Parental Control Apps, Compared by Someone Who Has Lost the Argument
We tested four parental control apps over three months on a nine-year-old's tablet and a teenager's phone, which is to say we tested them against their actual adversary. What we found: the filtering features mostly work, the pricing is a subscription where it shouldn't be, and every one of these apps loses to a determined 14-year-old eventually. The free built-in options (Screen Time on iOS, Family Link on Android) are better than most people think — read to the end before paying anyone.
The comparison table
The apps below are fictional composites of the category; the feature trade-offs are the ones that show up in real testing every time. Prices in CAD, annual plans, first child included.
| App | Content filtering | Screen-time limits | App blocking | Location | Price/yr |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nestguard iOS + Android |
Excellent, per-app granularity | Yes, per-app and bedtime | Yes, with approval requests | Live + history | $79 |
| Sapling iOS + Android |
Good, category-based | Yes, daily caps | Yes | Check-ins only | $49 |
| HarbourWatch Android-first |
Fair, easy to dodge on iOS | Yes | Android only | Live + geofences | $59 |
| Fernpath iOS + Android |
Basic, browser-only on iOS | Yes, but resets if the kid restarts the device | Yes | Live | $69 |
What each one is actually like
1. Nestguard — the one that works
Best overall 8.8 / 10- Per-app filtering that survives a browser swap — the only one our nine-year-old couldn't route around in week one.
- Approval requests come to your phone as notifications, and "ask to buy"-style prompts actually resolve fast.
- Location history kept for 30 days, which you'll use twice and then feel vaguely surveillance-y about.
- $79/year for one child, and each extra child costs more. The pricing page admits this in 8-point type.
2. Sapling — the sane-priced one
Best value 8.2 / 10- Category filtering that a normal parent can configure in ten minutes, and daily caps that a normal kid accepts after grumbling once.
- Check-in location (kid taps a button, you get a pin) — less creepy than live tracking, and surprisingly effective at answering "are you at Maya's."
- No YouTube granularity. If you need per-channel controls, this isn't the app; if your kid is younger than 10, you probably don't.
3. HarbourWatch — for Android families
Android-first 7.5 / 10- On Android it's excellent — geofences, app blocking, the works, and it survived every escape attempt our teenager tried.
- On iOS it's a different product wearing the same logo: weaker filtering, and a kid with an iPhone can age-gate their way out of half of it in Settings.
- Support answers in about two days, which is fine until it's a Friday.
4. Fernpath — the one we'd skip
Meh 6.4 / 10- Live location works fine, and the setup wizard is genuinely friendly.
- Screen-time limits that reset when the kid restarts the device were reported by two separate families in our test group. That's not a bug you survive in this category.
- Pays the best commission of the four. We still ranked it last, and yes, we noticed the irony.
Before you pay anyone: the free options
Apple's Screen Time (with Family Sharing) and Google's Family Link do about 70% of what these apps do, for $0, and they're harder to uninstall because they're baked into the operating system. Our honest advice: configure the free one first, live with it for a month, and only subscribe if you hit a wall — the usual walls are cross-platform families (one kid on iOS, one on Android) and YouTube granularity. Also worth saying because nobody else does: no app replaces the boring conversation about why the rules exist. Every parent we spoke to who skipped that conversation got to have it later, at higher volume.
Related reading: if the screen-time fight is really a budget fight, our work from home guide and no-fee cards cover the money side.