There is no single replacement, and in many cases none is needed. Family Link handles three things well — time limits, app approval and device location — and Google does not publish any fee for it, so the question is not what replaces it but what you are missing. If what you are missing is the content of conversations, no free tool covers that, and that is where the paid ones come in, such as Qustodio or Bark. If you want a closed environment for a young child, Samsung Kids is enough; if you only want them to use the phone less, Digital Wellbeing already comes with Android.
The search for “alternatives to Family Link” almost always comes from a specific frustration: it does not show messages, your child found a way around it, or at a certain age it stopped being useful. This guide compares what is available today against each tool’s official documentation, and it also says when switching apps fixes nothing.
Family Link is Google’s parental control for Android and ChromeOS, and you manage it from your own phone. On its official page Google lists: screen time limits, limits on specific apps, seeing where the device is and getting a notification when your child arrives at or leaves a place, making it ring, seeing how much battery is left, managing your child’s account and settings, and parental controls in Search, Chrome, YouTube and Play, including download approval. On price it is worth being precise, because this is the point where exaggeration is most common. Google does not publish a fee or a paid plan for Family Link on any of its official pages, and its setup guide states that the Google Account is created at no cost and that the family group does not require a subscription. As with any app, the final price is visible on the Google Play listing before you install. It is worth saying before going any further: if what worries you is how many hours they spend on the phone, what they install and where they are, you already have that covered.
It has three limits, all three documented by Google itself. Content. Reading messages does not appear in the official feature list, and the filters it offers apply to Google services: Search, Chrome, YouTube and Play. The activity report tells you your child spent two hours on WhatsApp, not who they talked to. The reach of that filter. Google says so in its own FAQ: keep in mind that filters are not perfect, so your child may sometimes come across explicit, graphic or other content you would rather they did not see. The platform. Google warns that if your child signs in from an iOS device, a web browser or a device that simply cannot be supervised, their activity will only be partially supervised: time limits and the management of which apps they use do not apply there.
The idea that at 13 a child can remove supervision on their own is widespread. Google’s documentation says otherwise: children under 18 need their parents’ approval to stop supervision, and the parents of a child over 13 can stop it at any time. When your child turns 13 Google emails them, and you as well, to say they can update their account and that they can do so while keeping supervision in place. It matters if that was exactly why you were looking for an alternative. And the other way around: supervision does not expire on its own, so letting it go is a decision of yours, talked through, and not an oversight.
Yes, some teenagers get around Family Link, and it is not a rumor: Bitdefender documented nine techniques. Among them, using developer tools and ADB, hiding apps in a manufacturer’s secure folder or private space — Samsung’s Secure Folder and equivalents —, duplicating an app with the cloning feature some phones include, changing the system clock or restarting the device to reset the timers, and taking advantage of apps marked as “always allowed”. The underlying mechanism is always the same, and Bitdefender points it out: a good part of the restrictions are applied on the device itself and not on a server, so anything that opens a second environment inside the phone or alters the time leaves a gap. The step by step is not here, and not because it is a secret. What you do need to know is that the bypass exists, that you do not have to be a computer genius and that no alternative is immune to the same logic: they all run inside the phone they are trying to limit. What narrows the margin is keeping the system updated — several of those techniques depend on old devices —, not leaving developer options enabled and checking every so often that supervision is still working. And your child knowing it is there: a tool discovered by accident has already lost.
Digital Wellbeing (included with Android). It shows device use by day and by app, and it allows timers that close the app when they reach zero, a Focus mode and a Bedtime mode. It is not remote supervision, it is a tool for whoever is using the phone: with a teenager who wants to regulate themselves it usually works better than an imposed restriction. Samsung Kids and the manufacturers’ kids modes (they come with the phone). They create a closed space where you manage the apps, the contacts, the media content and the music, with a daily playtime limit that can be set per day of the week and the option to review usage time by day and by app. For young children it usually works better than Family Link, because the rest of the phone stays out of sight; for a teenager it is no use. Other manufacturers offer equivalent modes, with another name and another reach. Qustodio (paid, with a free version limited to a single device). It is the closest thing to Family Link with more on top: web filters by category, reports and social network alerts. The fine print matters: call and message tracking is only in the Complete plan, several advanced message alerts work on Android only, and at the time of this review the entry plan is listed at $59.95 a year against $104.95 for the complete plan. Bark (paid, limited availability). It changes the model: according to its documentation it analyzes messages, email, YouTube and more than thirty apps and social networks looking for signs of cyberbullying, adult content, sexual predators, suicidal ideation or threats of violence, and it alerts you only when it detects something. They summarize it themselves: you will not have access to everything on your child’s phone, only to the things you may need to know. It is the approach that exposes their privacy the least. The obstacle here is geographic: its official support states that Bark is available in the United States, Australia and South Africa. CatWatchful, by the same standard and with the obvious caveat that it is this site’s app. It is a paid supervision app for Android that is installed on the child’s phone and shows the content of conversations, location and periodic screenshots. It does not set time limits or block apps: it does not replace Family Link, it answers a different question. If what you need is limits, Family Link does it better and without you paying anything.
Write in one line what brought you here. If it is “they spend too many hours” or “they installed something I do not want”, Family Link already solves that. If it is “I do not know who they talk to”, no free option covers it and that is where paying starts to make sense. If it is “they got around it”, switching apps does not fix it. An uncomfortable finding to close with. Researchers at the University of Central Florida presented two studies in 2018 — one on 215 parent and teenager pairs, another on 736 reviews written by young people — and found that the use of parental control apps was associated with more online risks, not fewer, including explicit content they had not looked for, harassment and sexual solicitations. Parental involvement and direct supervision, by contrast, were associated with fewer peer problems and less online victimization, and neither of those two things correlated with the use of the apps. It is an association, not a cause, and the data is from 2018. Even so, the point holds: the tool accompanies a conversation, it does not replace it.
Google does not publish any price or paid plan for Family Link on its product page, in its FAQ or in its setup guide, and that guide states that the Google Account is created at no cost and that the family group does not require a subscription. As with any app, the final price appears on the Google Play listing before you install. What costs money are the alternatives that add what Family Link does not do.
Not among the official tools. The free ones cover usage time, apps and location, not the content of conversations; the ones that show content are paid. If one promises to do it without charging, it is worth asking how it makes its money.
Not on their own. Google’s documentation says that children under 18 need their parents’ approval to stop supervision, and that the parents of a child over 13 can stop it at any time.
That changes the picture. Google warns that if your child signs in from an iOS device, a web browser or a device that cannot be supervised, their activity is only partially supervised: time limits and the management of which apps they use do not apply there. The starting point in that case is the iPhone’s own controls.
It is useful for everyday use, which is almost everything: the limits are enforced, downloads go through you and location is there. What it does not do is resist a teenager determined to dodge it, and that does not improve by switching apps.
This guide is general information about parental control tools, not medical or psychological advice, and it was not reviewed by a health or parenting professional. The features, plans and prices of the apps mentioned change often and vary by country and phone model: the pricing data corresponds to the review date and should be checked on each maker’s official page before paying. CatWatchful is this site’s product and has no commercial relationship with the other tools compared.
Related guides: Parental controls on Android · Talking to your child about parental controls · Recommended screen time · Phone rules by age · Is it legal to monitor my child?