Review Insights · App Store
Parental Controls by Ohana
Ohana Software GmbH · 316 ratings · ★ 4.1
4.1
★★★★★
316 ratings
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Top complaints - extracted from 25 negative reviews
Recurring phrases mined from 1-2★ reviews. The bigger the percentage, the more users have the same problem. Fix the top 2-3 in your version and you have product-market fit on day one.
1
"phone"
9 negative reviews mention this · 36% of all complaints
★★★★★ "DO NOT RECOMMEND!. I personally hate this app. I believe that if you trust your child enough to even have a phone or any kind of device in the first place, then you should also trust that your child is capable of staying out of trouble and making reasonable d…" - Syd1813
2
"parents"
7 negative reviews mention this · 28% of all complaints
★★★★★ "This app is not ok. This app is not only invading privacy but it also causes fight because my mom can see any thing I’m doing and I have a app where I can watch anime and my mom misunderstand it to being porn hub and causes a whole fight and not only that but …" - I unlike the app
3
"screen"
6 negative reviews mention this · 24% of all complaints
★★★★★ "DO NOT RECOMMEND!. I personally hate this app. I believe that if you trust your child enough to even have a phone or any kind of device in the first place, then you should also trust that your child is capable of staying out of trouble and making reasonable d…" - Syd1813
4
"control"
6 negative reviews mention this · 24% of all complaints
★★★★★ "DO NOT RECOMMEND!. I personally hate this app. I believe that if you trust your child enough to even have a phone or any kind of device in the first place, then you should also trust that your child is capable of staying out of trouble and making reasonable d…" - Syd1813
5
"privacy"
6 negative reviews mention this · 24% of all complaints
★★★★★ "I hate this app so much. I hate this app so much my mom took my phone at night time and installed this bro I could not delete anything and bro I can’t have privacy anymore cuz my mom be tracking everything I do even messing and App Store are blocked I hate this app…" - Sigmasigmalavaca
6
"horrible"
5 negative reviews mention this · 20% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Terrible. This app is horrible. I used it for my son and he became so upset about how this app gives your children no privacy and makes their life more difficult, I understand that you want to make it so your children aren’t addicted to their devices…" - I hate whiteout survival
7
"recommend"
4 negative reviews mention this · 16% of all complaints
★★★★★ "DO NOT RECOMMEND!. I personally hate this app. I believe that if you trust your child enough to even have a phone or any kind of device in the first place, then you should also trust that your child is capable of staying out of trouble and making reasonable d…" - Syd1813
8
"hate"
4 negative reviews mention this · 16% of all complaints
★★★★★ "DO NOT RECOMMEND!. I personally hate this app. I believe that if you trust your child enough to even have a phone or any kind of device in the first place, then you should also trust that your child is capable of staying out of trouble and making reasonable d…" - Syd1813
9
"everything"
4 negative reviews mention this · 16% of all complaints
★★★★★ "DO NOT RECOMMEND!. I personally hate this app. I believe that if you trust your child enough to even have a phone or any kind of device in the first place, then you should also trust that your child is capable of staying out of trouble and making reasonable d…" - Syd1813
10
"give"
4 negative reviews mention this · 16% of all complaints
★★★★★ "DO NOT RECOMMEND!. I personally hate this app. I believe that if you trust your child enough to even have a phone or any kind of device in the first place, then you should also trust that your child is capable of staying out of trouble and making reasonable d…" - Syd1813
11
"anything"
4 negative reviews mention this · 16% of all complaints
★★★★★ "DO NOT RECOMMEND!. I personally hate this app. I believe that if you trust your child enough to even have a phone or any kind of device in the first place, then you should also trust that your child is capable of staying out of trouble and making reasonable d…" - Syd1813
12
"blocked"
4 negative reviews mention this · 16% of all complaints
★★★★★ "I hate this app so much. I hate this app so much my mom took my phone at night time and installed this bro I could not delete anything and bro I can’t have privacy anymore cuz my mom be tracking everything I do even messing and App Store are blocked I hate this app…" - Sigmasigmalavaca
📋 All 25 negative reviews
Every 1-2★ review we fetched. Use the copy button to grab them all for your own analysis (paste into ChatGPT/Claude with a prompt like "summarize core user problems, group by theme, ignore bugs, focus on missing features").
DO NOT RECOMMEND!
I personally hate this app. I believe that if you trust your child enough to even have a phone or any kind of device in the first place, then you should also trust that your child is capable of staying out of trouble and making reasonable decisions. Giving someone a device and then constantly monitoring and restricting everything they do on it completely defeats the purpose. If there is truly that little trust, then honestly the better solution would be to not give the kid a device at all rather than handing them one and then turning it into a heavily controlled system. What makes it worse is that this app doesn’t just “set boundaries.” It interferes with basic functionality and creates unnecessary problems that never needed to exist. I’ve had it block the browser entirely, randomly restrict things I actually need to use, and impose screen-time limits on devices where that restriction makes absolutely no sense. Instead of helping, it turns simple tasks into frustrating obstacles. Things that should take seconds suddenly require jumping through hoops just to work around restrictions that feel pointless and arbitrary. Another thing that makes this app even more pointless is that every single function it performs can already be done using the built-in Screen Time controls on the device. The phone literally comes with its own system for managing usage, setting limits, and controlling content if that’s something a parent wants to do. Installing a completely separate app just to duplicate those same features feels unnecessary and excessive. It’s like adding another layer of control that doesn’t actually provide anything new-just more complications and more things that can break. On top of that, it’s honestly embarrassing. Saying your device has the normal built-in controls that come with the phone is one thing-that’s just a standard feature. But having a whole separate monitoring app installed makes it feel way more extreme and invasive than it needs to be. It turns something that could be handled quietly through the device’s own settings into something much more obvious and uncomfortable. Even beyond the technical issues, the whole concept feels incredibly intrusive. It sends the message that the default assumption is that the child can’t be trusted, which is honestly pretty insulting. Trust is something that’s supposed to be built, not replaced with constant monitoring and automatic limits. An app like this doesn’t encourage responsibility-it just creates resentment and frustration because it constantly reminds you that someone else is controlling what you can and can’t do on your own device. At the end of the day, the problems this app creates far outweigh whatever benefits it claims to have. Instead of promoting healthy device use, it complicates everything and makes normal use of a phone unnecessarily difficult. So yeah, I genuinely despise this app. It doesn’t solve problems-it creates them, and most of those problems wouldn’t even exist if the app itself didn’t exist in the first place.
Mala aplicación
Es disparate y le inmoviliza totalmente el dispositivo del menor y no deja que el padre controle el dispositivo, no se bloquea cuando pones la hora ni se desbloquea cuando pones el tiempo
I hate this app so much
I hate this app so much my mom took my phone at night time and installed this bro I could not delete anything and bro I can’t have privacy anymore cuz my mom be tracking everything I do even messing and App Store are blocked I hate this app like if my storage is full I can’t delete anything
):
):
Terrible
This app is horrible. I used it for my son and he became so upset about how this app gives your children no privacy and makes their life more difficult, I understand that you want to make it so your children aren’t addicted to their devices but this doesn’t work. It just makes your children angry and gives them no privacy, just use the one in settings, this app sucks and I would give it zero stars if I could
Doesn't work
I bypass all the time and isn't secure, waste of money would not recommend
Not accurate
Ohana was put on my phone and I find it pretty annoying. It’s really bad at measuring how much time I’ve used. Sometimes I’ll wake up in the morning and all my screen time for the day will be gone, even though I haven’t even touched my phone yet. My mom is constantly having to give me more screen time because it keeps running out. If you’re a parent and you wanna control your screen time, don’t use this app. Just use the one in settings.
This app is not ok
This app is not only invading privacy but it also causes fight because my mom can see any thing I’m doing and I have a app where I can watch anime and my mom misunderstand it to being porn hub and causes a whole fight and not only that but it also gets kids bullied in school for have this app know your parents can see anything because now a lot of kids see me as a kid who their parents control and for the parents who are reading this, why are you getting this app?, so you can control your kids life?, no it’s not keeping your kid safe, it’s making your kid feel trapped and feel like you can’t do anything at all in your life, why would you want that for your kid?.
Inaccurate
I am a user and one time I remember I started watching at 3pm and I checked my screen time at 3:15 and it said I watched for 40 mins
Horrible app
My mom download this app for Me and now I feel like I cannot have my privacy because she can see my stuff and also mess with my screen time limit to the point on it’s so annoying because I cannot talk to my friends and even if I try to delete the app it tells her I did this app is the world’s most annoying app
Don’t use if kid is over 12
I am 15 and my mom used this app for me instead of the built in screen time. It was personally embarrassing for any of my peers to see that not only did I have screen time as a high schooler but I had an app called Ohana. The app made it so my mom could see everything on my phone, and would look at everything on it which made me feel like I had no privacy in anything. Because not only could she track me but she could control and see everything on it. She would constantly question me on websites I was on which led to many misunderstandings and fights that could have been avoided. This also made me feel like I had no control over anything which crushed my self esteem, and would make me feel constantly angry with her and her need to control my life. It’s stupid to center your life around a phone, but to my generation we need a little freedom and a phone is a big step of freedom and having that taken away feels terrible.
So not only did this app lead to many fights that could have been avoided it made me have a sense of no freedom and caused me to get made fun of by my friends. If you get this app please don’t use it as my parents have.
So not only did this app lead to many fights that could have been avoided it made me have a sense of no freedom and caused me to get made fun of by my friends. If you get this app please don’t use it as my parents have.
Jddddd
WHY CANT I UNDOWLOAD THIS I ACCIDENTALLY GOT THIS ON MY PHONE AND IDK WHOS PARENT
Wouldn’t recommend
Claims free access but only offers the same basic access. Poorly developed and marketed app.
I hate this app
It keeps restricting random videos i like!!!!
PLUS
remove plus
Bad
Totally controller, takes away total privacy from the child, if they want to give phones to children ok!, more now control? So don't call your son!!
App does not know how to count time.
Tested the app by playing games for 30 minutes and it said I did it for 2 hours. Trash app waste of money do not use.
What!?
My son’s allotted time has ended but he is still able to use 2 of his favorites: YouTube and Roblox. He said everything is blocked but these. How come? I’m deleting the Ohana app and requesting my money back. Also before that Sago mini app was working regardless the parental control. I can’t remove this app from my phone now!!!
Hate it…
SOMEONE TELL ME HOW TO DELETE IT
👎🏽
I think that this app is very u perfectionial. I think kids should be able to freely use the apps and time they want. If parents are consecrated check ur child’s phone before doing this.
As a user,
my parents got the app for me, in the beginning it was annoying and i hated it but recently it would get buggy, eg. use screentime when i had the app shut off, and RECENTLY, sent a BLOCKED SITE notifications to my parents phone, even though my phone was OFF and away, I was NOT using my phone and it was saying i was on a nsfw website. 1/10 Never use.
DONT EVER DOWNLOAD
It’s just horrible I’m a kid and my parents downloaded it for me and I can’t even text my friends or listen to music after the friggin time limit. It’s like a living heck. It also randomly takes away my screen time when my phone is at home and I’m at school. Like it when from 40 mins to 54 mins when I got back. DONT EVER DOWNLOAD
bad app.
This app made no sense. I do not understand how you can do this to your kid. My parents did it it to me and it was horrible.
Doodoo App
This app is trash, wouldn’t recommend.
False
I used this app for about two months and would always get false alarms. Literally would be right next to the device and I would get notified that a blocked site popped up when the other device was literally next to me not in use. Horrible would not use
Atleast some changes
I’m only saying this because my mom got me this app and like she puts it on 12 or below for me but there should be an option to like download games that’s are like 17+ but have to ask parents permission because some apps are 17+ for no reason like block blast there’s nothing inappropriate about that
Sentiment summary
79%
Positive (4-5★)
2%
Neutral (3★)
19%
Negative (1-2★)