I've used FlightView (from OAG) for several years but they've recently gone through an update that has totally ruined it. I had the free version and it did what I needed it to do. I'm open to paying a nominal monthly fee for a good app but free is better if it meets my somewhat basic needs.

What apps do you use and recommend?

I have used FlightRadar24 for several years. I pay for the silver tier (the lowest one).

Depends on your use case. I use flighty and flightradar24.

I’ve used FlightView Plus for the longest time. I cannot even remember when I got it. I think I paid a small one-time amount for the app way back when. Lately, it’s been a little hinky on the notifications. But, I blame that more on Apple’s ongoing “improvements” to Notifications on the iPhone. But until recently, rock solid and helpful. I also have FlightView free on the phone as well. But, never use it.

My favorite travel app for the last umpteen years, FlightView is now utterly broken and the company should be ashamed of itself for releasing such an epically flawed "new version." If you're still using the old version, it isn't working since they released the new version. If you have FlightView Elite, you have to re-download FlightView and then pay if you won't want the ads. I guess their main reason for doing this was to increase security of the app, so you need to have password to login. They seem to be working on it, but not fast enough. I'm not sure the app/company will to survive if they don't get it fixed fast.

Flighty only available for iPhones as far as I can tell? And is expensive for version equal to FlightView ($48/year vs $18 once). But at this point, if it were available for Android I would use it.

How user-friendly is this program?

I used to use Flight Aware (still have the paid sub for some reason--LOL)
I have an iPhone, so I've since purchased a lifetime sub for Flighty when they had a blackfriday/cybermonday deal last year.

Flight Radar is useful for some things the others don't, I think.

My interesting observations (since i have both Flight aware and Flighty) is one will report one thing and the other will report something slightly different (like Arrival time +4 minutes and one will be like arrival time +10 minutes) or something. Throw in the various airline app and nothing agrees.

I find Flighty useful for tracking itinerary changes, along with aircraft changes. I HAD an expert flyer sub, but with the REPEATED debacle last year with the database and faulty notifications I couldn't justify the price anymore when it would report erroneous things.

Flighty did save me with a HUGE AA itinerary change, (that I never got an email from AA about). 3 hour change, plus completely different routing, etc. Fortunately Flighty alerted me right away so I was able to get rebooked on the original first segment (we already had taken the last 2 First class seats, so fortunately didn't lose out on that).

If I had Android, I'd probably stick with Flight Aware and/or supplement with Flight Radar

IMO

I use flighty but I also have enterprise accounts on flightradar24 and flight aware since I have a raspberry pi ADS-B receiver and feed data to them and they give a free enterprise account for that.

Combo of Flightaware and Flightradar24. Each have their advantages and downsides, but together, there's not much missing

Thanks of the info... Do any of these other apps allow one to create a saved itinerary for tracking without having to look up the flights each time?

For Flighty and Flight Aware, yes.
Flighty has several import/sync options, but once they're in it should track changes, etc.
Flight Aware you can manually input/search for a flight (and I think import as well) and once it's there, it stays until you finish the flight (AFAIK).

So you don't need to keep re-entering stuff every time you check the app.
The only times I'm aware of that you will need to re-enter is if the flight changes actually change the flight #. (ie: AA "cancels" your flight and rebooks you on an entirely new itinerary with new flight #'s)

Same for me; typically use MyFlightRadar24 on the desktop and Flighty on my iPhone. The latter one for real-time updates on delays, gate changes etc and historic data is my current favourite.

I like the "byAir" app for Android; otherwise, there's not much to compare to Flighty for Apple. The developers are constantly striving to develop the app further.

#byAir App - Google Play Store Link