Surfline: Wave & Surf Reports Reviews

by Bábàc

this app does it’s best to annoy you in to buying their $100 a year premium service. Most average surfers don’t travel around the world and surf 100’s of different surf breaks. Usually wherever you live are the spots you frequent and there’s no need to have the cams from anywhere else really. Why spend $100 for all that??? I wouldn’t even be upset if there was some kind of package that let you pay just for the breaks you want but money hungry this app can’t do that. The newest update only lets you check the surf report 4 times in a week, even if the break doesn’t have a cam and even if you had already checked the break 5 minutes before (maybe you had a text that switched Surfline ). Pretty lame seeing how they use normal publicly available data to compile their surf reports. Surfline is garbage. I hope more people follow suit and give Surfline negative reviews. Go download MagicSeaweed. That’s actually worth the time spent using it and you get all the same information.

by Preston84

I am sorry, have been using this app for years but this last update is just terrible. It is the classic marketing tactic of “hey look, I am giving you something for free!” We all get excited, and then we realize they have taken something out that we really needed and now you have to pay for it. Let’s be serious, there are tons of surf apps out there for forecasts. And it’s not like this app gets it right all the times either. But the one thing that at least differentiated this app for me is that I could just open Surfline and watch the cam, see the conditions for myself and go. Now, I can only do that 3 times a week with a free account. Not only. If I forgot to read something on a screen and open Surfline once again 1 minute after my surf check, that counts as another check! Seriously???!!! Sure, I can see 15 days of forecast for free now but is that really helpful? Let’s be serious, it’s already a miracle if the day after is forecasted correctly, let alone 15 days. The only difference with the new update is that the main reason for using this app (watching the cams) is now gone and you have to pay for it. Cheap sneaky way to get more people to pay. One star for me.

by Jffjn

Once Surfline updated to this new “surf check” model for free accounts, Surfline lost is worth for all the free users in this app. Before you had unlimited surf checks and could check any surf break you wanted multiple times a day. You could only see a 3 day forecast and couldn’t see premium cams but that was okay. Now you are only given 5 checks per week! But are given a 15 day forecast instead of 3, even though the forecast changes every day. You really need to check for the forecast on the given day you want to see the real forecast. This ruined my experience of Surfline . I can’t even check the see everyday of the week. I could only check one spot 5 days a week. Completely useless. All surfers know that you have to go “scout” the spots and find the best spot. Surfline used to be useful for that but now is irrelevant. This update was a huge marketing ploy to get free users to switch to premium by reducing the usefulness of Surfline to free users trying to coral them into buying the premium version so they could get back the functionality they had before as a free user. Money move by this app and not for the people. Give back the functionality for free users to check unlimited spots and remove the whole surf check feature. Surfline is useless with that feature. I will be using other surf forecasting apps so I can actually check the surf and no be limited to a weekly limit on my “surf checks”

by Mojo Surf Design

We had a pretty good run, you and I, my old darling this app, you even helped me score an epic post typhoon swell in Philippines once ! :) Our relationship had been strong, clean, and long period in the past but fell flat in recent years. Sloppy and textured conditions started to come between us. And lack of stories about underground rippers or anything really original, made you feel frigid, distant, and commercialized. Instead you continued to run stories about the same old names and became more and more short board centric. Other rips that started to drift us apart was your devotion to an over abundance of cams dotting all the good coast lines. Instead of getting out there and surfing a swell, I often just stared at my phone screen indecisive, about where the best waves were, watching cams until the conditions blew out. Instead of drawing me nearer to good surf you actually kept me away. But the final draining of our love was that your handlers wanted to charge me just to see you a few times a week or catch a peek at a simple chart. I look forward to time spent in the water to soothe any lingering pangs I have about our fall out. I’d rather get worked than hang out with you anymore.

by LTSchnitz4146

I have a real love/hate relationship with Surfline. Surfline functions very well, is easy to navigate, and the surf cams are very useful if there’s one at your local spot. That’s where the good stuff ends. The forecasts are nearly useless. Half of the time they’re wildly off-base for the next day, let alone the week to come. I’ve wasted many sick days on the promise of head-high waves with “good” conditions, only to find myself pumping my legs off in knee-high slop. Even worse, the reports are mostly inaccurate. It’s almost like they’re not looking at the same spot. The cams are the sole reason that I use Surfline (and the sole reason for two stars instead of one), and I pay for premium because they’re nearly unusable without it. this app used to be a valuable tool, but it has become a major source of aggravation.

by Siillas

I had no problem with watching a 30 second ad before live streaming from any location; that is the “price” to be paid for not purchasing premium. I’ve gotten into the habit of frequently checking both local live cams and other interesting locations throughout the day. With the recent update, you can only open Surfline two or three times a day, but once you exceed that, there is no way to access information for any location beyond wave height and quality (poor, good, etc.). I’ve deleted Surfline , as I see no use in this extremely limited access, and no reason to buy premium because of the already-poor coverage for my location, and the fact that I do not travel enough to need unlimited access. First-world problem, I know, just sharing my feelings on account of this sudden change.

by Surfing Lifeguard

First of all Surfline is amazing, i love everything about it besides a couple of the new features. I love how Surfline gives me tides, wave height, forcast, water temp it has everything. The free account treated me well until they added a feature only allowing you to view info 3 times and then you have to wait 2 days for another 3 surf checks. I use Surfline everyday considering it is the summer time and also the fact that i am a lifeguard at my beach. so the surf check feature, kinda ruins Surfline for me. if they were to maybe make it so some info is block and can only be seen when you purchase the subscription, it would make Surfline so much better, instead of the surf check feature.

by Surfsupsd

One of my biggest complaints about Surfline is that it doesn’t work well on an iPad at all. Doesn’t support landscape mode except for cam feeds. You can’t search for spots without adding them to favorites, which is annoying when I’m looking at places I don’t frequent but just want to check, unless you go to the map view. But when I’m looking at spots in California or Florida from New England, I don’t necessary want to scroll on a map. Probably the most salient missing feature is the nearshore model tool, though. Living in New England, where a lot of spots are missing from the site, nearshore is often the only way I can get a sense of what individual spots will be like, and I have to use a browser or computer for that. The interface is useful for quick checks, but for those of us who are often on the go and rarely at a computer, those key tools are sorely missed.

by ExhaustedB00m

I’ve been a long time user of Surfline when I first started learning but never realized how much people hated on it. I can’t tell you how many times people have asked me what app I use to see the forecast and I tell them “this app,” while getting a disgusted looking face in return. Everyone I’ve talked to exclaims about how notorious Surfline is for having poor and inaccurate reports all the time (probably almost 20 people by now).

I always relied on the surf cams for my spots I go to and had no issues watching a 15-30 second ad to see what the waves were doing that day. But now I have to pay $9.99 a month for features that used to be free? Seriously? I can’t even see a full report for the day and forecast for the oncoming days now anymore. You kooks can kiss it

by Cria Labeouf

this app is the most comprehensive platform yet for surfaholics. The team seems like they are genuinely interested in putting out the best product possible. There are occasionally issues with cameras being down, and I think that especially for my local breaks in Central FL the camera angles could be better. I’m not a fan of cameras that pan because it seems like every time I have a good ride the camera is pointed away from me, but Surfline is easy to use and generally captures all my rides and even attempts on GPS. Sometimes it pulls random video where I didn’t even attempt to paddle for a wave, but I would rather go through the extra footage than miss a ride.

One thing I would really like to see is an improved iPadOS interface. It seems like it is just a scaled version of the mobile interface and the way it is cropped is weird and can be kind of disorienting when navigating through Surfline .

Overall it is a great experience, and I like the effort being put into cross-app connectivity because I think it is good for surfing as a whole, growing the community, increasing awareness of how our actions impact the ecosystems we rely on for recreation, and sharing the stoke. Looking forward to seeing where this platform goes in the future!

by Jendollar

I don’t surf but I’m fascinated by it (maybe someday!) and I like learning about the water and the wind and all the variables that make for good surfing. I also like to correlate that info by seeing the actual waves that are described by the data. However, 15 seconds of a picture telling me to upgrade to premium for 30 seconds of webcam viewing (where most of the webcams are already hosted by third parties and available for free elsewhere) seems excessive to me and does not exude that surfer friendly attitude one might expect. This could be a nice outreach vehicle for young and/or new surfers who want to get in the water a little more educated than they would be otherwise. The heavy handed push to premium is a drag though. Allowing uninterrupted web cam viewing (not even the HD - just regular cams) would encourage people to stay on the website longer, learn more and realize their need for premium. Just a thought - thanks!!

by Kamran Adlparvar

As we become more reliant on swell models and news to tell us what to expect and when to plan a trip we rely more and more on companies like this app, with there forecasting and historic information we can plan trips months in advance and have a much smaller chance of being skunked. That said there local forecasting could use a little boost in accuracy 3-4 and it’s solid 6ft that’s a nice surprise, but 6-7 occ. 8 and it’s 2-4ft? Now that’s a serious disappointment... unfortunately the later has been happening far too often lately and the swells are hitting 1-2 days before or after their predictions forecast. That said conditions change, models are not always accurate, it’s weather so you can’t expect perfection unless you are in a wave pool. That’s said it’s a valuable tool that I use daily. Thank you!

by A Surfguy

I like how it now lets you go to the next saved spot in order. (Before you used to have to scroll all the way back and forth to find the next one in the list). I wish they would fix Doheny state beaches camera. It now shows the river mouth instead of the main beach. It’s also great how you can zoom in as well. The “sessions” feature is cool too, but it could use some tweaking so that it only “records” when you actually catch a wave, instead of every wave out there, so you don’t have to delete most of them. If that is even possible. It’s not the end of the world if it can’t be done.

by Iggysc

I have loved this app since Sean Collins started it back in the early 80s, I’m guessing? They could go out 2 to 3 weeks and predict right to the hour when a swell would arrive making it easy to make my schedule as an RN and beach lifeguard so that I was able surf great wave on my days off. It’s still the gold standard and I love that the live cams allow you to go anywhere that the waves are great and watch a beautiful world class surfbreak with the WebCams. They keep it fresh with wonderful stories and big wave footage every day. The weekly surf movies have been a blast. Worth every penny.
Aloha 🍍 Mark Agnello

by Otto Von Rattray

As a premium subscriber for as long as I can remember, this company has saved me a bunch in gas money as well as heartache when a swell never materializes as forecast - which happens. I love the articles, swell breakdowns, stories and features. And I’m 100% sure I’m not even using all the features available. I have learned a lot about swells, how they form, watching weather, looking for swell fetch, direction, which swells work best at my favorite spots and super interesting things like bathymetry and swell shadowing. Whether it’s incoming swells or the why’s of this and that, these guys are the best and definitely keep you informed. If you surf frequently (or use the ocean in any way), this service is worth every cent. 💯

by Gdsxvjjggtuknvd

What an amazing app! As a young grom I used to check this app on the web all the time (back in the days of dialup and flip phones) and it never steered me wrong. now that I’m back in the water after nearly two decades as a landlubber, I can’t believe how much the quality and abundance of data, human analysis, spots represented, and the number and resolution of live cams has grown and improved.

Sometimes a few of my favorite cams and ideal conditions for certain spots won’t load, but overall Surfline is addicting to check out even if I’m stuck at work, and the forecasts are super accurate for the days I’m not, over a week in advance.

I can’t speak to the quality of the free version since I know and trust this app and went premium off the bat, but it seems beyond worth the annual fee considering how much effort and expense goes into compiling this data and implementing the tech to keep it available wherever my phone has service.

I’d recommend reading up on the basics of forecasting from compiled buoy data to take full advantage of the wealth of information Surfline provides. Not every spot gets it’s own pro analysis from their staff, but chances are your favorite spot (or one nearby) is.

by Lolzy5

So I love this app, the only reason I gave it three stars is due to a bug that I keep coming across, the application itself is amazing when it comes to depicting swell and weather, their team is great!. How ever when I try to access the explore page to see which spots are good around me, it will not show the spots or cams on the tab at the bottom for the page, it will only show the option “view regional forecast” which won’t even work either. I would have to restart this app to get the explore page working accordingly. I have ignored this problem over the past couple months ultimately think it was going to get fixed soon but I’m still having trouble with it to this day so I made the effort to reach out and see if anyone else was having this same problem or it has been noticed by the community ! Please let me know if it’s just me !

by Markgellman

Yes I agree that the ads are a bore (but there aren't any though if you're a Premium member), but it's a minor nuisance to bear for access to accurate reports and a beautiful interface with the most cams available. It occasionally has crashed on me too but rarely recently. For my 80 or so bucks per year Premium subscription for extended web forecasts, having this companion App is a dream and i actually use it more than the website everyday. Well worth the cash and minor nuisances - when Surfline is down due to location reception issues, going directly to this app Mobile on the internet usually will work unless one's cell signal is close to nonexistent. I agree that controllable cameras would be ideal but with their subscribership it would probably be impossible (can you imagine playing camera tug of war with 5000 Chads and Kimos at your favorite spot). Let's stop whining - you pay more and it isn't perfect but it's pretty darn good. Disclaimer - I'm not on their payroll).

by SnidesO

From the days of dial up when PK gave us the local surf report the world of wave prediction has evolved along a technological path of perfection. Maybe it’s that embedded spirit that surfing imparts to you in that anything you do, you do for surf. It’s not just the spiritual journey of wave riding but also the incredible humans you meet along the way. What does all this ethereal dissertation have do with reviewing The this app App? Since you asked I will tell: it’s so obvious the people who have dedicated their lives to making Surfline are true Surfer’s at heart. No doubt they could easily have taken higher paying jobs with NOAA or other Federally funded weather, and/ or atmospheric condition data collection Agencies. It’s their love of all things surf that has kept them here, at this app. Because every true surfer knows this app is the Gold Standard of surf prediction. It’s how it’s always been and always will be. I guess the question is: Will you be going for the Gold? Do yourself a favor and make it so.

by Double Gnak

The this app app on my Apple watch worked great! I went to look at my clips and it was pulling the waikiki to ala wai cam. I figured out pretty quickly how to change spots and it reloaded my clips from bowls. The interface is great how you can watch it in landscape view and pick the next clip. And I like how it keeps the scroll zoom you are using. I also like how you can star favorite waves and sort them after. Surfline was also so easy to use, just press start and end. If the cams were higher resolution that would be amazing. It get's pretty grainy when you zoom in. Overall, I'm really stoked on the product and I plan to keep using it. It saves me so much time looking for clips and trying to remember what time I caught a wave. This is a breakthrough in technology for me.

by Csquaredofsd

this app is a great tool! It used to be good for users that didn't pay for the service. It gave them enough information so that they could know a reasonable forecast and see what they wanted to see as far as cams go. But lets face it, this app has now made their service impossible to use for users who don't pay for their premium service. To the team at this app, do yourself a favor and just get rid of free use all together. It hurts you, the company, and us, the users, to get bombarded with ads, have none of the decent cams in our area work, and a one day in advance forecast that forces the user to upgrade the premium. You will have a much happier customer base if you are just honest and make your service an exclusively paid one. I wish you the best in your development!

by Mozaicflo

This provides a fairly reliable way to check the surf conditions at your favorite beaches. There are many good things about it that people are probably aware of since there aren’t many other apps that can compete with what Surfline does. What I dislike is how expensive ($10/month) the optional subscription is to get week forecasts, and how sometimes the forecast for the day does not match up with the current conditions (e.g., forecast for today is 3-4’ waves, in the morning, but the current waves are shown as 2-3’) and then the current conditions tend to change around 6:30-7:00 once the report for the day gets posted. I want to be in the water around 6:30, so this isn’t helpful, and I am not going to pay $10/mo for anything except a music subscription.

by Jakes Feet

If you’re looking for a good app and you’re willing to pay a minimum of $100/year, then you might consider Surfline. They really push premium so if you’re looking for a good free app this isn’t your choice — lots of adds and they’ve downgraded functions of the free version. The one benefit is day-of webcam use, which is quite nice. It’s the only reason I still have Surfline . Other than that I’m not to fond of it but then I don’t have premium🤷🏼‍♂️. I don’t feel it’d be worth the price but maybe I’m wrong. There are other apps, websites, and webcam accessing sites that are free.

Also, I live in Oregon and don’t surf super often; so take that into account.

by Forkemdevils

this app is an online forecasting service first and a surf media publication third. this app has a mediocre app going here for its bread and butter service. The UX is a 4.5 out of 10. Picture heavy bars and titles make for terrible semantics and semiotics of how to navigate Surfline . While illegal, let’s admit a lot of this happens while in the car checking surf spots, but it’s hard enough sitting still. Most of all Surfline is like 2g network slow. 3 out of 5 mornings the cam you want is “unavailable”. The Avalon Harbor weather camera and Palm Springs aerial tram cam have more consecutive working days than your average this app cam. Just make Surfline your first priority and competing with Stab your second!

by Mcheit891414

this app is inarguably the best surf app, especially if you pay to be a premium member. I have been using this app since I can remember and have tried many other websites or apps as well. What is great about this app is that its consistent, more accurate, and they have detailed info about swells for regions and sub regions.

Aside from the info, the UI is awesome and very easy to navigate and use. I also have watched so many pros surf through the this app cameras as they have cameras all over the world at all the best spots (where they can).

Despite living on the beach i still use Surfline to check swell forecasts and the cams as well.

by Jimmydreamsurf

this app you rip , having great time, all the tide info the many different swells that can change daily to hourly ,the weather sun and cloudy rain has been surprising accurate I can watch Hawaii surf, calif surf , east coast , etc. I tell my friends how good it is and let them know to budget for the subscription and get the premium account! I have been on surf trips and checked the swell chart , making go out time knowing what might coming. Looking forward to checking cams everyday. THANKS again >keep up the good work Do you guys have a this app premium t shirts long or short sleeve ,let me know if you do. ig@jimmydreamsurf. Thanks this app

by Soulprogression

For Hawai’i I think this app is the best forecasting tool. Magic seaweed seems way more accurate for Europe but that’s where they’re based. this app is a high quality program that makes figuring out where and when to surf as easy as possible. Living where I do without it and scoring fun to epic waves regularly would not be so easy. It’s still a challenge and a hunt due to the rugged and diverse coastline and openness to so many swells. But, with this app I can narrow down where to check and find surf and it’s almost always pretty close to what’s actually going on in the water. The news and features are a nice bonus too!

by Youngsurfergirl

I started surfing towards the end of March. My best friend goes with me and her dad has been surfing for years. We were looking for surfing apps and her dad recommended this app! We looked at it and downloaded it immediately. I was obsessed with it. It had everything I needed to know and more. I don’t have premium, but even then, it is a really helpful app to have if you are a surfer. There are lots of features including favoriting beaches you like to see them faster, and you can even connect it to Siri! I love Surfline and will have it for as long as I’m surfing! Would definitely recommend!

by ECsurf025

Now that several high profile cams are premium only, I feel like I have an advantage over the free loaders out there. Plus, I get access to their meteorologists which gives me a further edge. You can’t get that anywhere else. Didn’t really feel this way before since more was available for the gazillions of non paying customers out there. I now feel like a part of a special club, and as along time premium member, I wanted to say THANKS this app. You’re the best, by far.