Qustodio vs. Bark: Which parental control app is better?

Bark and Qustodio are two popular parental control apps with different approaches to online safety for kids. Bark alerts parents about concerning messages and web search history while keeping benign messages private. Qustodio prefers the lock-down approach, letting parents see full browsing and text history.

While your choice ultimately depends on your parenting style and individual concerns, we highly recommend Bark.

From what we’ve gathered, kids appreciate the privacy aspect of Bark while parents love the strength of its content filters and the immediacy of its alerts. And no other parental control comes close to screening as many messaging platforms as Bark.

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Bark’s unique parental control philosophy emphasises child privacy—even for well-meaning parents. You’ll only get to read texts or see your child's browsing history if Bark detects a problem. Even your child's location isn’t shared without their permission.

Because parents have less opportunity to guide their children’s device usage, we think Bark works best for teens.

Read our Bark review to learn more.

Qustodio gives parents more control over who their kids can call or text and how much time they spend on their devices. There’s no social media message monitoring, though, so Qustodio is better for kids who don’t have social accounts.

Read our Qustodio review to learn more.

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Bark and Qustodio don’t have much in common with each other—aside from a desire to protect your child from cyberbullying and inappropriate online content.

Here’s what you can expect from both:

• Geofencing
• Web filtering
• Some degree of text monitoring
• App installation management
• Remote internet shutdown
• Uninstall protection (password protected)
• App and web-based parent dashboards
• Email alerts for parents
• App and screen time usage reports

Bark and Qustodio have quite a few differences. As you’ll see in the chart below, Bark typically offers what Qustodio doesn’t, and vice versa.

In our experience, Bark’s features seem to work well for teens, whereas Qustodio works well for younger kids.

Don’t forget to check our full list of best parental control apps if neither of these options seems right for you.

There’s one major difference between Bark and Qustodio that requires a bit of an explanation: location tracking.

Unlike most other parental control apps, Bark emphasises the child’s right to privacy. That goes for location updates too—parents can ask kids to send a location update through Bark, but the child is free to ignore it.

If you want to see where your child is no matter what, Qustodio is the better option. Qustodio shows your child’s current location on a map and saves their location history for 30 days.

Instead of logging location updates at regular time intervals, Qustodio updates your child’s location whenever a new location is detected. This helps preserve their phone’s battery life.

Qustodio is one of a handful of parental control apps to offer a functional free version for one device. Most— including Bark—offer a free trial but not a free version. Still, we recommend investing in a paid Qustodio package to access all features, including text message monitoring.

These are both effective parental control apps. In our experience, Bark prevails over every competitor—but it may not be right for you and your child. That’s where software like Qustodio comes in and emphasises the “control” aspect.

• Bark: With an effective content filter and unparalleled message monitoring, Bark protects kids of all ages.
• Qustodio: Because it shows full activity logs and gives you more shut-down tools, Qustodio is the better choice if you want to take a hands-on approach to digital safety.

Still undecided? Read our full Bark review or Qustodio review. Or, learn about choosing a parental control app.

We compared Bark and Qustodio by testing them both and comparing them across 20 specifications and features. We also read online reviews (including those written by kids) for each parental control app to understand what real users like and dislike. Learn more about how we review products by visiting our methodology page.

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