Parental Control Apps Compared: Family Link, Qustodio, Bark, OurPact, Net Nanny, Norton Family

The useful question is not which parental-control app is “best.” It is which job you are hiring one to do, and which devices your child actually uses. A free Android lock, a page-reading web filter, an alert across thirty apps, and a screenshot of last night are four different products. This page sorts them.

Prices and feature lists below were taken from each company’s own site on 14 November 2026. They change. The linked articles go deeper on one app at a time.

Start hereThree questions before the table

Answer these on paper before you compare logos.

What is the device that causes the fights? If it is an Android phone, you can ignore a beautiful Mac story. If it is a Windows laptop for homework plus an iPhone, an Android-only app will leave the laptop alone. Write the devices down. Include the Chromebook from school and the Kindle in the bedroom.

Do you want a rule, or a warning? A rule turns games off at 21:00 whether or not you are looking at your phone. A warning tells you something in a chat looked like bullying, and leaves the rest of the evening private. Families often need one of those and buy the other because the ad used the word “monitor.”

What are you willing to read? Some tools show app time and blocked sites. Some show SMS on Android. Some send an alert and expect you not to scroll ordinary chats. Some can show screenshots of what was on the screen. None of the honest ones hand you a perfect archive of WhatsApp, Snapchat and Instagram. If a page promises that, slow down.

At a glanceThe comparison

Yearly Safe Lagoon Premium is shown as $5.83 a month, billed annually. Bark’s prices are plus tax. Norton says renewal prices can change even when the March 2026 list matches the first year. Net Nanny’s 20-device pass does not print a single checkout total on the products page; they say twenty separate desktop licenses would be over $799.99 and the pass saves $700. Check that total when you buy.

One job eachHow to read each one

Google Family Link, if the budget is zero

Family Link supervises a child’s Google Account. On Android and Chromebook it does the jobs parents ask for first: a daily limit, downtime, a lock right now, bonus time, app-install approval, location, SafeSearch. Google’s own help notes that a daily limit applies to each device. Two hours means two hours on the phone and another two on the Chromebook, not a shared pool.

It does not show the text of SMS or of WhatsApp, Instagram, Snapchat or TikTok. It is not a screenshot tool. Past the local age of consent, supervision is optional. The full split is in Safe Lagoon vs Google Family Link, when to look for an alternative and what Family Link cannot see.

Keep it if a free bedtime lock is the whole job. Add something else if the thing you worry about happens inside a chat.

Qustodio, if the house is more than one operating system

Qustodio’s English plan page names Windows, Android, iOS, Mac and Kindle, and the help center also lists Chromebook. That coverage is the reason it shows up in every roundup. The free plan is one device. Basic is $59.95 a year for five devices and, in their FAQ, the core set: games and app blocking, location, web filtering. Complete is $104.95 a year, unlimited family devices, and their FAQ adds calls and messages, custom rules, and YouTube monitoring.

Read the footnote before you buy Complete for an iPhone. Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and X message alerts, and the panic button, are Android-only. Calls and messages on iOS need a Windows or Mac computer. If the only device is an Android phone, you are paying for a cross-platform story you may not use. Details: Safe Lagoon vs Qustodio, a Qustodio alternative on Android and what you actually get on Android.

Bark, if you want a ping and not a diary

Bark Premium, $14 a month or $99 a year, is built to scan texts, email, YouTube and what they describe as 30+ apps, then alert you when something looks like bullying, a predator or self-harm. Bark Jr, $5 a month or $49 a year, is the controls without that monitoring: schedules, blocking the internet of apps and sites, location, unlimited children and devices. The app is listed for iPhone, iPad, Android, Chromebook and Amazon Fire.

A parent quote on Bark’s own app page is the right expectation: the child keeps some privacy, and you hear about what looks concerning. Bark also has an assistant for screen-time questions. So does Safe Lagoon. Ours shows the change and waits until you tap Approve. Neither fact makes the other app fake.

Bark Phone is a different product, a handset plus a wireless plan. Do not price it as if it were the app. More in Safe Lagoon vs Bark, a Bark alternative on Android and alerts versus a screenshot timeline.

OurPact, if iPhone and Android have to share one rule

OurPact’s support article, updated 13 November 2026, is unusually specific. Premium is $6.99 a month or $69.99 a year, up to 20 child devices, schedules, an allowance, instant lock, app rules, location with 7 days of history, and “Block Texting.” Premium+ is $9.99 a month or $99.99 a year and adds screenshots plus 30 days of location history. A child profile can mix iOS and Android. There is no Windows or Mac child agent on those pages.

Block Texting, including on their Play listing, means blocking access or setting rules for texting apps. It is not a documented iMessage transcript. Older articles that said otherwise were wrong. The allowance model is also different from a hard lock: the child can see the budget in OurPact Jr and pause it. That is a feature, for a teenager, and a loophole, for a nine-year-old. See Safe Lagoon vs OurPact, an Android alternative and allowance versus a lock.

On the base yearly price, Safe Lagoon Premium at $5.83 a month billed annually lands near $70, the same neighborhood as OurPact’s $69.99. Do not pick us because a spreadsheet said we were cheaper. Pick on the device and on whether you want screenshots on iOS (theirs, cheaper) or SMS activity and a free web filter on Android (ours).

Net Nanny, if the filter is the product

Net Nanny’s products page lists Windows 10 and 11, macOS 10.13 to 11.x, and iOS 11 and higher. Android is not on that list. One desktop is $39.99 a year. The five-device pass is listed as $11 per device per year, not as a single total we are willing to invent. Their filter is the part reviewers have praised for years: they say it scans each page as it loads, with categories you can allow, alert or block, rather than only a list of banned domains. That is a real specialty. It is also a specialty that does not install on the Android phone in a lot of houses.

If the phone is Android, start with Safe Lagoon vs Net Nanny, what to use instead on Android and a paid dynamic filter versus a free block/allow list. You can keep Net Nanny on the family PC and use something else on the phone. Those are not rivals for the same socket.

Norton Family, if School Time or a Norton 360 bundle is the reason

Norton Family is $49.99 for the first year. The renewal price list Norton published for March 2026 also shows $49.99 for Norton Family with unlimited devices, and Norton still says renewal prices can change. Buying Norton 360 Deluxe or Norton 360 Premium includes it. If you already pay for one of those, “another parental-control subscription” is a weak argument.

The child app runs on Windows (not S mode), Android 8 or later, and recent iOS. It does not run on Mac. App supervision, meaning which apps are installed and how long they run, is Windows and Android only. Location is Android and iOS, and not in every country. Video supervision watches YouTube.com inside a browser extension or Norton’s own browser. Norton’s footnote says it does not work with the YouTube app. School Time is a scheduled or instant web mode that prefers educational categories. It is not the same thing as turning the games off.

The write-ups are Safe Lagoon vs Norton Family, an Android alternative and School Time versus a schedule.

Our rowWhere Safe Lagoon fits, without the brochure

Use the row, not a slogan.

The web filter is free, and the price page does not put an end date on it. You can see sites and block or allow them without a paid plan. That is a list you control, not a claim that we read every page with a language model. Net Nanny is the one describing that kind of filter, on the platforms they support.

Premium is $6.99 a month, or $5.83 billed yearly, for five child profiles. You get daily limits, schedules, app blocking, GPS and geofences, a YouTube monitor, Gallery for the camera roll, and My assistant. Call and SMS history on Android needs the free Device Monitor add-on. The price page is plain about the limit: it is activity on Android, not a full chat archive, and deleted messages are not guaranteed. We cannot block incoming calls or texts. A separate article on this blog already says the quiet part: regular SMS on Android, not Roblox chat and not other chat apps.

Screen Mirror, $14.99 a month, is a timeline of screenshots grouped by app and time. AI Shield, $19.99, adds an alert when something looks risky, often with a screenshot of that moment. Neither one is a transcript of WhatsApp. Both are Android only. The difference is written up in the help center: AI Shield, Screen Mirror and Gallery.

My assistant is for the parent who will not click through menus at 9 pm. You type the rule, you see a card, nothing is saved until you tap Approve. Device Owner is optional and blunt: the child app cannot be removed without a factory reset.

If your child is on iPhone, start with Apple’s own Screen Time or with OurPact, Bark or Qustodio, and read the iOS asterisks. We would rather you install the thing that can see that phone.

TonightA way to choose tonight

1. List the devices. Circle the one that is in the bedroom at night.
2. If that device is Android or a Chromebook and you only need a free lock, stop at Family Link.
3. If that device is Android and you also need a bedtime that survives nagging, SMS activity, or a look at a risky moment, read the Safe Lagoon row and the vs article for the app you were about to pay for.
4. If the house is Windows plus iPhone, or iPhone plus Android, stay with the row that names both. Qustodio, Bark, OurPact and Norton each cover a different pair. Net Nanny covers PC, Mac and iOS, and not Android.
5. If you already pay for Norton 360 Deluxe or Premium, open Norton Family before you buy a second subscription.
6. Ignore any page that promises every chat, on every phone, deleted messages included. That product is not in this table.

QuestionsFAQ

Prices and feature lists were taken from each company’s own site on 14 November 2026 and can change. Safe Lagoon is not affiliated with Google, Qustodio, Bark, OurPact, Net Nanny or Norton. Their names are trademarks of their owners.

Kate Laverie

Writes for the Safe Lagoon blog · More articles on the blog