Choosing Part 135 compliance software, without the vendor haze
Written by a vendor — and disclosed as such in the first paragraph, because a compliance buyer's first skill is knowing who wrote the document. Here is the evaluation framework we'd use even if we lost by it.
First, the disclosure the other roundups skip: this guide is published by Navlyt, which sells Part 135 compliance software. Every 'best software' list you will find in this market is written by a vendor; the difference here is that we say so, and the framework below is one you can apply against us as harshly as against anyone else.
Second, the actual problem. A Part 135 certificate holder has to keep manuals aligned with 14 CFR, prove crew qualification and currency, maintain airworthiness records, and close the loop on findings — and demonstrate all of it to an inspector on request. 'Compliance software' is sold against that whole surface, but the products on the market grew from very different roots and are good at very different parts of it.
Third, the method of this guide: we describe the tool categories and how to evaluate them, not a checkmark matrix of competitors' features. Vendor feature lists change monthly and a matrix built by a competitor is exactly as trustworthy as it sounds. Categories and criteria age better — and put the judgment where it belongs, with you.
The four categories of tools you'll actually meet
Almost everything sold as aviation compliance software falls into one of four families, each with a center of gravity that shapes what it does well:
- Document management platforms — built for authoring, revising, and distributing manuals (often with EFB delivery). Excellent revision control; regulation mapping is usually a manual tagging exercise.
- Enterprise content/compliance suites — built for large carriers' scale and workflow; powerful, but sized (and priced) for Part 121 org charts more than a 6-aircraft charter shop.
- SMS-first platforms — built around hazard reporting, risk assessment, and safety assurance workflows, increasingly relevant as the FAA's Part 5 mandate reaches Part 135. Manual-to-regulation mapping is typically not their focus.
- Analysis-first platforms — built around reading your manuals against the regulations and surfacing gaps (this is Navlyt's category). The newest family; the key differentiator inside it is whether findings are cited and verified or merely generated.
Criterion 1 — Can every claim be traced to a source?
This is the criterion that separates tools an inspector will respect from tools that produce confident summaries. If the software says your manual addresses §135.293, it should show the paragraph — your paragraph, quoted verbatim, with its location. If it flags a gap, it should show the requirement text and the evidence of absence. Ask every vendor: 'Show me a finding, and show me where its quote comes from. What happens when the AI can't verify a quote?' (Navlyt's answer: an unverifiable quote is withheld and the finding is downgraded to human review — we'd rather miss a gap than invent evidence.)
Criterion 2 — Who decides, the software or a person?
No software can certify compliance; a qualified person accepts or rejects every finding, or the audit trail is worthless. Look for an explicit review workflow: proposals distinct from accepted findings, reviewer attribution the browser can't edit, and dispositions with timestamps. Ask: 'Can a finding enter my compliance record without a named human accepting it?' The only acceptable answer is no.
Criterion 3 — Does it produce evidence or dashboards?
Audit day runs on artifacts: the current manual revision with approval status, the pilot's check history, the corrective action with its closure. A green dashboard that can't export its underlying records is decoration. Ask to see the actual evidence pack the tool exports, and how an external auditor gets read access (account required? expiring links? what can they edit — the right answer being nothing).
Criterion 4 — Does the scope match your operation?
Sized-for-121 platforms bury a small operator in workflow; pure SMS tools leave the manual-to-CFR problem unsolved; document managers keep beautiful revisions of manuals nobody has mapped to the rules. Match the tool's center of gravity to your actual exposure. And check the framework honesty: if a vendor's pricing page sells frameworks its product pages call 'coming soon', that tells you how they'll describe their capabilities during your audit prep too.
Criterion 5 — The boring ones that bite later
Data residency and export rights (your manuals are sensitive operational documents — where do they live, and can you leave with them?), pricing transparency (a public price list beats 'talk to sales' for a small operator's budgeting), tenant isolation (per-operator separation enforced server-side, not by folder discipline), and the SMS trajectory (with the Part 5 mandate approaching, ask every vendor what exactly ships today versus roadmap — and expect a straight answer).
Where Navlyt honestly sits
Analysis-first, Part 135-first, small-team-first. What ships today: clause-level mapping of your manuals to FAA Part 135/91 with verbatim-verified citations, human-in-the-loop findings, corrective-action tracking, document lifecycle control, crew medical tracking, and PDF evidence reports. What doesn't ship today: EASA, Transport Canada, and SMS mapping (roadmap, labelled as such), and check-currency tracking beyond medicals (coming, also labelled). If your primary need is manual authoring/EFB distribution or a mature SMS suite, a tool from those categories may serve you better — possibly alongside us. That sentence costs us deals and buys us trust; we'll take that trade.
Frequently asked questions
Why should I trust a vendor-written buyer's guide?
You shouldn't — you should apply it. Every criterion above is a question you ask each vendor directly, including us, in a live demo on your own manuals. The guide's value is the framework, not the verdict.
What's the single fastest way to evaluate any tool in this category?
Bring your real GOM to the demo and ask to see a finding produced from it — then check the citation against your own document while the vendor watches. A tool built on verified evidence will enjoy that moment; a tool built on summaries will steer you back to the slide deck.
Do I need different software for SMS versus Part 135 compliance?
Sometimes. SMS is a management system (Part 5); Part 135 manual compliance is largely prescriptive. Some platforms cover one well, and honest vendors will tell you which. Ask what specifically ships for each today.
How much should Part 135 compliance software cost?
Public list pricing in this market ranges widely by fleet size and modules. Distrust any pricing you can only learn after three sales calls; a small operator should be able to budget from the website. Navlyt's plans are public, in CAD, from $299/month.
Can software replace our compliance consultant?
No, and be wary of tools that imply it. Software compresses the locating and evidence-assembly work; judgment — whether a procedure actually satisfies a requirement, how to remediate — stays with qualified people. The best setups pair a consultant with analysis tooling; there's a page here about exactly that pairing.
Related reading
Run the evaluation on us first
Bring your GOM to a 30-minute demo, watch a finding get produced from it, and check the citation against your own document while we watch.