Home | Internet Security | The Best Parental Control Apps of 2024
After comparing 16 parental control apps and testing their performance, we believe Bark is the best option.
Best overall
Best contact management
Best free version
Most management tools
Best for full access
By Cathy Habas
Sep 07, 2023
10 min read
SafeWise experts have years of firsthand experience testing the products we recommend. Learn how we test and review. We may earn money when you buy through our links.
Even though some new online safety brands have appeared on the scene since we first published our round-up, Bark is still our favorite parental control app. Bark can’t be beat in terms of email and social media monitoring, and our testers thought Bark was the easiest app to set up and use.
We prefer other parental control apps for specific features—like location tracking and contact management—and for more comfortable price points. Learn more about the differences between our top picks, and discover why other apps didn’t make the cut.
Best parental control apps
- : Best overall
Bark
- : Best contact monitoring
MMGuardian
- : Best free version
Qustodio
- : Most management tools
FamilyTime
- : Best for full access
SentryPC
More brands we considered
Compare parental control app prices
Product | Best for | Monthly starting price* | Free version available | Maximum number of devices | Trial period | Learn more | Read review |
Best overall | $14.00/mo. | No | Unlimited | 7 days | View plans | Read review | |
Best contact management | $9.99/mo.* | No | 5 | 14 days | View plans | Read review | |
Best free version | $4.58/mo.** | Yes | 15 | 3 days | View plans | Read review | |
Best management tools | $5.75/mo. | Yes | 15 | 3 days | View plans | Read review | |
Best for full device access | $69.95/yr. (no monthly price)** | No | Surcharge for every extra device | None | View Plans | Read review |
Info current as of post date. Offers and availability may vary by location and are subject to change. Read full disclaimer.
*For up to 5 devices
**For 1 device, plus $29.95/yr for additional devices. (Equivalent to $15.81/mo. for 5 devices)
A note about monitoring Android vs. iOS devices
Apple has some strict rules about call/text monitoring and tracking. That’s why parental control apps can’t offer the same features for all devices or platforms. If your child uses an Android device, you should be good to go. If your child uses an iPhone or iPad, pay special attention to each brand’s iOS functions.
Read more: iOS vs. Android Security: Which One Keeps Your Child Safer Online?
Parental control app similarities
Our top five picks share these features:
- App management
- App usage history reports
- Texting history reports
- Screen-time management
- Content filter
- Website blocker
We’ve organized the major differences in the chart below. To compare prices, see the chart above.
If you're not sure which features to prioritize, check out our guide to parental controls.
Compare parental control app features
Product | Best for | Email monitoring | Location tracking and geofencing | Social media monitoring | Remote time out | Learn more |
Best overall | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | View pricing | |
Best contact management | No | Location tracking only | Yes | Yes | View pricing | |
Best free version | No | Yes | Yes | No | View pricing | |
Best management tools | No | Yes | Yes (Limited) | Yes | View pricing | |
Best for full device access | Yes, with keylogger | Yes | Yes, with keylogger | No | View Pricing |
Info current as of post date. Offers and availability may vary by location and are subject to change.
Best parental control app reviews
1. Bark: Best overall and most comprehensive message screening
Best overall
Info current as of post date. Offers and availability may vary by location and are subject to change.
Bark earns our vote for best parental control app because it screens social media andother messaging avenues—like text messages, emails, and doc-sharing apps. No other parental control app screens so many messaging platforms at once—and we researched over 30 competitors just to make sure.
Plus, we were really impressed with the sensitivity of Bark's content filters and the immediacy of their alerts during testing. You'll know right away when your child needs some guidance.
Pros
Computer monitoring
Email monitoring
Social media monitoring
Text message monitoring
Text, push, and email alerts
Cons
Live location by check-in only
No browsing or search history
No call log
No uninstall protection
But there is a catch to Bark—you don't get to see everything your child does online or on their phone. Bark's philosophy hinges on respecting kids' privacy when nothing's wrong. And if the content filters do catch something amiss, Bark gives practical guidance on how to have a conversation or seek counseling services. It doesn't give you the ability to lock down the phone apart from turning off its internet access.
Bark's unique in this approach, so if youdowant to have a more hands-on role in your child's digital life, the other parental controls on our list have you covered.
Read our full Bark app review to learn more about what it monitors and how it performed during our tests. And if you haven't bought a phone for your kid yet, check out our Bark Phone review to learn why it's even better than the Bark app.
“The Bark app and software oozes consideration for the user. The installation walkthrough was incredibly easy.” —Rebecca E., Bark tester
Video: Bark parental control app review
Subscribe to our YouTube channel and learn how to protect your home, loved ones and, belongings.
2. MMGuardian: Best contact management
Best contact management
Info current as of post date. Offers and availability may vary by location and are subject to change.
MMGuardian is great for tweens or families with kids needing different levels of monitoring and intervention.
For example, here are a few things you can do with MMGuardian but not Bark:
- Read full content of all sent and received text messages
- View call log history
- Block phone numbers
- View browsing history
Plus, MMGuardian is one of the few parental control apps that actually requires parents to approve all new app downloads. Finally!
Pros
Excellent cloud-based parent dashboard
Web filter
Location tracking
Text monitoring
Some social media monitoring
Free 14-day trial
Cons
Expensive plans
No free version
No email monitoring
No geofencing
MMGuardian doesn't offer the same depth of social media monitoring as Bark, but it does cover some of the most popular apps like Facebook messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram.
You can also track your child's location at any time without requesting a check-in. MMGuardian no longer offers geofencing, though, since it led to too many false alarms.
Pricey for large families
MMGuardian isn't very affordable if your children use more than five devices altogether. The price for a single child device is around $35 a year, and it doubles to around $70 a year for five child devices, such as smartphones and tablets.
That price is comparable to FamilyTime, but you'd get better bang for your buck with Qustodio or Boomerang. And spending a little extra with Bark gives you unlimited device coverage.
Read more in our full MMGuardian review.
3. Qustodio: Best free version
Best free version
Info current as of post date. Offers and availability may vary by location and are subject to change.
There aren't many free parental control apps available and most are borderline useless since the features are so limited. But that's not the case with Qustodio. Here's what you get for absolutely nothing:
- Web, app, and search monitoring
- Online content filter
- Safe search
- Facebook & Twitter monitoring
- Time limits
- Online reporting dashboard
The catch? You can only monitor one device. Otherwise, you'll need a Premium Qustodio subscription, which starts at about $55 a year for five devices.
Pros
Excellent cloud-based parent dashboard
Web filter
Location history
Panic button
Some social media monitoring
Cons
Expensive for large families
3-day trial period
No email monitoring
We love the in-depth cloud-based dashboard, which shows you exactly what your child has been typing into search engines or YouTube and automatically flags concerning activity for you to review.
You’ll see which apps and websites your kid spends the most time on, who they’re calling, and the content of their texts. There’s also social media monitoring, but it’s limited to Facebook, Twitter, and Yahoo Messenger.
You can also set up rules and restrictions from this dashboard, but that’s where Qustodio’s user-friendliness takes a nosedive. Other apps offer simpler interfaces for parents.
Location tracking and history
The other neat feature we like about Qustodio is its “family tracker.” You can glance at it and see the current location of each child. Need to trace their steps? You can do that too with the “location history” function.
Get the full scoop of our testing experience in our in-depth Qustodio review, or learn how Qustodio compares to Bark, our top pick.
4. FamilyTime: Best management tools
Best management tools
Info current as of post date. Offers and availability may vary by location and are subject to change.
Whereas Bark screens tons of messages and lacks management tools, FamilyTime offers a plethora of management options but doesn't monitor social media messages.
In our book, this makes FamilyTime a great option for younger kids and tweens. But FamilyTime does have some teen-specific features, like speed limit alerts.
Pros
Geofencing and location tracking
Detailed history reports
Text and call monitoring
Web filtering and blocking
More iOS features than competitors
Cons
Only monitors 5 devices
Limited social media monitoring (YouTube and TikTok only)
No email monitoring
3-day trial period
FamilyTime monitors text messages, general app and device usage, and web browsing history. If you detect an issue, here's how you can intervene:
- Remote internet shutdown
- Remote device shutdown
- Uninstall protection
- Time limits
- Contact management
- App installation management
We also like these unique features in the FamilyTime app:
- SOS/panic button
- Speed limit alerts
- Location history
- PickMeUp alerts
- Contact Watchlist alerts
- Gamified screen-time management with TimeBank and FunTime
Good functionality for iPhones
FamilyTime offers more functionality for iOS devices than competitor apps. For example, you can use geofencing and block apps on your child’s iPhone with FamilyTime, whereas Boomerang only offers those features for Android users.
You still can’t track calls or texts on iOS devices with FamilyTime. That’s an Apple rule.
Learn more in our full FamilyTime review.
5. SentryPC: Best for full access
Best for full access
Info current as of post date. Offers and availability may vary by location and are subject to change.
For parents who want to see everything their child does on their phone, tablet, or laptop, SentryPC is the best option.
Here's what you can view:
- Full text content
- Call history
- Web history
- App usage
- Created and deleted files
- Print jobs
- Clipboard
- Portable drives
- Keylogger
SentryPC also takes random screenshots of your child's device for you to review.
Pros
Complete usage reports
Location tracking and geofencing
Uninstall protection
Time limits
Cons
Surcharge for every device
No contact management
Aside from surveillance, SentryPC offers basic screen time management, content filtering, and geofencing. It lacks a few other management tools like contact management and remote internet and device shutdowns.
Even though there's no social media or email monitoring, the keylogger is a catch-all that would show anything typed into the device.
SentryPC's online dashboard is a little clinical. There's a demo available on their website if you want to see it for yourself.
Finally, SentryPC is best if you only have one device to monitor. The first one costs around $70 a year, and each additional device license is another $30.
More brands we considered
We started out with a list of 30 parental monitoring apps. Here are some that didn’t quite make the cut for our top five.
6. Boomerang
Boomerang's main appeal is its affordability—about $16 a year for one device or $31 a year for ten devices. But most of its features are limited to Android devices, so skip this one if your child uses an iPhone.
We also like that Boomerang doesn't allow new apps to be downloaded until you give the OK. It also has good screen time management features.
Boomerang just squeaked out of our top five. If you're on a budget, give it a closer look by reading our full Boomerang review.
7. Screen Time
Screen Time (not to be confused with Apple's parental control of the same name) has a free version that covers one Android device. The Premium subscription comes to about $84 a year.
As long as your child uses an Android phone, you can read their full texts with Screen Time, monitor messages sent through WhatsApp, Viber, and Kik, and see all photos your child takes, sends, and receives.
There's no contact management, or call log history, but Screen Time has a nice buffet of other management tools. We especially like that it can block all new app downloads.
8. Norton Family
Norton Familyis best for parents and kids who already have an open dialogue aboutinternet safety, since the dashboard is more for guiding your conversations than instituting a total device lockdown. It lacks the social media monitoring and app management of more comprehensive parental control software likeBark.
You can read more about our experience with our in-depth Norton Family Parental Control Review.
9. Circle Home Plus
The Circle Home Plus internet filter costs about $130 per year and controls any device connected to your home’s Wi-Fi. If that sounds good to you, we recommend Bark Home instead. It costs about $80, and you don’t need to pay an annual fee.
You can read more about our experience with our in-depth Circle Home Plus review.
Circle also came out with an app that's now sold with Circle Home Plus, but it didn't knock our socks off. It doesn't monitor texts, emails, or social media messages and doesn't provide call logs or contact management. It's good for regulating screen time and blocking apps or content categories, though.
10. Mobicip
Mobicip offers a web filter, screen-time management, location tracker, app blocker, website blocker, and history report starting at around $48 per year for five devices. If you use Android devices, Boomerang offers those same features and more at around $31 per year for 10 devices.
If you use iOS, macOS, Windows, Kindle, or Chromebook, then Mobicip is a slightly more affordable alternative to Qustodio (but without the info-heavy reporting dashboard).
11. OurPact
OurPact offers a free version that lets you block apps and set up one schedule for screen time. If you want any other functionality, you need to pay nearly $84 per year. At that rate, you might as well pay for Bark and get social media monitoring and email monitoring.
We do think it’s cool that this parental control software lets you see a live view of your child’s screen, but its reporting dashboard lacks insight into web history, call history, and overall device usage.
Read more about our testing experience in our in-depth OurPact review.
12. Google Family Link
Google Family Link is free and lets you manage apps, control screen time, and track your child’s location. Google Family Link’s closest competitors are the free versions of Kaspersky or Qustodio, which don’t track location but do offer a web filter. We think web filtering is the more useful feature, but you can always install Google Family Link in addition to Kaspersky or Qustodio if you want.
13. Net Nanny
Once upon a time, Net Nanny earned a spot among the top parental controls. We’ve bumped it down the list because there are more affordable and easier-to-use alternatives on the market now.
In fact, Net Nanny is one of the most expensive parental controls and offers no trial period. It took our tester an hour to set up Net Nanny for one device, and they were able to get around the web filter. We don’t see a reason to choose this brand, especially since it offers no message monitoring.
14. Cocospy
Cocospy helps parents track where their kids are and what they are up to online. Its features include the ability to check WhatsApp, contacts, browser history, and call logs, plus geofencing. At around $70 per year, it's a little on the pricey side.
15. Kidslox
Kidslox takes the cake for location history. It not only shows your child's current location, but the route they took to get there and how long they lingered at stops along the way. You'll see corresponding addresses and times too.
Location history is saved for 7 days. You can also set up geofences.
Other than that, Kidslox offers average parental controls with no message monitoring.
16. Canopy
Canopy offers the basics: web filtering, scheduled screen time, and geofencing. But it stands out in terms of sexting prevention and mature content screening.
Canopy alerts you if it thinks your child has taken a sexual photo, and it also scans websites in real time for suggestive photos and replaces them with white squares. You have the ability to filter images with partial nudity too, like swimsuit photos.
While Canopy's image AI is impressive, make sure this parental control app has all of the other features you want before you buy. Coverage for 15 devices costs over $190 a year—very expensive for large households.
17. mSpy
mSpy is an alternative to SentryPC but costs at least twice as much. It's an invasive parental control that shows you almost everything that happens on your child's device—including any captured photos and videos. It also can also monitor emails, texts, Facebook messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Snapchat, and seven other social media apps.
mSpy is very expensive compared to the competition and charges extra for technical assistance. We'd steer clear.
Final word
We think Bark offers the most comprehensive monitoring service if you can spare about $100 per year toward your child’s online safety. It’s the only parental app that monitors email, and that’s just as important as monitoring text messages and DMs.
FAQ
We think Bark is the best app for parental control in terms of screen-time management and internet safety. If you want location tracking, geofencing, and location history, try FamilyTime or Qustodio.
A parental control app provides information about your child’s app usage, overall screen time, web searches and history, text message history, and more. You’ll receive a push notification, email, and/or text if the app detects concerning words in your child’s search history or text messages. Some parental control apps also monitor calls and social media activity.
Exact features and reports vary by app. We recommend Bark for comprehensive phone and internet monitoring.
Yes. We like the free version of Kaspersky Safe Kids or Qustodio. Google Family Link is free, as is Screen Time, the built-in parental control for iOS devices.
How we reviewed parental control apps
- 30+ parental control apps considered
- 27 data points assessed
- 8 hours of testing
- 50 hours of research
To find the best parental control apps, we set up different apps, tested them as both “children” and “parents,” and then addressed strengths and weaknesses.
On top of hands-on testing, we dug into each app’s features, prices, compatibility, and customer reviews. We also consulted with other online safety experts.
Three members of our team tried out the different apps, looking for how well each performed in these specific areas:
- Setup and installation: how easy it was to install on different devices (including iOS, Android, mobile, and desktop), how much time it took, and whether or not there were any issues that came up.
- Performance: Did the app do what it was supposed to do? Would it be easy for kids to work around it?
- Features: what extra features were available, and did they deliver as promised?
Read more about our methodology.
Related articles on SafeWise
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*Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product. Safewise.com utilizes paid Amazon links.
Certain content that appears on this site comes from Amazon. This content is provided “as is” and is subject to change or removal at any time.
Written by
Cathy Habas
With over eight years of experience as a content writer, Cathy has a knack for untangling complex information. Her natural curiosity and ability to empathize help Cathy offer insightful, friendly advice. She believes in empowering readers who may not feel confident about a purchase, project, or topic. Cathy earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Indiana University Southeast and began her professional writing career immediately after graduation. She is a certified Safe Sleep Ambassador and has contributed to sites like Safety.com, Reviews.com, Hunker, and Thumbtack. Cathy’s pride and joy is her Appaloosa “Chacos.” She also likes to crochet while watching stand-up comedy specials on Netflix.
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Based on the provided article discussing parental control apps and home security systems, I'm well-versed in the concepts related to internet security, home safety, family safety, and related technologies. Here's a breakdown of the concepts covered in the article:
-
Parental Control Apps:
- Bark: Known for comprehensive message screening, social media monitoring, and sensitivity of content filters.
- MMGuardian: Offers contact management, call log history, and browsing history monitoring.
- Qustodio: Known for its free version with web, app, and search monitoring, but limited to one device.
- FamilyTime: Provides management tools, geofencing, detailed history reports, and iOS functionality.
- SentryPC: Offers full device access with complete usage reports, keylogger, and screenshots.
-
Features of Parental Control Apps:
- App management
- App usage history reports
- Texting history reports
- Screen-time management
- Content filtering
- Website blocking
-
Differences Among Parental Control Apps:
- Email monitoring
- Location tracking and geofencing
- Social media monitoring
- Remote timeout capability
-
Considerations and Reviews of Each Parental Control App:
- Features, pricing, strengths, and weaknesses of Bark, MMGuardian, Qustodio, FamilyTime, and SentryPC.
- Comparison of additional parental control apps like Boomerang, Screen Time, Norton Family, Circle Home Plus, Mobicip, OurPact, Google Family Link, Net Nanny, and others.
-
Testing and Evaluation Methodology for Parental Control Apps:
- Evaluation based on setup and installation, performance, features, and comprehensive testing.
-
Home Security Systems:
- Mention of Best DIY Home Security Systems, Best Home Security Systems for Renters, and reviews of different home security systems from various brands.
-
Categories of Home Safety:
- Segments on senior safety, family safety, baby & toddler safety, kid & teen safety, young adult safety, and pet safety.
-
Types of Home Safety Equipment and Services:
- Fire extinguishers, carbon monoxide detectors, first-aid kits, emergency survival kits, gas leak detectors, portable home generators, radon detectors, smoke alarms, water leak sensors, medical alert systems, home automation for pet safety, etc.
-
Guides and Resources:
- Room-by-room guides for safety, month-by-month home maintenance guide, home safety checklists, emergency resources, and various safety FAQs.
-
Recent News Articles and Deals:
- Articles on Black Friday scams, cybersecurity tips, home burglary stats, safety stats, and featured reports on safety in different cities.
In summary, the article discusses an extensive range of parental control apps, their features, evaluations, and comparisons. It also covers a broad spectrum of home safety equipment, resources, and recent news articles related to safety and security.