packbook vs LighterPack: an honest comparison
The short version: LighterPack is a free, browser-based spreadsheet for gear lists — fast, neutral, and the default in the ultralight community for a decade. packbook is an iOS app that builds the list from photos: snap a piece of gear, it gets identified, the name, weight, and price fill themselves in, and your kit becomes a page you might actually want to look at. If you love editing rows and need it on every device, use LighterPack. If typing rows is the reason your gear list doesn't exist, packbook is for you.
Side by side
| LighterPack | packbook | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free on iOS |
| Platform | Any browser | iPhone app + web share pages |
| Adding gear | Type each item by hand | Snap a photo — name, weight, price auto-filled |
| The math | Base / worn / consumable, pie chart | The same ledger math, on every list |
| Looks like | Spreadsheet rows | Die-cut stickers on paper |
| Sharing | A link to your list | A visual page with every item shoppable |
| Best for | Fast edits, shakedown posts | Seeing your gear, sharing trips |
Where LighterPack wins
LighterPack runs anywhere a browser runs, costs nothing, and asks nothing — no account dance, no install. It has a decade of trust behind it, and when you post a shakedown request on r/Ultralight, a LighterPack link is the format people expect to critique. For pure speed of editing an existing list, a spreadsheet is hard to beat. None of that should be argued away, and we won't.
Where packbook wins
packbook removes the step that kills most gear lists: data entry. Weighing and typing forty items is the tax everyone quits paying — so the list goes stale, and a stale list is worthless. In packbook the camera does the entering, and the result carries the same numbers a spreadsheet would (base weight, worn, consumables) on a page that looks like a scrapbook flat-lay instead of a grid. When you publish a pack, the person who opens it sees the trip, not a table — and every item has names, weights, and prices attached.
The real difference
LighterPack treats your kit as data you maintain. packbook treats it as a collection you keep — the data rides along underneath. Both philosophies are legitimate; they just optimize for different moments. A spreadsheet is at its best the night before a trip. A scrapbook is at its best every other day of the year.
Can you use both?
Plenty of people will: LighterPack for shakedown threads where the community expects rows, packbook for owning, packing, and sharing the kit. See what a published pack looks like on the demo page, or browse real setups on the explore shelf and decide for yourself.