Tools and Resources
Third-party tools and websites — not developed, hosted, or endorsed by Frontier Developments plc — that Elite Dangerous commanders commonly use alongside the game. The entries below are widely-recognised, long-established community staples, grouped by what they're for. This list is deliberately not exhaustive; see Elite Dangerous Field Manual:Contributing once public registration opens if you'd like to propose an addition.
Star systems, navigation and exploration
- EDSM (Elite Dangerous Star Map) — Community-maintained database of star systems and bodies, built from commanders' journal uploads. Used for galaxy-map lookups and system/body search, and several other tools on this list build on its data.
- Spansh — Route-plotting tool built on community-contributed data: neutron-star-boosted exploration routing, "Road to Riches" high-value-body routing, and multi-hop trade route planning.
Trading and general commander reference
- Inara — Large community hub covering commander and squadron profiles, nearest-station and trade lookups, engineering material tracking, fleet carrier listings, and community goal tracking.
Ship building
- Coriolis — Ship loadout planner for comparing modules and engineering choices before committing credits or materials in-game. Builds can be shared as export codes.
- EDSY (Elite Dangerous Shipyard) — Alternative ship loadout planner, covering the same core build-planning role as Coriolis with a different interface.
Companion apps (journal/API sync)
Several tools on this page draw their data from the game's own journal files and Frontier's companion API, rather than manual entry. The most commonly installed app for this is:
- EDMC (Elite Dangerous Market Connector) — Background companion app maintained by EDCD (Elite Dangerous Community Developers) that reads your game journal and forwards data to services such as EDSM and Inara, and to EDDN, the shared open data feed several community tools are built on. Supports a plugin ecosystem for further extensions.
Voice and cockpit immersion
- VoiceAttack — General-purpose voice command software — not specific to Elite Dangerous — but very widely used in the community for hands-free ship control. Commander-made voice command profiles for it are common.
Community hubs
- Frontier's official forums — Frontier Developments' own discussion forums, including official Elite Dangerous sections.
- r/EliteDangerous — The main Elite Dangerous community on Reddit.