Sinkaos vs ATAK: use it instead of TAK, or alongside it
ATAK and the wider Team Awareness Kit family are established situational awareness tools, used by the military and by first responders. Sinkaos speaks their language, Cursor on Target, so a civilian team in Sinkaos and police or military TAK users can see each other on the map. The comparison below tries to be fair to both, and covers running them together as well as picking one.
Two tools with different origins and a shared message format
ATAK (Android Team Awareness Kit) is US Government-owned software, originally developed by the Air Force Research Laboratory and now maintained by the TAK Product Center. The civilian edition, ATAK-CIV, is on Google Play, and tak.gov states that TAK baseline software is available from the US Government at no cost and that TAK-CIV has been released as open source. The family includes iTAK for iPhone and iPad, WinTAK and TAKX for Windows, WebTAK in the browser and TAK Server. tak.gov lists solutions for military, law enforcement, fire and emergency management, commercial and recreational users.
ATAK is a map-first tool: offline maps, very high-resolution imagery, elevation tools, collaborative markers and drawings, chat and video, and a large plugin ecosystem built on its SDK.
Sinkaos is a field-operations workspace from a small independent team in the Czech Republic, currently in early access. It puts the map next to the records an organisation keeps: incidents, tasks, plans with alternatives, staffing, equipment, training and debrief, with end-to-end encrypted messaging. It exchanges positions, markers and incidents with TAK apps and TAK Server over Cursor on Target, and shows MGRS coordinates and APP-6 military symbols next to its civilian ones.
Sinkaos and ATAK compared
Everything said here about ATAK is taken from tak.gov, the ATAK-CIV listing on Google Play and CivTAK, with links at the bottom of the page.
| SINKAOS | ATAK-CIV AND THE TAK FAMILY | |
|---|---|---|
| Who makes it | A small independent team in the Czech Republic | US Government-owned (GOTS), maintained by the TAK Product Center |
| Licence | Commercial software in early access | Baseline software available from the US Government at no cost; ATAK-CIV released as open source |
| Apps | Android, iPhone, web app | ATAK (Android 5.0 or later), iTAK (iOS, a subset of ATAK), WinTAK and TAKX (Windows), WebTAK |
| Maps and imagery | Online and offline vector and raster maps, your own tile servers, floor plans | Online and offline maps, imagery down to sub-1 cm resolution, KML, KMZ and GPX overlays |
| Terrain analysis | Distance, area, bearing and angle; reachability | Elevation tools, contour maps, viewsheds, routes with DTED and SRTM |
| Military symbology | APP-6 symbols next to a civilian symbol set | Extensive, customisable icon sets |
| Chat and media | End-to-end encrypted chats, files and calls | Chat, file, photo and video sharing, streaming |
| Without a server | Phones work offline; a local field node serves phones over Wi-Fi with no internet | Peer-to-peer networks without TAK Server; basic data can travel directly between radios |
| Server | Hosted in the EU, on your servers, or a disconnected node | TAK Server brokers, encrypts and stores data, standalone or federated |
| Incidents and tasks | Incidents with owner, severity and workflow; tasks with acknowledgement; forms | Markers, drawings and tags; checklists through plugins that need TAK Server |
| Plans with alternatives | Versioned plans, plan A, B and C, decision points, plan versus actual | Described as a mission planning tool; data can be pre-loaded |
| Staffing, equipment, training, debrief | Built in | Not in the baseline feature list |
| Extending it | REST API, webhooks, connector SDK | Open API and SDK with a large plugin catalogue; SDK access through a Government sponsor |
| Cursor on Target | Two-way exchange with ATAK, WinTAK, iTAK and TAK Server | Its native message format |
| Terms of use | Organisations join through early access | tak.gov: use of the USG-owned products outside test and evaluation requires an authority to operate from your organisation; ATAK-CIV is classified EAR99 for export |
Checked against tak.gov, Google Play and CivTAK on 23 October 2026. The TAK family changes often; follow the sources for the current state. Sinkaos is not NATO-certified or approved and does not handle classified information.
Three ways Sinkaos and TAK work together
ATAK, Sinkaos, or both
Choose ATAK when
Your partners already run TAK, you need its terrain and imagery tools, or a plugin exists for your mission. It costs nothing, and tak.gov describes its use by fire and emergency services as well as the military.
Choose ATAK when
You have the people to set up and maintain TAK Server, data packages and plugins, since much of what the ecosystem offers depends on that work.
Choose Sinkaos when
Your team is civilian and needs incidents, tasks, plans, staffing and debrief in one place, on iPhone as much as Android, with a web workspace for the operator.
Choose Sinkaos when
You want EU hosting or your own servers with a vendor behind the product, and guests from partner organisations who lose access when the operation ends.
Use both when
Civilian and uniformed teams share an area. Sinkaos and TAK exchange positions, markers and incidents, so neither side has to change tools. Read about civil preparedness.
Questions about Sinkaos and ATAK
Can Sinkaos users see ATAK users on the map?
Is Sinkaos a TAK plugin or a TAK fork?
Does Sinkaos use military map symbols?
Is Sinkaos approved by NATO?
ATAK costs nothing. When does Sinkaos make sense?
Try it on your next operation.
Early access is free. We set up the first operation with you and stay close while you use it.