Crew Chief vs Z1 Dashboard
Quick summary
Crew Chief has a verified free tier; Z1 Dashboard does not.
Verdict
Which one should you pick?
Choose Crew Chief when you want a free voice spotter & engineer — it has a verified free tier.
Worth knowing: Distribution and docs live on a vBulletin forum behind Cloudflare bot protection, and the Android companion app is marked EOL on the official forum
Choose Z1 Dashboard when you want an in-sim AI instructor on a budget — verified pricing: From $3.99/mo.
Worth knowing: No perpetual free tier (demo only), and the Standard tier restricts the AI instructor to a single car/track combo
No universal winner — both entries are human-verified (dates in the Verification row below); weigh the limitations against your own setup.
Field by field
The verified fields
What it is
Crew Chief
Z1 Dashboard
Pricing
Crew Chief
Free
- Free download (CrewChiefV4.msi) — donations accepted via the site's donate link
Z1 Dashboard
From $3.99/mo
- Standard $3.99-$4.99/mo
- Track $7.99-$8.99/mo (adds AI instructor + track walk)
- Pro $17.99-$19.99/mo (commercial use)
Free access
Crew Chief
Z1 Dashboard
Platforms
Crew Chief
Z1 Dashboard
Standout feature
Crew Chief
Human-like radio engineer + spotter voice calls — free, MIT-licensed open source (GitHub: mrbelowski/CrewChiefV4) with community voice packs, translations and name personalisations
Z1 Dashboard
In-sim AI driving instructor with track-walk mode and live telemetry comparison (Track and Pro tiers)
Limitations
Crew Chief
Distribution and docs live on a vBulletin forum behind Cloudflare bot protection, and the Android companion app is marked EOL on the official forum
Z1 Dashboard
No perpetual free tier (demo only), and the Standard tier restricts the AI instructor to a single car/track combo
Verification
Crew Chief
Z1 Dashboard
“—” means the official site does not state it — we leave it blank instead of guessing.
Straight answers
Common questions
Do Crew Chief or Z1 Dashboard have a free tier?
Crew Chief does, and Z1 Dashboard does not. A free tier can mean the whole product or a heavily capped version, so check the pricing detail on each card rather than the yes or no alone.
How much does Crew Chief cost?
Crew Chief has a free tier, and its paid pricing starts at Free as listed on its own pricing page. Tiers change — the card above shows every tier we verified, with the date we checked.
How much does Z1 Dashboard cost?
From $3.99/mo, as listed on Z1 Dashboard's own pricing page on the verification date shown above. We record the tiers a site publishes and leave anything it does not publish blank.
What does Crew Chief support?
Crew Chief's own site lists iRacing, Assetto Corsa, Assetto Corsa Competizione, RaceRoom, rFactor, rFactor 2, GTR2, Automobilista, Project Cars 1 & 2, F1 2018/2019, Richard Burns Rally, Windows. We only record platforms a site names explicitly — a generic "100+ games" claim is not counted as support for any particular title.
What does Z1 Dashboard support?
Z1 Dashboard's own site lists iRacing, Assetto Corsa, Assetto Corsa Competizione, Automobilista, RaceRoom, rFactor, EA F1. We only record platforms a site names explicitly — a generic "100+ games" claim is not counted as support for any particular title.
What are the drawbacks of Crew Chief and Z1 Dashboard?
Crew Chief — Distribution and docs live on a vBulletin forum behind Cloudflare bot protection, and the Android companion app is marked EOL on the official forum. Z1 Dashboard — No perpetual free tier (demo only), and the Standard tier restricts the AI instructor to a single car/track combo. These are the limitations each product's own materials made plain, not a verdict on quality.
Is Crew Chief or Z1 Dashboard better?
Neither is better in the abstract, and this page does not name a winner. They differ on the verified fields above — price, free tier, platform support and stated limitations — and which of those matters is a question about your setup, not about the products.
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