Circle vs Bark
Circle vs Bark: Which is a better fit for your family? Bark provides a more comprehensive approach to parental controls and online safety than Circle. Here’s a complete breakdown.
Looking to compare Bark Home vs. Circle Home? Click here.

Compare the Features

Block specific sites + apps on iOS and Android
Available
Available
Available
Filters specific sites and 18 categories, including adult content, gaming, and streaming site
Filters sites according to selected age range; Custom URLs can also be blocked
Set custom rules for school time, bedtime, and free time
Set rules for bedtime and focus time
Available
Unavailable
Scans text messages, emails, photos, videos, and 30+ apps and social media platforms on children’s phones, tablets, and Chromebook
Unavailable
Alerts are sent for worrisome content across 18 different categories
Unavailable
Connect as many kids and devices as your family needs
Available
$99/year for content monitoring, screen time limits, filtering, location tracking, and internet pausing
$89/year for screen time limits, filtering, location tracking, and internet pausing only
Our Products & Prices
Bark Premium
Our comprehensive parental intelligence solution.
- Manage screen time
- Filter which websites your kids can visit
- Keep up with kids with location alerts and check-ins
- Monitor texts, email, YouTube, and 30+ apps and platforms
- Get alerts for issues like cyberbullying, online predators, suicidal ideation, and more
Bark Jr
Our entry-level product is perfect for younger kids.
- Manage screen time
- Filter which websites your kids can visit
- Keep up with kids with location alerts and check-ins
- Monitor texts, email, YouTube, and 30+ apps and platforms
- Get alerts for issues like cyberbullying, online predators, suicidal ideation, and more

Ready to get started?
Bark was created by parents, for parents, to offer a better, easier, and more effective way to help families create healthy digital habits.
Bark vs Circle FAQs
Both Bark and Circle let parents block websites and manage screen time, but only Bark provides content monitoring. Bark scans your child’s texts and 30+ apps and social media platforms for possible dangers. If your child encounters bullying, online predators, sexual content, and more, you’ll get a timely alert. Basically, Bark vs Circle comes down to this crucial difference: Bark lets you proactively know when something may be wrong in your child’s digital world. This way, you can check in and make sure everything’s okay.
At Bark, we understand that not every day looks the same, and different times of day call for different screen time rules. That’s why our app lets you set custom screen time schedules for each independent day: rules for school time, bedtime, and free time.
Bark’s location sharing feature takes the guesswork out of wondering when your kid arrives at school. Instead of having to log in and zoom around a map, you’ll get a quick alert straight to your phone as soon as they step foot on campus. (You can check their location at any time, though, with our map).
With Circle, you have to manually log into the app every single time you want to check on your kid’s location. For this feature, when it comes to Bark vs Circle, we’re going to say that Bark is the clear winner because it provides you with peace of mind throughout the day as your kid goes from home to school to practice and back.