FamilyTime vs Qustodio – Selecting the Reliable Parental Control App 

In today’s digital age, keeping our children safe online is a top priority for parents. With the plethora of parental control apps available, it can be challenging to decide which one best suits your family’s needs. To make it easier for you, we are offering you a hands-on comparison of the best-performing parenting apps in the industry: FamilyTime and Qustodio. 

Both industry players have a huge number of satisfied parent users, but they are still competitive. It’s not about having all the features but being compatible with most of the requirements and needs of digital parenting. We have compared and reviewed the apps to determine how efficiently they perform in their respective features, giving parents the best options for ensuring digital safety for their kids. 

Let’s compare two popular options, FamilyTime and Qustodio, to see which is on top.

Features	FamilyTime	Qustodio
Cross Platform support	✔	✔
Screen time limits	✔	✔
Downtime schedules	✔	✔
App blocker	✔	✔
Activity reports	✔	✔
App installation approvals	✔	🗶
Real-time Alerts	✔	✔
Geofence	✔	✔
Location Tracking	✔	✔
Panic Button	✔	✔
Web filters	✔	✔
Social Media Monitoring	✔	🗶
App Limits	✔	🗶
Contacts Monitoring	✔	🗶
Access to SMS & Chats	✔	✔
Co-parenting	✔	🗶
Free Trial	✔	✔

 

A quick reflection on features reveals that both apps have variations in features. These are quite different yet similar to each other. Now, it’s interesting to evaluate what makes these apps really different and set them apart. 

FamilyTime vs Qustodio Review at a Glance

FamilyTime	Qustodio
Easy-to-use app interface	Boring and un-attractive app design
Child-friendly dashboard & app design	Limited avatar options to set on the child’s profile
Efficient web & app blockers to implement restrictions	Low efficiency of app blocker
In-app real-time alerts to keep parents up to date	No in-app alerts; send real-time alerts only via emails
Offer multiple alert options for kids to get their parent’s attention	Only offers SOS alerts for emergencies
TimeBank will reserve unused screen time for the day, motivating kids to follow the rules.	No carry forward mechanism for the unused screen time

 

Diving Deep in Comparison – FamilyTime vs Qustodio 

Knowing the features included in the best parental control app is not enough. To make a well-informed decision, you need to know the performance and efficiency of these features, too. The comparison review of FamilyTime and Qustodio does not just mention the features included in each app and what’s missing. It is more about the workings and results each app provides to its users as a whole. 

Location Tracking & Geofencing

Location tracking and geofencing are crucial features for parents concerned about their child’s safety. Keeping your kids safe is not just about making digital monitoring but also offline tracking. Where your kids go, the visited places, frequency of visits and more tell you a lot about the people your kid is seeing. It helps you protect your little ones from predators out there in the world. 

FamilyTime and Qustodio offer these functionalities, allowing parents to monitor their child’s whereabouts in real-time. Additionally, parents can set the geofence limits to receive alerts when kids enter or leave predefined zones. It keeps parents alert about any unplanned or out-of-routine activity of the child. 

Though these features are similar, FamilyTime stands out with its detailed location history and instant notifications. It provides parents with a comprehensive overview of their child’s movements. Right from the in-app dashboard, parents can see what their kid’s been doing and many other things at a glance. You can read a detailed FamilyTime review for more insights. 

Screen Time Management

Effective screen time management is essential for promoting healthy digital habits in children. Both apps offer extensive screen time limits, from daily time limits to specific schedules for device downtime. 

You can give kids a specific screen time allowance to keep them engaged online. However, for certain activities like bedtime, study, dinner, or special gatherings, you can use custom settings. 

FamilyTime offers an easy-to-use interface that makes setting limits or schedules simple and easy. There is no need to go through complicated or confusing procedures. However, with Qustodio, you may face a bit of confusion with the settings at times. These are not efficient and convenient for parents to use.  

FamilyTime excels in this area with its TimeBank feature. It allows children to save unused screen time for later use, eventually teaching them valuable lessons about moderation and responsibility. Children feel motivated to use their screen time allowance carefully and pay attention to other tasks along with entertainment. 

Games & Apps Management 

Parents are worried about their kids’ digital habits because they use mobile devices uninterrupted. Having access to multiple apps and downloading them for free will make the situation even worse. 

Considering these concerns, both apps offer solutions. Qustodio is equipped with an app blocker that helps parents block unwanted apps from their child’s device. It helps keep inappropriate apps out of the child’s access. 

On the other hand, FamilyTime offers a pretty extensive and detailed toolkit for parents to manage their children’s apps and games. It contains an app blocker perfect for blocking kids’ access to inappropriate apps. Additionally, it restricts kids from installing new apps on their devices without their parent’s permission. You can toggle on the approval requirement setting for the new apps, and the kid won’t be able to use any new app on the device. It helps you control the impulsive app installation from your child.

 

Along with these features, FamilyTime lets you restrict your child from using the specific apps for a longer exposure. It’s like controlling their access and usage of apps for a limited time only. By doing this you can stop kids from consuming all of their screen time allowance on specific apps falling to the addictions. 

Content Safety & Web Blocker 

It’s not just the apps your child is accessing online but also the web content, searches, and other media types that your child can easily access via the internet. Using basic searches and bypassing mandatory filters, your child can easily surpass the safety filters and access any kind of content. It’s alarming and not ideal for parents. 

FamilyTime and Qustodio have made it easier for you to control your child’s searches and website access. The feature the apps offer you is the web filters that are quite efficient to filter the searches and results. 

Both FamilyTime and Qustodio offer you extensive filters that are quite efficient to screen the results. However, you cannot add any customized filters to these default filters, though you can activate them for the searches. 

One thing that FamilyTime extend here is the web blocker feature. When you know a handful of the websites you do not want your child to access, then it’s convenient to block them. Using the web blocker, simply put the ULRs of the targeted website in the filter and rest easy. 

Coming to the performance of these features, both apps offer a high-end experience, making sure you have enough control over your child’s content choices. It eventually helps you make their digital interactions secure and monitored. 

Contacts Monitoring 

Contact monitoring is one of the parental monitoring features that impressed us in FamilyTime but not in Qustodio. You will get to know the apps, locations, and ad web searches for your child easily. How about the cyber predators landing on their contact list and hiding there? Using contact monitoring, you can learn about the people who sneak into your child’s contact list. It helps identify new contacts and take care of the ones that are irrelevant. 

Additionally, you can watchlist the contacts you find not suitable or reliable to be in contact with your child. By putting it under watch, you will get notifications whenever the contact calls or messages your child. You can easily review the communication details and take appropriate action. 

Apart from the overview, FamilyTime offers you in-detail access to your child’s communication list. You can review your child’s calls and SMS logs to see what they are talking about and to whom. It does help you know what your child’s been up to. The best part of SMS monitoring is the access to the text, so you can read the real-time messages anytime you want. 

Social Media Monitoring 

Social media platforms are a casual source for kids to build their connections in the community. It provides them with the liberation to connect with many others online. At the same time, it’s a threat for them to land in the hands of bullies and cyber predators. Saving them from these threats is crucial. 

FamilyTime allows you to be vigilant in saving your child from these threats using the social media monitoring feature. In the feature, you will have the opportunity to look into your child’s chats on all popular platforms like Instagram, WhatsApp, Twitch, Facebook, Bip, Signal, TikTok, and more. It’s like you will get to know your kid’s online interactions and chats. It helps you save your kids from bullies and online predators who are trying to harm them. 

In contrast, Qustodio does not offer any such feature for parents, which seems to be the point of taking the app a little step back. Its convenient to find more details in Qustodio review. 

YouTube & TikTok Content Monitoring 

Along with the searches and social media interaction, video content platforms like YouTube and TikTok require parental guidance and controls. Kids are highly attracted towards digital content, and viral platforms are quick to access most of the time. It leads them to extreme screen exposure along with the potentially mature content. 

Parents can access these platforms’ default parental control settings, but these are not enough. So, FamilyTime and Qustodio cover the matter. Both apps offer YouTube monitoring that helps you find out your kid’s YouTube watching history in the log. This means you can see the video titles and access their links with time stamps that your kid watched. 

In this context, FamilyTime took the lead and offered a similar feature for the viral app TikTok. It was reported that TikTok has highly mature and rated content freely available on the platform. It does not filter content for minor users and introduced minor age limits and parental controls much later than its launch. 

Focusing on the issue, using FamilyTime for TikTok monitoring is one of the safest ways to secure your child. It lets you know the videos your child watched so far, giving you an idea about their content preferences. Following these leads, you can review their accounts and guide them in making better and safer content choices. 

Driving Under Watch

For parents of teenagers, features like TeenSafe Drive, offered by FamilyTime, can provide invaluable insights into their child’s driving habits. By receiving detailed reports on speed, routes, and locations, parents can promote safe driving practices and have meaningful discussions with their teens about responsible behaviour on the road. 

While Qustodio may not offer specific driving monitoring features, its comprehensive controls for enforcing screen time limits indirectly contribute to safer driving habits by reducing distractions.

Interactive Alerts & Notifications 

Digital parenting is incomplete without a two-way model of receiving notifications and alerts. You can set limits for kids, but there has to be a way to receive alerts or notifications about these settings, activities, and more. 

Qustodio and FamilyTime both offer you alerts and notifications for all the rules and activities. If the child tries to access a blocked app or searches for inappropriate content, Qustodio sends you an email notification. However, FamilyTime shows on-screen alerts. For all the geofence check-ins or check-outs, the apps send you notifications and updates on the movements. 

Another promising alert feature both apps offer is the SOS alert. This feature comes in handy whenever your child needs help, faces a threat, or has an emergency. Tapping the alert on their devices will send you a quick SOS message along with their current exact location. 

In the game of alerts and notifications, FamilyTime took the lead here. Along with SOS, it offers PickMeUp alerts so kids can send reminders for pickups. It does have a low battery alert to remind your kid about charging their devices. 

Overall, FamilyTime offers a wide range of alerts and notifications that help make digital parenting easier. These are good for keeping parents well informed and kids able to reach out to their parents whenever they need to. 

Co-Parenting 

One of the significant features offered by FamilyTime that is not present in Qustodio is co-parenting. For parents who live apart, at a distance, or are separated, this feature works really well. They do not have to go through the hassle of fixing time or meetings to devise rules for their kids. Moreover, they can avoid parenting contradictions with their kids during stay times. 

Instead, using one app, both parents can set rules for kids on mutual understanding and follow these rules. The app allows them to communicate their schedules and decide to attend to kids in the best possible manner. The feature allows parents to add other friends, guardians, or even teachers to the panel, making the digital space even safer for kids. 

Extrinsic Motivation with FunTime

Incentivizing good behaviour is crucial for maintaining a healthy balance between screen time and other activities. 

FamilyTime’s FunTime feature rewards children for completing chores or homework, promoting positive reinforcement and responsible screen time usage. While Qustodio may not offer a specific extrinsic motivation feature like FunTime, its comprehensive controls enable parents to enforce screen time limits effectively, encouraging children to engage in offline activities.

Final Verdict 

Apparently, both Qustodio and FamilyTime are the market-leading parental control apps. These exceptionally provide the best and most promising parental control features to the parents, enabling them to improve their child’s digital well-being. However, in a close comparison and performance view, FamilyTime has an edge over Qustodio. 

FamilyTime offers some exceptional features, like more alerts, permissions, and co-parenting options. These features give parents more power in shaping their kids’ digital lives, providing them with peace of mind knowing everything about their child’s life.