# Apple parental controls

8 Hacker News commenters recommended Apple parental controls and 12 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 5 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Free built-in controls that some parents find adequate for kids' accounts and app limits, but critics call them buggy, hard to configure, and unreliable.

## Why people recommend it

- Works well for kids' accounts (2 comments): "setting up a "kid's account" using the tools already provided in mainstream OS's is a fine option" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47124986)) "a combination of talking to the kids plus Apple parental controls offered a reasonable approach" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46465438))
- Praised as good overall (3 comments): "Apple's parental controls are so good that parents give young children unsupervised internet access" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48717449)) "The new parental controls are everything I could ask for." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48476690)) "Apple does a good job at parental controls" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48683411))

## What people warn about

- Buggy and frequently broken (5 comments): "It is a hot buggy mess that randomly blocks whitelisted applications as well." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47384933)) "It's totally buggy unfortunately, and has been for years." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46673439)) "Apple's parental controls just don't work." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48020502))
- Hard to set up and use (2 comments): "Configuring them from scratch is a minimum 20 minute job, and then you need to double and triple check to avoid mistakes." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47493437)) "incredibly hard to use, and very buggy" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47385015))
- Weak per-app blocking (2 comments): "apple's parental controls are total joke, per app blocks are not good at all" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48445547)) "Apple is horrible in this regard. Their solutions never really work." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47803967))
- Poor overall reliability reviews (2 comments): "The state of parental controls on apple devices is absolutely appalling." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49703796)) "Parental controls are extremely weak on all the major platforms." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48713236))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Apple Screen Time](https://hackerapproved.com/p/apple-screen-time.md): 17 recommend
- [Google Family Link](https://hackerapproved.com/p/google-family-link.md): 15 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Apple parental controls", https://hackerapproved.com/p/apple-parental-controls/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).