Children are the most vulnerable in today’s society. They are always at risk of being exploited, humiliated, bullied, and abused by social predators both physically and emotionally. But, it’s not possible to keep them confined in the house under parent’s watch as well; at some point, they must attend school, social gathering, meet friends, etc. In that case, there seemed to be no alternative for the parents than being worried about their kids when they are out in the world.
Well, it was true until a few years back. Today, parents can send their children outside without being feared for their safety and security – thanks to the parental control apps. Their child phone tracker apps opened a new era of parenting where people can carry out their usual routine and still be aware of their children’s every location, phone call, message, and online activity, no matter whether they are in school or in the playground or anywhere else.
Top 10 Best Cell Phone Tracking Apps of 2021
In this article, we have compiled a list of 10 parental control apps for Android and iOS, and pitted them against each other to find the best phone tracker app without permission. So, without wasting any more time, let’s get started with today’s review.
NEXSPY
Nexspy is not a parental control app in that sense; it’s actually much more than that. It’s a comprehensive smartphone monitoring suite with lots of functions that makes it one of the top spy apps money can buy. Yes, you can definitely use Nexspy as a kids tracker app; however, it will be a bit overkill. On the other, Nexspy has a fantastic pricing structure that makes it almost as affordable as the majority of the popular parental control tools available in the market, but with a few times more unique features and functions.
Features:
- It can monitor call logs and message history in both Android and iOS devices with necessary details, like name, number, date, time, and more.
- It can fetch a detailed contact list from your kid’s mobile.
- It can track and record both regular calls (calls made via conventional mobile networks) and calls made through VoIP apps.
- In iOS devices, Nexspy uses Facetime feature to record the surroundings silently.
- Every email, sent or received in your child’s phone, can be read, regardless of whether it’s iOS or Android.
- Popular social media apps like Messenger, WhatsApp, Facebook can be monitored whenever your kids use them.
- You can keep track of their location history as Nexspy’s GPS tracking feature is amazingly accurate.
- Filter and monitor every browser activity of your kid as Nexspy enables you to check which sites they are opening.
Pricing:
As mentioned already, Nexspy is on the rather cheaper side if one considers how much it offers. Pricing starts from as low as only $19 per month if you go for the yearly subscription deal. Or you can pay just $39 monthly in case you don’t like to commit for a year-long package.
Find My Kids
Did you ever wish that you always knew where your kids are? Do you feel worried and can’t concentrate on your day job thinking about your child’s whereabouts when you’re in office? Worry no more as Find My Kids can help you track a cell phone location for free. Location data can be shared with authorized people so that multiple people in a family or a group of friends can track each other’s locations easily. All the GPS data can be stored so that you can view later as well. This app is available in both Google Play Store and Apple Store for free of cost; however, to use the app a nominal monthly subscription fee will be charged.
Read more: How to Track a Cell Phone Location without Installing Software?
KidsConnect
Unlike other apps in this list of child phone trackers, this is actually a 4G device with GPS tracker which is quite unique and one of its kind. It is kind of an all-in-one solution for your child’s safety and security, which has been designed to give your kid the ultimate security she deserves. It comes with built-in GPS so that you can locate your child in real-time.
It comes with various crucial features like a physical SOS button for emergency situation, geofencing, GPS tracking, monitoring by voice command, speed dial to saved emergency numbers, and a contact book. The device is available in Amazon for $129.95, and it comes with three monthly plans according to your needs. The small plan starts from $15 and the large plan is available for $20 per month.
Norton Family Parental Control
This is a rather unique application unlike other monitoring software we usually review. For most of the tracking apps, stealth mode is an obvious feature that parents like as they don’t want their kids to feel to be watched all the time. While that’s a justified act on the parent’s part, Norton Family Parental Control software actually chosen the opposite path.
Norton believes that parental control and child safety can’t be achieved without the active participation of the kids; because at the end of the day, it’s them whose safety is the only goal here. Hence, this tool encourages parents to make their children aware and trained to follow the rules so that they know when they should do what.
You can install the app on multiple devices; there’s no restriction as such. So, you can use the software to track all of your kids at once without having to pay for extra subscription.
FamiSafe
Famisafe is a pretty basic monitoring app without much fancy features. For instance, it allows you to track GPS location, monitor applications in the device, and review browsing history. But the features premium iOs and Android spy apps offer such as call and message log checking function is unavailable in Famisafe.
However, it has one major advantage that even elite spy apps don’t offer, which is available in both play store and apple store. Therefore, you can install the app in your device, and there’s no need to root or jailbreak your phone. Which is, a strict requirement for many apps to work properly. Although it’s not loaded with a lot of features, it offers a good range of functions for your parental control purpose.
Pricewise, it’s a steal for just $9.99 per month fee, and you can obtain a full year subscription for a one-time price of $59.99 only.
Read more: How to Track Someone’s Phone by Their Number?
mSpy
Regardless of how much you love your kids or worry for them, you can’t just monitor every moment of their lives as there will be times when they will go to their schools and meet their friends, and you won’t have any idea what they are doing when not in front of you.
This is the kind of thoughts that make parents worried most for their kids, but parents can’t be with them 24×7 anyway, right? Actually, wrong! If you’re a parent and having a similar feeling, you can be with your kids 24×7 – well, may not be physically, but with the help of parental control apps like mSpy.
It’s a great app to track an iPhone location that has almost every feature that a parent needs to know about the child, such as web browsing history monitoring, social apps activity tracking, call recording, call history monitoring, message logs, live location tracking, and lots of others. It’s compatible with iOS and Android both platforms.
However, mSpy is an expensive app compared to similar other Android or iPhone spy apps available to buy. Its monthly cost can set you back for a hefty $69.99, which is pretty frankly, almost 60% higher than its closest competition.
FamilyTime
Familytime is yet another free app to track a cell phone location. Despite being marketed as a mere “parental control” tool, this is a fully-featured phone monitoring app with some unique functions. However, one thing makes it apart from being a stand-alone spy tool, which is lack of stealth or hidden mode. Once installed, this app will appear on the app drawer, and to be accessible to the device owner, aka. your kid. Hence, this is not a spying or tracking tool; instead, it needs active engagement from your child. It has a panic button that can be enabled by your kid if she suspects any emergency.
Here are some of its prominent features –
Parents can control exactly how much screen time to be allowed to their children. If you feel the phone causing distraction, you can block access to the phone remotely to help them concentrate on their studies, homework, etc.
At night, you can set a certain time when the phone will be locked, and it will remain so until the next morning. That will make sure that your kid doesn’t overuse the device and get deprived of the much necessary sleep they need.
Similarly, a fixed time can be set for the homework schedule. Thus your kids won’t be able to spend extra time with their phone without finishing the homework first.
Do you think that with the internet on their device, it’s very easy for your kids to access adult materials online? FamilyTime can entirely block even the slightest hint of pornographic or 18+ content effectively.
Safesearch is another unique feature in this app. With this function, FamilyTime can block search results that come with adult content.
Read more: How to Find Someone’s Location by Cell Phone Number?
Mobicip
Parental control has become much more complex than it was just a few years ago. All you needed a simple app to track children’s phone and that would’ve served the purpose.
However, things are not so straightforward nowadays as kids use multiple devices like computer, phone, tablet, etc. to go online. So, either you have to install different apps in different devices separately (that surely would make your monitoring job harder as you have to maintain separate account dashboards to track each app separately as well), or find a software that’s compatible with all the devices your child use and let you monitor them under a single user account.
There are only a few apps that can work on many platforms, and Mobicip is a prime example. With Mobicip, you don’t have to worry about buying an exclusive license for every device; instead, a single Mobicip subscription is enough to monitor all the devices your kid may have access to. Subscription cost of a Mobicip license is only $39.99 yearly, and you can set it up in 5 devices maximum.
Kaspersky SafeKids
Kaspersky Lab, world leader in antivirus technology, designed this software for millennial parents while keeping their demands in mind. Installing and monitoring by Kaspersky Safekids is pretty effortless, and the tracking reports are available in the “My Kaspersky” account.
Kaspersky Lab designed this tool to meet the requirements of the parents who are looking for an easy to operate, yet effective parental control software to monitor their children. All the tracking settings are customizable as per individual needs, and reports can be filtered and reviewed anytime inside the My Kaspersky account as per your convenience.
Safekids keeps you aware of your child’s GPS location, browsing activities, application and games access history, Facebook and messenger logs, and screen time by instant notification, and by reports saved in the dashboard. You can try the app for 7 days without paying anything, and after that 7 days trial – it will cost only $14.95.
FamiGuard
FamiGuard is the last entry in this parental control app review, but that definitely doesn’t make it the least. In fact, it’s one of the most popular apps to monitor kids’ phones with thousands of happy users worldwide. All the usual features like controlling the target device remotely, geofencing, location tracking in real-time, and more comes loaded with FamiGuard, so no complains there.
You can also filter websites by keywords or content and control phone screen time to limit your kid’s phone access time as per your liking. FamiGuard offers a three days trial period with all premium features activated so that you could have a clear idea before you decide whether to buy it or not. Subscription price on the cheaper side as well, with only a $4.99 monthly fee for an annual package.
