Gaurav Rathore
His write-ups blend creativity, personal experience, and tailored technical advice, meeting reader needs effectively.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
In this digital era, kids have been exposed to great risks, and statistics show that 70% of kids become victims of cyber threats at one point. This has raised several concerns for parents, and they are not sure how to deal with the situation.
Well, in such cases, parental control apps have proven to be beneficial and a lifesaver. Guardians can keep tabs on what their kids are doing online and stop various things before anything could happen. But again, what’s the best parental tool for Android?
To make things easier for you, I’m here with the 10 best parental control apps for Android devices in 2025. Let’s get started.
Over the last 10 years, there has been a huge development in Android smartphone and small device technology, which has brought easy internet access at a low cost to virtually everyone, including children of all ages.
Kids today have access to a wide world of information, entertainment, and communication beyond anything their parents experienced in the past.
This has many benefits for society. However, it also brings considerable risks, as predators see it as a chance to scam the unsuspecting, or for cyberbullying and trolling.
The internet is also filled with a vast amount of risky sites, from violent, graphic images to pornography and other adult content.
Most adults can deal appropriately with all these dangers, but the real risk is to children, who may not always recognize the hazards. It’s just their curiosity that leads them to this side of the internet, and the outcomes aren’t great.
Because of this, parental control apps were developed ,and now they’ve become quite crucial.
When choosing an Android parental control app, there are some essential criteria. This includes:
Apps should be easy to use and can be set up remotely from anywhere.
It should have features like keyword alerts, geofencing alerts, and real-time communication.
The apps should have reliable customer support, 24/7.
Parental control software has several necessary features. This includes:
Block inappropriate websites, apps, and content as required.
It should allow parents to set limits on screen time, and certain apps should be put under a timer.
Manage, block, or uninstall specific apps remotely
real-time location tracking, history of where the kids have been in the past days or hours, and geo-fencing are must-features.
Parental control apps should come with social media monitoring, chat, call recording, and browsing history checks.
Good parental control software should include most of the key features to be effective in helping parents monitor and manage their kids’ internet usage.
Social media tracking:
FamiGuard remotely monitors behavior and reads messages on various apps, including Snapchat, Discord, Skype, WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, Telegram, and other popular social media.
Location Tracking:
It comes with a built-in GPS and Wi-Fi tracker so that you can see where your kids might be. You can also set geo-restriction, so if they try to get past certain areas, you’ll be notified immediately.
Remote Control Features
Even if the device is in incognito mode, the remote-control feature will capture screenshots, and block any suspicious or harmful sits/apps.
Limit Screen Time
You can easily manage the screen time of the linked device through its dashboard. Simple, right?
Sensitive Words Alert
Add sensitive words to a list. In case those words get used, an alert would be sent immediately.
Ease of Use
Simple to install and set up on Android, all features controlled from user user-friendly dashboard.
Customer support
FamiGuard offers great customer support and will clear all the doubts that parents might have.
Web Filter:
Customizable website filter with 30+ categories, and the ability to add specific URLs to bypass the restrictions.
Screen time management:
It has tools that allow parents to set weekly or daily screen time limits. It can also be implanted on apps.
Location tracking:
24/7 real-time tracking with geo-fence. It wouldn’t be turned off by the kids, until parents have entered the password.
Ease of use:
It has user-friendly designs, and the entire platform can be navigated easily.
Customer support:
Phone support is provided with Care Plus and via FAQ’s, email, etc.
Social media tracking:
Limited to a few apps
Web Filter:
Detects a wide range of potentially harmful websites.
Ease of use:
You can connect with over 30 social media platforms for conducting core analytics and establishing new rules for follow-ups
Dashboard:
An extremely responsive dashboard that is accessible to everyone.
Customer service
No live support, email only
Location tracking
Geofencing but no live tracking. Kids need to make check-in requests.
Screen Time Management
No option to limit specific apps or games. Time limits should only be set for bedtime and school times.
Keyword alerts
Focuses on social media and emails
Location tracking
24/7 live tracking and geofence with real-time alerts.
Ease of use
Just after its installation, it starts working in the background and simultaneously updates all the information in the parental dashboard.
Screen time management
mSpy is designed as a monitoring app and doesn’t have any screen time restrictions.
Web Filtering
No web filtering, monitor only
Customer service
24/7 consumer care chat line empowered by human support.
Dashboard
Collects and sorts a lot of data, the dashboard can be a bit crowded
Social media tracking
Visual access to SMS messages, as well as conversations and media files from platforms like Facebook, WhatsApp, Snapchat, and emails, but no blocking capability.
Web filtering
Net Nanny allows you to set filters for specific apps, websites, and create custom filters.
Screen time management
It has a daily Screen Time Allocation to choose how much screen time a child is allowed. The child can also ensure how much screen time is left.
App blocking
Select specific apps to either block or whitelist, from a list of 80 popular apps.
Keywords
There is no availability of common keywords, yet it uses #### over common curse words.
Location tracking
GPS tracking and geofencing, with location history. A child can disable the location without an appropriate lock.
Ease of use
Complicated installation – changes are required to phone settings to allow Net Nanny to run in the background, access the location, filter apps, and enforce the time management feature.
Once the installation is complete, the app works in the background and can be completely managed through the remote dashboard.
Dashboard
Uploads all screenshots, keylogs, social interactions, and browser history, and saves them for later viewing
Web Filter
Fully customizable filter based on age and other criteria
Screen time management
Set weekly and daily screen time limits
Multi-device management
Can assess 20 dashboards after opting for a single subscription.
Ease of Use
It has a cloud-based data integration for managing parental control filters and data viewership.
Location tracking
Has the ability to show children avatars in real time on a live location map.
Customer service
Phone, email, live chat. Email response time is 24 hours.
Social media tracking
Monitors social media sites for harmful content, but parents cannot view online activity in real time.
Location tracking
Enable 24/7 location monitoring with infinite geofencing and valuable history insights.
Web filtering
No web filter, monitoring app only
Screen time management
It monitors screen-time effectiveness without setting any boundaries.
Ease of use
Device management
Limited to one device per subscription
Screen time management
Set limits for individual apps, and create a calendar to set screen time limits on a daily and weekly basis.
Web filter
Can filter and block all pornography and adult sites, but only when using Boomerang’s SPIN browser.
Location tracking
Real-time GPS tracking and geofencing
Social media monitoring
Very limited, only monitors YouTube
Ease of use
It can require a learning period to understand how the dashboard works.
Customer support
No live chat, only an FAQ page. Customer support by email only.
Screen time management
Create a daily screen time limit, enforce screen time limits for each app, and remotely pause the device at any time.
App management
Manage apps remotely. Block over 30 apps from opening or prevent them from being downloaded to the child’s phone.
Web filter
Customizable web filter with 20 categories over a wide range of topics, with the option to add specific URLs to a block list
Ease of use
Easy to manage all features from a web-based dashboard.
Location tracking
This feature is not available
Social media monitoring
Focuses on filtering and screen time limits, does not allow viewing of social media access or messages, SMS, emails, etc.
App blocking
Can block and pause all apps as required
Screen time management
No screen time limiting, only phone pause / remote shut off temporarily
Social media monitoring
Does not allow live viewing of social media access, but records all incoming chats and messages from all social media platforms, including Facebook, Whatsapp etc.
Location tracking
This feature is not available
Web filter
While it doesn’t offer the web filtering option, it does have keyword alerts so you can set them and receive updates if they are used.
Ease of use
User user-friendly web-based dashboard can be accessed from any location.
Customer support
24/7 live chat option with technical help available
The above review provides a snapshot of the most popular parental control apps available in 2025. Each has its own set of capabilities and is different from the other. Some might be focused only on monitoring, and some on managing.
What does stand out is that FamiGuard has the most features and covers all the required criteria for an effective parental control app. Some of the above-mentioned apps don’t have location tracking, and some don’t have the filtering option, but apps like FamiGuard have everything that you are looking for.
Most parental control apps offer either a free trial period or a live demo on their website, so before selecting an app to subscribe to, you should check them out and see if they match all your needs and requirements.
You can use parental control apps to control your child’s phone through yours. It offers various features like screen monitoring and content filtering.
Setting up parental control is easy, regardless of which app you are using. Just download the software and link it with your kid’s device and make suitable customizations.
Yes, parental controls are good, especially if you have underage kids. They might not know things they are getting into, and you can stop any misconduct before it takes place.
