Six apps · who sees whom · what each one gets wrong
The best family tracking app, six of them compared — ours included.
Most of these lists are written by somebody selling one of the entries. So is this one, and it says which entry is ours in the first line of it. What follows is six apps, what each is genuinely the right answer for, and the part each would rather you found out later.
Start trackingBefore the list
How to read a list written by one of the apps on it
We make Family Tracker, which is number one below because this is our page — not because a jury sat. Treat the order as ours and the facts as checkable: every line about somebody else comes from that company's own support pages, read in September 2026, and none of it involves money, because tiers in this category change faster than any page can keep up.
- Anything you cannot verify yourself in ten minutes is an opinion. The three checks at the bottom of this page are the ones we would run.
- Apps whose selling point is that the person being located is not told are not on this list, and would not pass check one.
- A family tracker app only works if the whole family will install it — so "which phones does it reach" carries more weight here than any feature count.
Checked against each app's own documentation, September 2026
Six family tracking apps, and who each one is actually for
There is no single best family tracking app, because these six are not competing for the same household. One is a shared map, one is a driving report with a map attached, two are built into a phone you already own, one is a parent-to-child supervision tool, and one arrives with a carrier bill.
Family Tracker
Best for a household on mixed phones where everybody is on the same list, on the same terms
Ours. Everyone joins by invitation, everyone appears in one list — you included — and every row carries the age of its last reading rather than a bare dot. The switch that pauses you sits on your own name, not in a screen belonging to whoever created the circle.
What it does well
- Everybody sees everybody. There is no view that shows one person more than the others, including for the person who set the circle up.
- Android, iPhone, or a browser tab for the relative who will not install anything.
- Every row says how old it is: Updated, Quiet since, No location yet, Paused sharing.
- SOS is free on every plan, and location history is deleted after 30 days by a scheduled job.
Where it falls down
- It cannot find a phone that never joined — including your own, where Find My and Find Hub do far more.
- No driving reports, no crash detection.
- No parental controls: no screen time, no app approval, no content filters.
- It is new. If you want the app your neighbours already have, that is not this one.
Life360
Best for families who want driving detail and crash detection alongside the map
The category's best-known app, built on Circles: members share location with the Circle, and a member who switches sharing off shows as "Location Sharing Paused" rather than disappearing quietly. Its distinguishing half is the car: it works out when somebody is driving and scores what happened on the way.
What it does well
- Circles are mutual, and a paused member is shown as paused rather than left at a stale point.
- Drive Detection reports phone use while driving, speeding, hard braking and rapid acceleration.
- Crash Detection is offered in the US, Canada, the UK, Australia and New Zealand.
- An SOS alert shares your location with every Circle you are in, and Check In shares a spot even while sharing is off.
Where it falls down
- Much of what it collects is about how you drive, which is more than a map about where people are needs to know.
- Emergency dispatch and several alerts depend on which membership the payer holds and which country you are in.
- The feature list is long enough that a family often uses a tenth of it.
Apple Find My
Best for an all-Apple household — and for finding your own iPhone, which no third-party app can do as well
Built into the phone, with nothing extra to install. Location sharing is arranged one person at a time: they send a request, you choose whether to share and for how long, and you can stop or hide it later from the same screen.
What it does well
- Nothing to install, nothing to sign up for if the family is already on Apple.
- Sharing is accepted per person, for an hour, until the end of the day, or indefinitely.
- You can stop sharing with one person, or hide your location from everyone, from the app.
- It also finds your own device and can make it ring, lock it, or erase it.
Where it falls down
- Everyone needs an Apple device and an Apple ID, so the relative on Android cannot be on it at all.
- It is person-to-person rather than one shared family list, so nobody can see the whole group at a glance.
- The half most families want — a group everyone joins once — is not really what it is.
Google Family Link
Best for a parent setting rules on a child's Android, where the relationship is meant to be asymmetric
A supervision tool rather than a family map: it blocks or allows apps, sets a bedtime and daily screen limits, and checks the location of the child's device. When an app is blocked while in use, the child gets a one-minute warning before it closes.
What it does well
- Block or allow individual apps, and decide what the child can download.
- Bedtime and daily screen limits, with the time spent per app.
- Checks the location of the child's Android or compatible Fitbit device.
Where it falls down
- One-directional by design: the parent sees the child, and the child does not see the parent.
- The supervised device has to be Android or a compatible Fitbit.
- It answers "what is my child doing on this phone", not "where is everybody" — a family location tracking app it is not.
Google Maps location sharing
Best for sharing with one or two people, temporarily, without adding another app to anybody's phone
The option most families already have installed. You pick the people you share with, and for each of them you also choose whether they may set notifications about you. Sharing is ended from your Google account, under People & sharing.
What it does well
- No new app on anybody's phone, on Android or iPhone.
- Per person, you choose whether they are allowed to create notifications about you.
- Stopping is a single control in your Google account rather than a conversation.
Where it falls down
- Person by person again, so there is no one list the household reads.
- No SOS, no check-in, no battery warning — it is a map, not a safety net.
- The settings live in two places, the app and the account page, which is where people lose track of who they are sharing with.
Verizon Family
Best for a US household already on one carrier account that wants parental controls on the same bill
The carrier option: it comes with a standard Verizon monthly mobile account at no additional cost, and covers location alerts, content filters and screen time from the same place the phone plan lives. The richer level adds driving insights and needs one line on a specific unlimited plan.
What it does well
- Included at no additional cost with a standard Verizon monthly mobile account.
- Location alerts, content filters and screen time controls in one place.
- Nothing separate to pay for if the family is already on that plan.
Where it falls down
- Only eligible lines on the Verizon mobile plan can be added, so a relative on another carrier cannot join.
- It follows the account rather than the household: whoever owns the plan holds the controls.
- US only, and the richer level depends on which unlimited plan the line is on.
The two columns that decide it
Who sees whom, and which phones can join
Feature lists rarely separate these apps; these two columns do. A circle half the family cannot join is not a circle, and an app where one person sees the others without being seen is a different product from a shared map — whatever the marketing page calls it.
| App | Who sees whom | Android + iPhone together | What it is really for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Family Tracker | Everybody in the circle sees everybody, each with their own switch | Yes, plus a browser tab | One shared map |
| Life360 | Everybody in a Circle; a member who stops shows as paused | Yes | A shared map plus driving detail |
| Apple Find My | Person to person, each request accepted on its own | No — Apple devices only | Your own devices, and people who share with you |
| Google Family Link | The parent sees the child's device, not the reverse | The supervised device is Android or a compatible Fitbit | Supervising a child's phone |
| Google Maps location sharing | Person to person, for as long as you choose | Yes | Temporary sharing, nothing installed |
| Verizon Family | The account holder sees eligible lines on the plan | Yes, on that account | Parental controls on the phone bill |
Ten minutes, any app above
Three checks that settle it faster than any comparison table
None of these is about features, and all three can be run on a new account in one evening. Run them on us as readily as on anybody else — the answers we would give are written beside each one.
Check 1 — look for your own name in the list
- Do this
- Open the member list on the phone of whoever set the family up.
- Look at
- Their own row. Is it in the same list as everybody else, carrying the same pause control?
- It passes when
- The organiser appears exactly like everybody else and can be paused exactly like everybody else. An app that shows them a different screen has already chosen a side, and it is not the side of the person being located.
Check 2 — pause sharing, then read the other phone
- Do this
- Turn your own sharing off, then pick up another phone in the household.
- Look at
- Your row on that screen. Does it say you paused, or does it keep showing your last position as though it were current?
- It passes when
- It says you paused. A map that leaves an old dot looking current is the one that causes arguments, because somebody drives to it. The best app for family tracking is the one that admits when it does not know.
Check 3 — ask how long history is kept, and what removes it
- Do this
- Find the number in the privacy policy or in the app — not on the marketing page.
- Look at
- A period and a mechanism. "We delete old data regularly" is neither of those things.
- It passes when
- There is a stated number of days and a stated thing that does the deleting. Ours is 30 days, removed by a scheduled job rather than by a request you have to remember to make.
Questions about choosing
So what is the best app for tracking family?
Whichever one the whole household will actually join, on the terms everybody in it can live with. If half the family is on Android and half on iPhone, that rules out the built-in Apple option; if what you want is screen time rules for a ten-year-old, a shared map is not the tool.
Why is your own app first on this list?
Because it is our page, and pretending a jury put it there would be worse. The entry says where it loses, the checks let you disprove us in ten minutes, and the other five entries are described from their own documentation rather than from our opinion of them.
Why are some well-known apps missing?
Two reasons. Apps built on the person being located not being told would fail the first check, so they are not here. And anything we could not verify from the maker's own pages was left out rather than guessed at.
Does a longer feature list mean a better family tracker app?
Not in this category. A family uses a handful of things in a week, and the best family tracking app is usually the one that does those few without an argument about who can see whom.
What should I check before comparing anything else?
Whether half the family will install anything at all. A circle that half the household cannot join is not a circle, however long its feature list, so check whether the app also runs in a browser. The phone tracker page says what the browser version can and cannot do here.
How do I test accuracy before committing?
Stand somewhere you know, indoors and out, and read what the app says. Good ones name a saved place or give a distance from one when they cannot place you precisely, instead of claiming a street corner. The location tracker page explains why precision changes indoors.
Run the checks against the detail