HomeCircle

A private alternative to Life360

Your family’s map,
on your server.

See where everyone is, tap Locate for a fresh fix, chat, and get alerts when the kids get home. It all runs on a server your family owns, end-to-end encrypted, so no company can see, sell or leak it.

Choose a server See how it works
  • Open source
  • No accounts, no ads
  • iPhone, Android & web

Up and running in about ten minutes

  1. 1

    Pick a server

    Deploy HomeCircle with one click on Render or Railway, rent a small VPS, or run it on a Raspberry Pi at home. One server is one family.

  2. 2

    Set up in the app

    Open the HomeCircle app, enter your server address and its one-time setup code. Your encryption keys are created on your phone.

  3. 3

    Invite your family

    Show a QR code or send a private link. Only people who join your server can ever see your location or messages.

Everything you’d expect, and nothing you wouldn’t

Live family map

Everyone’s latest location, battery and “last seen” time, updated live while the app is open.

Locate on demand

Tap Locate and their phone wakes up, takes one fresh GPS fix and sends it back. No constant tracking needed.

Easy on battery

Updates about every 15 minutes, plus when someone moves far or arrives somewhere. You can choose 5 to 60 minutes.

Arrival alerts

“Jo arrived at School.” Geofences run on each phone, so the server never learns where your places are.

Family chat

An encrypted group chat for your circle, alongside the map.

You stay in control

Pause sharing anytime. Remove someone and the circle’s key changes immediately, so they can’t see anything new.

Private by design, not by promise

Most location apps keep every family’s locations on their own servers. HomeCircle flips that: you own the server, and it still can’t read your data.

  • Encrypted on your phone. Locations, names, messages and places are sealed with a key only your circle holds (XSalsa20-Poly1305 + Ed25519 signatures).
  • Your server sees ciphertext. It stores and relays sealed data, never plaintext. Your hosting provider sees the same.
  • Only your server’s members. There is no global network and no way to find or add people outside your server.
  • Content-free notifications. Push messages say only “new activity”. Your phone decrypts the details itself.
  • No history on the server. Only each person’s latest location is kept. Old messages expire after 90 days by default.
📱Mom’s phoneencrypts
🔒 sealed
🗄️Your servercan’t read it
🔒 sealed
📱Family phonesdecrypt

Choose where your server lives

Each option runs the same open-source server. Pick based on how hands-off you want to be.

Check your server

Once it’s deployed, paste its address to make sure it’s reachable and ready for setup.

Get the app

Install HomeCircle on every phone in the family, then choose Set up a new server (first person) or Join my family (everyone else).

On a laptop? Every server also has a web version: just open your server’s address in a browser.

Questions

Who can see my location?

Only people who joined your HomeCircle server with an invite. The server stores your location encrypted, and only the members’ phones hold the key.

Does it drain my battery?

No more than necessary. By default your phone shares about every 15 minutes, and more often only when you move a long way, arrive at a saved place, or someone taps Locate. The phone’s low-power location features do the work.

What can my hosting provider see?

Encrypted data, how many people use the server, and when phones connect. They can’t see names, locations, places or messages.

What if I lose my phone?

Another admin removes the old phone from Settings, which changes the circle’s key. Then they invite you again on your new phone. Tip: make a second family member an admin.

What does it cost?

The software is free. Hosting costs roughly $3–7 a month, or nothing extra on a Raspberry Pi you already own.

Can people on other servers find me?

No. There’s no directory and no federation. Each server is its own closed circle.