Family Link and Qustodio solve overlapping problems but come from different starting points — one is Google's free built-in option, the other is a paid third-party app built specifically around screen-time reporting. For co-parents, the difference that matters most is whether both households can see the same information independently.
Google Family Link
Family Link is free and built directly into Android and Google accounts, which makes it the lowest-friction option if your child's device is already tied to a Google account. It covers app time limits, a device bedtime, and basic location sharing.
The catch for co-parents: Family Link is built around a "family group" tied to one Google account structure. Both parents can be added as guardians, but it works best when both households are comfortable being inside the same Google ecosystem — it wasn't designed with a contentious co-parenting split in mind, so permissions and visibility can get awkward if the relationship is tense.
Qustodio
Qustodio is a paid, cross-platform app (Android and iOS both, which matters if one house uses iPhones and the other uses Android) built specifically around detailed reporting — screen time by app, content filtering, and a dashboard either parent can log into separately with their own login, rather than sharing one family account.
That separate-login structure tends to work better for co-parents specifically, since neither parent is dependent on the other maintaining shared account access.
Which one fits two households better
If your child is Android-only and both households get along well enough to share one Google family group, Family Link is genuinely a good free starting point. If devices are split across Android and iOS, or if you want independent visibility without relying on a shared account setup, Qustodio's cross-platform, separate-login design tends to hold up better across a real co-parenting split.
Either app enforces a rule — neither one decides what the rule should be. That still has to be agreed on first; see our guide to building a screen-time agreement for how to get there.