches. First project will be a compact Autopilot panel.
Yes it would be useful to have a cross look at all these third party apps. I’ve often wondered what extras I could gain by using other apps but so far I haven’t felt the need to get into anything else seriously other than Air Manager which does pretty much everything I need. Virtual instruments, hardware interfacing, game controller interfacing. It’s much more script orientated than some of the other offerings but it’s very powerful and adaptable which suits me well.
Here’s a nice little project, all the info you need I’d in the Discord link. I modified this as I only fly VR, I’ve got a zoom encoder, and a twin encoder with push, plus a 3 way switch, I can select FMS, Com/VLOC or ADF with the switch.
I jumped into Spad 3 months ago. With zero touching of scripts, files or .cfg anything my Honeywell Alpha and Bravo and VKB FSM module talk, blink, have warning sounds, beeps, lights, conditional actions that happen by themselves, multiple event triggers and much much more.
If an API is exposed chances are Spad nails it. Highly recommended and the support videos and discord are friggin awesome.
Uninitiated user here. Do these utilities run as a background application/process outside the simulator or are they an add-on that functions within the sim?
They run outside the sim as an executable, but in the case of Mobiflight, there is also a package that must be added to your community folder. I’m not familiar with Spad to comment.
As the reply above stated for mobiflight, it’s the same for SPAD, FSUIPC as well as axis and ohs as well i think. These community folder based modules provide the list of available lvars to the executible running in the background. But to actually control those and map them to peripheral devices, you need to run the background executible.
I own Spad, Axis and Ohs, and FSUIPC. I consider Spad indispensable.
It’s versatile, and I find it’s interface to be intuitive. The others not so intuitive, imo.
Connex is the author of Spad, and Les O’Reilly is the spad guru. One of my favorite tricks with spad is using it to control the G1000nxi.
I’ve been using AAO for quite a while and I’m constantly impressed by its evolving capabilities. The interface is a bit old school but the app is very powerful if you learn RPN code.
AAO has some unique features like Stream Deck integration, voice commands and text to speech checklists, external gauges in web browsers, MIDI integration and Bvar manipulation.
Anyone have any good tutorials for someone who at least has a basic level of general coding?
I’ve been working as a programmer for nearly 30 years now, and RPN makes my brain hurt. I can read and decode it, but I’ve had limited success writing anything outside of basic statements.
Hats off to anyone who can make sense of that gobbledygook. You have my respect. Your brains work in a way my old grey matter doesn’t.
If you are not already proficient with RPN I’d think you would be better off using a third party application that removes the need for detailed RPN work. Sure it can be learnt but I agree with @Crunchmeister71 i hate having to use it simply because it forces you to think in a completely different way to how most of our brains have been trained. I can use it but do so only when absolutely necessary and then with gritted teeth. If you are still determined to give it a go the MSFS SDK pages have some useful reference material as a starting point.
Surely, RPN is not a requirement for using AAO, but a tool to unlock the full potential. E.g. a made an aircraft script for the Twin Otter to let the prop drag (spoiler) kick in gradually rather than binary and work separately on each engine.
If you’re looking for a program to set up controller profiles and don’t have a Stream Deck it’s my impression Spad has a more user friendly UI (although I haven’t used it).
I did the same thing in Spad. I’m not sure anyone would call the interface that I used for doing so “user friendly”, but it works.