Familo vs OpenFamily

Familo is a smartphone app for family and friend groups to share live locations and stay in contact. Members can share their locations continuously, see where others in a group are, and receive alerts when someone arrives at or leaves a predefined place. Group chat works even when location sharing is switched off. A safety alert can send a user's current location to their contacts, and a group can have up to 20 members. Users choose when and with whom to share their location, including modes that limit transmission. The free Basic plan costs nothing. Premium adds unlimited places, a timeline of check-ins and check-outs beyond one day, a panic button, and unlimited live-location lookups. Its price is displayed at purchase, and subscriptions renew automatically each billing period unless canceled. Familo runs on Android and iOS, but is not currently available on computers. The privacy policy says the service complies with GDPR and uses TLS/SSL encryption for data transfers; precise real-time location data is stored for up to two weeks, with only the latest 300 activities per group retained.

OpenFamily is a free, open-source, self-hosted GPS tracker for household location sharing. Its live map shows family members with photo avatars, battery levels, last-seen times, and movement states, with updates through WebSocket. Saved places can trigger arrival and departure alerts. Safety tools include SOS with a ten-second countdown, check-ins with notes, and non-emergency requests for family help. Location history includes map trails, place stays, stops, and in-transit segments; detailed history is retained for 90 days. People join using invite codes and can be assigned admin, member, or child roles. A web admin panel manages accounts and families, creates invites, configures optional SMS, downloads the Android APK, and displays the map. OpenFamily runs as a Docker Compose stack on a VPS, Synology NAS, home server, or LAN machine. It supports Android, iOS, web, API, and self-hosted use. Account and location data are stored in PostgreSQL on the operator's server; default map tile hosts can see the area being viewed.