Is there a completely free care coordination app?

Yes — several. CaringBridge and Lotsa Helping Hands are free with no paid tiers, ianacare's consumer app is free, Primary Record has a free Family tier capped at four portal refreshes, and Caring Village's free tier is limited to one village and two members. Mallowa's Roots plan is $4.99 a month for one individual and up to ten team members, and every feature in Roots stays in Roots.

What's the difference between CaringBridge and a care coordination app?

CaringBridge is built for one-way health updates — a journal your circle reads. A care coordination app is built for the team doing the care: shared medication lists, notes, appointments, and tasks with permissions. Many families use both — updates for the wide circle, a care record for the working team.

Do any of these apps meet HIPAA requirements?

Of the tools on this list, Mallowa is HIPAA-ready (BAA on request), with permission-checked, logged access. CaringBridge and Lotsa Helping Hands make no HIPAA claims in their own policies — which is normal for consumer update and volunteer tools, where families share information by choice. HIPAA matters most once professionals and clinical information are part of the workflow.

Which app works if I'm managing my own care?

Any of them can be used by the person receiving care, not only by a family member. In Mallowa the record owner is whoever sets it up — a parent, an adult child, a guardian, or the person themselves — and sharing works the same way in every case: you decide who sees what, at what level. If you are coordinating your own appointments, medications and records, start with the one-page emergency sheet and add people as you need them.

How did you choose these apps?

We verify every product against its own published site, pricing, policies, and help documentation, and each entry above carries the month it was last checked. Most were re-checked in September 2026; ianacare's entry still carries its July 2026 check because its site answers an automated request with a bot challenge. We only include tools that are clearly maintained and accurately described by their own materials, and we exclude apps we can't verify as active. And yes — we make Mallowa; every competitor fact here comes from the vendor's own materials so you can check us.

Best Care Coordination Apps for Families (2026)

The short answer

What's the best care coordination app for families in 2026?

It depends on the job. For broadcasting health updates, CaringBridge is still the standard. For organizing helpers, Lotsa Helping Hands does one thing very well. For gathering records that are scattered across patient portals, Primary Record is built for exactly that. For a structured shared care record, the real choices are Caring Village and Mallowa — and if your care team includes professionals, Mallowa is the one built for that. The detailed cases are below.

Best for broadcasting health updates

CaringBridge

A free, donor-supported nonprofit (since 1997) for sharing a private health-update journal with friends and family. Privacy is set per page — Public, Semi-Private, or Private — and co-authors can help write updates. It isn't a care record: there are no medication lists, care notes, or structured data, and its group calendar was retired in December 2023.

Pricing: Free — no paid tiers; donor-supported.

Best for: Keeping a wide circle informed during a health crisis without repeating yourself.

Checked September 2026 against caringbridge.org/about-us. Their own page describes CaringBridge as “a no-cost, 501(c)(3) nonprofit health platform” and “a donor-supported nonprofit founded in 1997.” The feature details, including the calendar retirement, carry the July 2026 check: CaringBridge no longer lists a Planner page in its sitemap to re-check them against.

Best for organizing helpers

Lotsa Helping Hands

A free volunteer-coordination platform (since 2004) built around a Care Calendar where helpers sign up for meals, rides, and visits, with announcements, well wishes, and coordinator and site-admin roles. Posts can be scoped to member groups. Like CaringBridge, it isn't a care record — there's no medication, notes, or goals data.

Pricing: Free — no paid tier exists.

Best for: Turning “let me know how I can help” into an actual schedule of meals, rides, and visits.

Checked September 2026 against lotsahelpinghands.com.

Best paid family care record

Caring Village

A family care-coordination app with a genuinely structured shared record — medication lists and schedules, a shared calendar, customizable care plans, document storage, and a wellness journal — governed by member permission tiers. The free tier is limited to one village and two members; Circle adds up to two villages of five members each, and Village up to five villages of fifty.

Pricing: Free tier (1 village, 2 members) · Circle $14.99/mo · Village $24.99/mo, with 17% off annual billing.

Best for: Families who want a real care record with differentiated permissions and are comfortable paying for it.

Checked September 2026 against caringvillage.com/pricing.

Best for pulling patient-portal records into one place

Primary Record

A family health-record app (Fishers, Indiana) that collects records from patient portals and paper, adds audio notes with transcripts and a plain-language chat assistant, and lets families share the result with advocates, community organizations, and mobile health teams. Its own materials organize the product around the person's health information over time — portals, documents, notes — rather than around a working care team's day-to-day tasks and per-member permission levels, which they don't describe.

Pricing: Family free (4 portal refreshes, 4 audio notes, 4 assistant questions, 500 MB) · Family Unlimited $16/mo, or $13/mo billed annually.

Best for: Families whose main problem is records scattered across several patient portals.

Checked September 2026 against primaryrecord.com/pricing.

Best employer-sponsored caregiver support

ianacare

A free family-caregiver app that mobilizes an invitation-only support team — team calendar, help requests for meals, rides, respite, and errands, a private update feed, and medication reminders — with caregiver, care-recipient, organizer, and supporter roles. Its paid navigator services come through employers, health plans, and Medicare GUIDE partners rather than consumer subscriptions.

Pricing: Consumer app free; navigator services via employers and health plans.

Best for: Caregivers whose employer or health plan sponsors caregiving support — check your benefits.

Checked July 2026 against ianacare.com. Not re-checked in the September pass: ianacare.com answers an automated request with a bot challenge rather than the page, so this entry still carries its July 2026 verification. Treat its details as the older ones on this page.

Best for coordinating a whole care team — family and professionals

Mallowa (that’s us)

Our own platform, so judge this entry accordingly: Mallowa is a shared care record — HIPAA-ready · BAA on request — with notes, goals, medications, appointments, crisis plans, and files on one timeline, with per-note visibility (team, clinical-only, family-only, private) and per-member permissions. It's built for teams that include professionals: therapists, teachers, and clinicians work in the same record as the family, and providers can capture billable coordination time as they work.

Pricing: Roots $4.99/mo (one individual, ten team members) · Roots+ $9.99/mo · Growth $19.99/mo.

Best for: Families coordinating complex, ongoing care across relatives and professionals — and anyone who needs real privacy controls. The record owner can be a parent, an adult child, a guardian, or the person receiving care.

Checked September 2026 against mallowa.com/pricing.

Common questions

Choosing between them

Is there a completely free care coordination app?: Yes — several. CaringBridge and Lotsa Helping Hands are free with no paid tiers, ianacare's consumer app is free, Primary Record has a free Family tier capped at four portal refreshes, and Caring Village's free tier is limited to one village and two members. Mallowa's Roots plan is $4.99 a month for one individual and up to ten team members, and every feature in Roots stays in Roots.
What's the difference between CaringBridge and a care coordination app?: CaringBridge is built for one-way health updates — a journal your circle reads. A care coordination app is built for the team doing the care: shared medication lists, notes, appointments, and tasks with permissions. Many families use both — updates for the wide circle, a care record for the working team.
Do any of these apps meet HIPAA requirements?: Of the tools on this list, Mallowa is HIPAA-ready (BAA on request), with permission-checked, logged access. CaringBridge and Lotsa Helping Hands make no HIPAA claims in their own policies — which is normal for consumer update and volunteer tools, where families share information by choice. HIPAA matters most once professionals and clinical information are part of the workflow.
Which app works if I'm managing my own care?: Any of them can be used by the person receiving care, not only by a family member. In Mallowa the record owner is whoever sets it up — a parent, an adult child, a guardian, or the person themselves — and sharing works the same way in every case: you decide who sees what, at what level. If you are coordinating your own appointments, medications and records, start with the one-page emergency sheet and add people as you need them.
How did you choose these apps?: We verify every product against its own published site, pricing, policies, and help documentation, and each entry above carries the month it was last checked. Most were re-checked in September 2026; ianacare's entry still carries its July 2026 check because its site answers an automated request with a bot challenge. We only include tools that are clearly maintained and accurately described by their own materials, and we exclude apps we can't verify as active. And yes — we make Mallowa; every competitor fact here comes from the vendor's own materials so you can check us.

See what Mallowa does for families

Last reviewed September 5, 2026. Product details are verified against each product's own published materials; the month each entry was last checked, and the page it was checked against, are shown on the entry itself.

The best care coordination apps in 2026, honestly compared.