Site Pal vs Fieldwire: an honest comparison

Fieldwire, now Fieldwire by Hilti, is one of the better-known field management apps and you’ll see it on plenty of UK sites. Site Pal is a £19-a-month site diary app built by a working construction manager.

People compare them because both live on a phone on a building site. They solve different problems.

What Fieldwire is

Fieldwire is built around drawings and tasks. You upload plans, pin tasks to them, assign them to people, and track them to completion. Punch lists, checklists, photos against locations, and reports out the other end. It’s a coordination tool for a team working off the same set of drawings.

There’s a free Basic plan, and Fieldwire’s own knowledge base sets the limits clearly: it’s free for teams that don’t exceed three projects, a hundred sheets and five unique users across the account. Past any of those, you upgrade or cut back.

Paid plans are per user per month, billed annually. As published on their pricing page on 14 August 2026: Pro $39, Business $64, Business Plus $89, all per user per month, plus custom contracts above that.

Note the shape. You pay per person and you pay a year at a time. Ten people on Business is $640 a month, committed annually. Site Pal is £19 a month, one person, cancel whenever you like.

What Site Pal is

Site Pal writes your records. Photograph the works and it produces the diary entry — activity, operatives, PPE, housekeeping, GPS, weather, timestamp. Walk the job talking and it produces a client-ready PDF, one photo per page.

£19 a month, flat, one person, unlimited projects, cancel anytime.

No drawings. No task assignment. No team coordination. It’s a single-person tool and it isn’t pretending otherwise.

The comparison

Where Fieldwire clearly wins

If your problem is drawings — the wrong revision on site, tasks pinned to the wrong place, nobody knowing what’s outstanding — Fieldwire solves that and Site Pal doesn’t come close. It has no drawing management at all.

Same for team coordination. Fieldwire is built so several people can see the same job and work off the same information. Site Pal is built for one person and their own records.

And the free tier is a genuine offer. Three projects and five users at no cost is useful, not a crippled demo. If that covers what you need, take it.

Where Site Pal wins

It writes the words. Fieldwire will hold your photos and your task notes tidily. It won’t turn a sentence you said on site into a professional paragraph in a report. That’s the whole of Site Pal, and it’s the bit that takes the hour back.

Flat pricing. £19 covers you whatever you’re doing and however many projects you’re on. Per-user pricing is fine when someone else is paying. It’s a different conversation when it’s your own money. $39 per user per month billed annually, against £19 flat with no commitment.

Built for UK records. Site diaries, daywork, delay records, and the language a UK site actually uses. That matters more than it sounds when the output goes to a client. The same point applies against most of the bigger platforms — I’ve made it at more length in Site Pal vs Procore and Site Pal vs Field View.

Which should you pick?

Fieldwire if you’re coordinating a team off a set of drawings, and your problem is who’s doing what, where.

Site Pal if you’re on your own and your problem is that the writing-up happens at nine at night.

Neither, possibly. If you just want a basic diary and you’re on three projects or fewer, Fieldwire’s free tier will do the job without you spending anything. I’d rather tell you that than sell you something you don’t need. If you want to see what a proper record looks like either way, read what a good site diary looks like.

And if you’ve decided you want something small, paid for out of your own pocket, the realistic options are compared in best site diary apps for solo UK contractors and head-to-head in Site Pal vs Site Audit Pro.