FamilyTime vs OpenParental

FamilyTime is a parental-control service for managing children’s device use, activity, and location. Listed tools include content filtering, screen-time schedules, app blocking, activity reports, live location, visited places, geofences, and teen speed-limit alerts. Parents connect the FamilyTime Jr app on a child’s device by scanning a QR code; settings can prevent the app from being uninstalled. Parent access is available through Windows or Mac dashboards and mobile and web apps. FamilyTime supports Android, iOS, Windows, and Mac, though calls and text-message monitoring are Android-only. Social monitoring covers chats on WhatsApp, WhatsApp Business, BiP, Instagram, TikTok, imo, Twitch, and Signal. The service provides 30-day activity reports and says it uses end-to-end encryption for children’s data and is GDPR-compliant. A three-day free trial is listed. MyFamily is $2.41 a month, billed annually at $29 after the trial, for one child device; MyFamily3 is $4.08 a month, billed annually at $49, for three devices; MyFamily5 is $5.75 a month, billed annually at $69, for five devices. Yearly subscriptions renew after 365 calendar days.

OpenParental is free, open-source parental-control software for Android, built around visible, consent-based supervision for parents and teenagers. A parent creates a short pairing code, which the child app claims before receiving a scoped device token. Parents can remotely lock or ping a device, set app blocklists, configure per-app daily limits, and create schedules. The parent dashboard or alert feed can receive periodic location, daily per-app usage, newly installed apps, and tamper events. Alerts can cover tampering, a device going dark, new apps, and unblock requests. Live screen viewing uses a setup-time MediaProjection grant and sends JPEG frames through Socket.IO. The project excludes covert audio, camera, ambient recording, covert screen capture, server-side storage of minors’ photos, Device Owner, and device wipe. The backend is self-hosted with Node 20+, Docker, PostgreSQL 16, and Redis 7. The child app is a sideloaded Kotlin Android APK; the parent app is Flutter with a Play Store track.