| Model | RTF or kit | Weight | FAA registration | Flight time | Camera | Gimbal | Range | GPS | Max payload | Use | Price ↑ | Rating | Reviews | Bought last month |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JeeFly F550 | Kit | 472 g | Yes | — | — | — | — | No | — | DIY | $25.99 | — | — | — |
| JeeFly F550 | Kit | 500 g | Yes | — | 1080p | — | — | No | — | Camera | $31.99 | — | — | — |
| QWinOut f550 | Kit | — | — | — | None | — | — | No | — | DIY | $33.99 | 5.0 | 4 | — |
| QWinOut f550 | Kit | — | — | — | 1080p | — | — | No | — | Beginner | $46.99 | 5.0 | 1 | — |
| JeeFly S550 | Kit | 550 g | Yes | — | 1080p | — | — | No | — | DIY | $49.88 | — | — | — |
| QWinOut HMF S550 Hexacopter + Landing Gear | Kit | — | — | — | — | — | — | No | — | DIY | $74.99 | — | — | — |
| JeeFly F850 | Kit | 1,500 g | Yes | — | 1080p | — | — | No | 5.0 kg | Industrial | $88.89 | — | — | — |
| jeeflyhobby X6-X600 600mm Hexacopter Carbon Fiber | Kit | 50 g | No | — | None | — | — | No | — | DIY | $88.99 | — | — | — |
| QWinOut Q650 3K Carbon Fiber 6-Axls Aircraft | Kit | 695 g | Yes | — | 4K | — | — | No | — | Industrial | $143.99 | 4.5 | 2 | — |
| QWinOut Q705 | Kit | 709 g | Yes | — | 4K | — | — | No | — | DIY | $145.88 | 4.1 | 6 | — |
| Tarot FY680 | Kit | 600 g | Yes | — | 1080p | — | — | No | — | DIY | $149.99 | 4.0 | 2 | — |
| JeeFly LX850 | Kit | 1,330 g | Yes | — | 1080p | — | — | No | — | Industrial | $159.67 | 4.0 | 1 | — |
| JeeFly ZD850 V1 | Kit | — | — | — | 1080p | — | — | Yes | — | Industrial | $168.88 | — | — | — |
| Tarot FY690S | Kit | 600 g | Yes | — | — | — | — | No | — | DIY | $170.99 | 4.5 | 19 | — |
| JeeFly F680 Foldable | Kit | 1,800 g | Yes | 35 min | 1080p | — | — | No | — | Industrial | $204.99 | — | — | — |
| QWinOut ZD850 | Kit | — | — | — | — | — | — | No | — | DIY | $229.99 | — | — | — |
| JeeFly LXX6 | Kit | 2,200 g | Yes | — | 1080p | — | — | No | — | Industrial | $333.88 | — | — | — |
17 of 17 models
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Tap ⓘ for details, ☆ to save a model to favorites (we flag it if the price drops) and tick its box to compare it with others.
What each column in the table means
A multirotor is chosen on three numbers before any brand: how much it weighs, how long it flies and what it can carry. In the US the first one decides the paperwork, because 250 g is where FAA registration starts for recreational flyers. All three are in the table and it sorts by any column. This is what each one means.
- Model: brand and model, without the keyword stuffing of the Amazon title. The ⓘ icon opens the photo and the full listing.
- Rotors: four, six or eight. Every consumer drone is a quadcopter; six and eight show up in heavy-lift and professional aircraft, and on Amazon.com almost only as frame kits.
- RTF or kit: ready to fly means everything is in the box. A kit or frame still needs motors, speed controllers, a flight controller, GPS, a radio and batteries before it flies.
- Weight: takeoff weight in grams as the listing states it. Listings mix grams, ounces and pounds; we convert all of them. Some include the packaging, so treat values close to 250 g with care.
- FAA registration: calculated from the weight. Yes at 250 g and up, No below it, for recreational flying. If you fly for work under Part 107, every drone needs registration whatever this column says.
- Flight time: minutes per battery as the maker states it. Titles that add up two or three batteries are ignored. Real flights run at about 70 percent of the rated figure.
- Camera: video resolution on the listing. Cheap drones often print 4K on the box and record upscaled footage; the sensor size and a mechanical gimbal say more than the label.
- Gimbal: mechanical stabilization. Three axes gives smooth video; electronic stabilization (EIS) crops the image and does less.
- Range: maximum control or video range in miles, as advertised, in open country. The law asks you to keep the drone within visual line of sight, which is much closer.
- GPS: holds position outdoors and flies the drone home when the signal or the battery runs low. Without it the drone drifts with the wind.
- Max payload: extra weight it can lift on top of its own, when the maker states it. Few listings do; heavy-lift frames are the exception.
- Use: who the listing is built for. Kids, beginner, camera, FPV, DIY or industrial.
- Price: Amazon.com price when the table was built. It changes often; the link always opens today’s price.
- Rating: average stars. Read the one-star reviews: flyaways, GPS drift and swollen batteries are the problems that matter.
- Reviews: number of ratings behind the stars.
- Bought last month: units sold on Amazon in the past month, according to Amazon.
Click a column title to sort. ☆ saves a model to your favorites and flags it if the price drops; the box on its left adds it to the comparison, up to four at a time.
What is a hexacopter?
A hexacopter is a multirotor drone with six rotors, three spinning each way, usually on six arms spread in a circle. It flies exactly like a quadcopter, by changing the speed of each motor, but the two extra motors give it more lift and a margin of safety.
Hexacopters live between the consumer drone and the heavy-lift octocopter: aerial photography with interchangeable-lens cameras, crop spraying on small farms, mapping and research, and the build projects of universities and hobbyists. On Amazon.com they are sold almost only as frames and kits.
Hexacopter vs quadcopter: payload and safety
Two advantages and one price.
- Payload. Six motors share the load, so each works less hard at the same weight. A 680 to 850 mm hexacopter can lift a mirrorless camera on a gimbal or a few liters of liquid, where a quadcopter of the same size would need much bigger motors and props.
- Safety. A hexacopter can usually keep flying and land after a motor failure. A quadcopter cannot.
- The price: two more motors, two more speed controllers, a bigger frame and bigger batteries. More weight to carry means the empty hexacopter flies less time than a quadcopter built for the same job without payload.
If what you carry is the drone’s own camera, a quadcopter wins. If you carry something heavier or more valuable, the hexacopter starts to make sense.
For aerial photography and cinematography
Before integrated camera drones took over, the hexacopter was the standard tool of aerial photography, and for one job it still is: flying a camera you choose, with a lens you choose, on a stabilized gimbal.
A typical setup is a folding carbon frame around 680 mm, six motors for 13 to 15-inch props, a 6S battery of 10,000 mAh or more, and a three-axis handheld-style gimbal holding a mirrorless body. Expect 15 to 20 minutes of flight with the camera on.
What you gain over a camera drone is the sensor and the lens. What you lose is simplicity: every piece is configured by you, and the whole system is heavy enough to need FAA registration and, for any paid work, a Part 107 certificate.
Motor failure redundancy explained
When a motor stops on a hexacopter, two things happen at once: the aircraft loses a sixth of its lift, and it loses balance, because the motor opposite the dead one is now pushing with nothing to cancel it.
A flight controller with motor-failure handling, as in ArduPilot and PX4, reacts within milliseconds. It turns down the motor opposite the failed one and asks the other four to carry more. The drone yaws a little, holds its attitude and can be flown down.
Whether that works depends on spare thrust. After losing one motor and throttling back its opposite, a hexacopter effectively flies on four. If the build was already using most of its thrust to hover, the remaining motors saturate and the drone comes down anyway. The usual target is a hover throttle of 50 percent or less with the full payload on board.
This is also why the layout matters: some hexacopter frames put motors closer together or use a coaxial Y6 design, and each handles a failure differently. Read the flight controller documentation for your frame before trusting it over anything valuable.
Frame kits and ready-to-fly models
Almost every hexacopter on Amazon.com is a frame kit. Read the listing carefully, because the word kit covers very different things:
- Frame only: arms, center plates and landing gear. Cheapest, and the start of a build.
- Frame plus motors: saves matching the motors to the frame. You still need speed controllers, props, a flight controller, GPS, a radio and batteries.
- PNF or ARF (plug and fly, almost ready to fly): everything but the radio, and sometimes the battery.
A complete, working hexacopter built from a mid-range frame usually costs two to four times the price of the frame alone. Ready-to-fly hexacopters exist, mostly agricultural sprayers and professional camera platforms, but they are sold through dealers rather than Amazon, which is why they rarely show up in this table.