The 9 best ways to build a private app for your family (2026)
By Will Hannigan · Published , updated
There is no single right answer. It depends on how technical you are, and how much you want the result to feel like a real app rather than a document. Here are nine honest options, from the least effort to the most control, with a clear read on who each one fits.
1. A shared spreadsheet or Notion page
The lowest-effort option. Anyone can set up a shared sheet or a Notion page in a few minutes, and sharing is a link your family already has a login for. For a chore list or a shared calendar, it works well. It stops working once you want buttons and reminders, or anything that behaves like an app rather than a table you scroll.
2. Ask ChatGPT or Claude, and put it on Podda
Podda is a private home for personal software: the app lives on your family's phones, and nowhere else. Describe the app in plain words, and ChatGPT or Claude builds it and puts it where only the people you invite can reach it, not the app store and not a public link. Everyone you invite just signs in on their phone, with nothing to pay. The connect guide covers the steps.
3. Claude Artifacts
Claude can build small apps right inside a chat, called artifacts, and they are free. Ask for a quiz or a tracker and a little app appears next to the conversation. For something just for you, that can be all you need. Sharing is where it gets awkward for a family: publishing an artifact creates a link that anyone who has it can open, with no invite list, and published pages can even turn up in search results. If you unpublish later, anything the app saved is permanently deleted.
4. ChatGPT Sites
ChatGPT can now build and publish small sites and apps of its own, called Sites, and a new Site starts out private to you. It is best suited to a business, because sharing runs through ChatGPT workspaces rather than a simple invite-by-name list. A team that already works inside a workspace will find it genuinely useful. For a family it is a stretch: it is a beta on paid plans, and getting people in who are not in your workspace is not the flow you might expect.
5. Wabi
Wabi is the social option. It is an iPhone app from the founder of Replika: you describe an app out loud, and what you make shares into a public feed where anyone can find it and remix it. That makes it the best pick here for making and sharing games or little apps as a social-network experience. It is a different thing from a private family app, though: Wabi does not clearly explain how you would keep an app to a named group like your family. It is also still in beta, with no Android app, so a mixed-phone household is out.
6. Dome
Dome is a free app for assembling a private mini-app from ready-made pieces, no AI involved. You pick modules like shared photos, chat, files and posts, then invite your family by phone number or QR code. It is genuinely private and free, with real iPhone and Android apps. The trade is flexibility: the modules are fixed, so if your family needs something custom, a points system for chores or a very particular tracker, Dome cannot build it.
7. Replit
Replit is another large, general-purpose AI builder, aimed at work: business tools and internal apps rather than household ones. It can build a proper app with a database behind it, and to its credit, invite-only publishing is included even on the free plan. It still feels like a tool for people who build software: everyone you invite signs in with a Replit account, and building spends credits that run out faster than you expect. On the free plan the project you built from also stays public, even while the published app is private.
8. Lovable
Lovable is a much larger, general-purpose AI app builder, aimed at launching a startup or a business tool rather than a family app. It can build far more than a household needs, down to its own database and login system. On the free and cheaper paid plans, though, whatever you build publishes with a link anyone can open. Keeping it to your family means the Business plan, at about $50 a month. There are alternatives that keep your app private for less.
9. Vercel or Netlify, plus your own login
The most work, and the most control. Someone technical writes the app, builds a login so only your family can sign in, and puts it on one of these. Nothing comes ready-made, and nothing is private until you make it so. It is worth it for a developer who wants full control, and more than most families need.
Which one should I actually pick?
If a spreadsheet already does the job, use the spreadsheet. If you talk to ChatGPT or Claude most days and want the result private to your family without extra work, Podda is built for that.
Connect Podda to ChatGPT or Claude, and see what fits on the free plan.
Last updated 22 August 2026.