The Best OurHome Alternative in 2026

Updated August 17, 2026 · Family Tasks Team

For years, OurHome was the default answer to "what is a good free chore app for kids?" Points and rewards, rotating chores, a shared grocery list, a family calendar, no cost. Then it stopped working, with no announcement, and took a lot of carefully built family setups with it.

This page covers what happened and when, what made OurHome good so you know what you are shopping for, which apps replace which parts of it, and where our own app fits and where it plainly does not. Every price, date and rating below was checked against a primary source in August 2026; anything we could not verify, we left out.

What happened to OurHome

OurHome was not bought, rebranded or relaunched. Its servers went dark and nobody told the users. The datable parts of the sequence:

• 27 October 2020: the last Android release, version 3.14.4. Development effectively stopped roughly three years before the app went down.
• 23 July 2022: the last time the files on ourhomeapp.com were modified. The site has been frozen since.
• July and August 2023: the first public reports of intermittent connection failures.
• 22 to 30 September 2023: the outage that ended it. Dated user reports cluster tightly in that window, all describing one error: "Could not connect to Internet! Changes will not be saved."
• Then silence. As late as 10 June 2024 a user was still writing: "I've sent several emails asking for help since September 2023, but no answer at all. At the very least, we want to download our family's data!"

Those quotes come from dated user problem reports on JustUseApp. They are user submissions, not developer statements. We found no statement from the developer at all, then or since.

How we know this is permanent, not an outage

• The backend is gone. api.ourhomeapp.com, the server both apps depended on, has no DNS record at all. There is nothing left to log in to.
• Both listings are delisted. Apple's own lookup API returns zero results in the US, Australian and UK stores, and the Google Play listing returns a 404.
• Support is shut. ourhome.zendesk.com redirects to Zendesk's generic "help center closed" page.
• The old web app is an empty shell pointing at that dead API.

The confusing part is that the marketing site is still up and still says the product works: "OurHome is your home made easy... Manage tasks and events. Create shared grocery lists." No shutdown notice, no farewell, no export instructions. It also answers only over plain HTTP now, which is what the directory AlternativeTo means when it lists OurHome as discontinued with the note, "The mobile apps are unavailable, and the website is not secure anymore." The developer was Cape Horizon Pty. Ltd. of East Melbourne, Australia, a company still on the Australian business register, but its support address has gone unanswered since 2023.

Can you get your data back?

No, and we would rather be blunt than sell you hope. There was never an export feature, support is closed, and the server holding the data no longer resolves. Nothing you install today can pull out your history or points. If an old install still opens to cached content on some phone, screenshot anything sentimental now.

The "OurHome" in the App Store today is a different app

Search the store and you will find a live OurHome listing. It is not yours. OurHome by Elusios is another developer's app, released 21 October 2025, about two years after the original died, and built for roommates: "OurHome simplifies household management and collaboration with roommates."

What made OurHome good: the replacement checklist

Few families used all of it, so be precise about which part you are actually mourning. From OurHome's own feature list and from what users praised most:

• A points and rewards economy. The most-loved part. Rewards were parent-defined privileges rather than money: reviewers listed "Read a story together" and "Play Minecraft with Dad." Points rolled over so kids could save up, and parents said it cut the nagging.
• Points you could take away. An independent parent review from 25 April 2021 describes deducting points for behaviour, for example when siblings would not "get along."
• Flexible assignment and scheduling. A task could go to one person, several, or rotate. Due dates, repeating schedules, reminders, and late penalties where the points on offer decayed the longer a task sat undone.
• An adult approval step before points were awarded, plus per-child permissions controlling what each kid could see, add or edit.
• A shared grocery list and a real family event calendar for birthdays and appointments, not just a task timeline.
• Family messaging, task comments and a "nudge" that reminded a child without nagging, plus photo proof of chores and multiple parent admins.
• It was free. In the developer's words, "free to use with no ads and no hidden costs." Tellingly, one reviewer called it "an app we would be willing to pay for," which suggests there was no paid tier to buy even if you wanted one.

You do not have to replace the parts that were not good. The top complaint was setup complexity: "There is A LOT to learn in OurHome. It's very busy and overly complicated." Users also reported sort order resetting daily, reminders vanishing, rotation breaking permanently if a child missed their day, and no way to have one shared task that several kids each tick off.

Feature by feature: what actually replaces what

No single app rebuilds all four halves of OurHome (chores and rewards, groceries, calendar, messaging) in one free package. Most families end up with two apps or fewer features.

Family Tasks: what it is, and what it is not

We make Family Tasks, so treat this section as interested. The scope, stated plainly.

It is iPhone and iPad only. No Android, no web version. If anyone in your household is on Android, skip us: Chorsee, Sweepy and Joon all ship Android apps. Family Tasks runs on iOS 14 and later, a deliberately low bar so the old family iPad still works. Version 1.0.3, updated 5 August 2026, in English, French, German, Hindi, Russian and Spanish.

What it does: parents assign one-off tasks and recurring routines on weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly cycles; each child gets a home screen showing only their own tasks, with streaks; parents get a week planner with colour-coded categories, overdue tracking and per-child stat cards; activities like swimming or piano store the coach's name, phone and schedule; both parents can edit; and you can generate an AI written progress report for one child.

Joining is the part we think beats OurHome. OurHome accounts used an email address and password. Here a child joins with an 8-character family code and nothing else: no email, no password, no account for them to lose or for you to reset.

What it does not do, in case that is your dealbreaker:

• No shared grocery list.
• No family event calendar for birthdays and appointments. The week planner shows tasks, not events.
• No in-app family messaging or nudges.
• No points bank, no rewards store, no allowance payments. Motivation runs on streaks and visible progress. If the points economy was the whole reason you used OurHome, we are not the closest match, and we would rather you knew that here than after installing.

Pricing, exactly: the free tier includes unlimited children, up to 20 active tasks and one AI report per month. Premium is $4.99 per week, $9.99 per month or $49.99 per year. Families running only morning and evening routines rarely reach the 20-task ceiling.

One more thing we would rather volunteer: our listing went live on 24 July 2026 and has no user ratings yet, while most apps below have years of reviews behind them. If a long track record matters more to you than the feature set, that is a fair reason to choose something else.

The alternatives, with current verified prices

US App Store figures, checked August 2026. Prices change and vary by region, so tap through before buying.

Where we would send you instead of us

• Points and rewards are non-negotiable: Chorsee or Chores & Allowance Bot, built around the exact loop we do not have.
• You mainly miss the groceries and calendar: Cozi, starting on the free tier.
• You want the widest single replacement: FamilyWall, the closest match to everything OurHome did at once.
• Chores should pay real money: Greenlight or BusyKid, accepting identity checks and a funded wallet instead of a family code.
• Your child is 6 to 12, or has ADHD: Joon, designed for exactly that, with a permanently free version.
• The "kids" are adults splitting housework: Sweepy, the cheapest paid option here.
• One self-motivated teenager: Habitica, but check the device, it needs iOS 17.6 or later.

Two traps in other alternative lists

First, several roundups ranking for this search recommend apps with almost no users. Checked in August 2026: ChoreSplit Family had zero ratings, Mind Your Now three, KidKarma seven, Homsy twenty-six. Those sites are usually writing about their own product. Being new is not disqualifying, ours is new too and we said so, but you should know which is which before migrating your family.

Second, Todoist, Trello and Finch turn up on these lists and none is a family chore app. Todoist's description never mentions family, kids or chores; Trello frames itself around work tools like Slack and needs iOS 18; Finch is, in its own words, "a self-care pet app."

Check your oldest device first

A chore app is useless if it will not install on the hand-me-down iPad the kids actually use. Minimum iOS versions, verified in August 2026: Homey and S'moresUp on 13; Family Tasks on 14; Chorsee, Chores & Allowance Bot and Joon on 15; Sweepy on 15.1; Cozi, FamilyWall and Greenlight on 17; Habitica on 17.6; Trello on 18.

Your first ten minutes after OurHome

1. List the tasks that actually mattered, from memory. Usually eight to twelve. If you cannot remember one, it was not working. Rebuilding all forty is how people quit in week two, and complexity was the top complaint about OurHome itself.
2. Decide the currency before picking the app: points redeemed for parent-defined privileges, real money, or streaks with no currency. That one decision eliminates most of the table above.
3. Audit the devices: every phone and tablet that needs it, the oldest one, and whether anyone is on Android.
4. Set up the parent side alone first. Add children, create the recurring routines, then show the kids. Handing over a half-configured app is how the idea dies.
5. Get everyone joined. In Family Tasks that is one 8-character code per phone; most other apps mean per-child logins, so budget more time.
6. Say the rules out loud: what happens when a task is missed, and who decides a reward is earned. The app enforces nothing; your family agreement does.
7. Change nothing for a week, then adjust based on what actually got ticked off.

Set expectations with the kids too. They may have had years of points and history in OurHome, and it is genuinely gone. Most families use the reset to drop the tasks that were never getting done anyway.

FAQ

Is OurHome really shut down?

Yes. Both store listings return 404, Apple's lookup API returns zero results in the US, Australian and UK stores, the support desk redirects to Zendesk's "help center closed" page, and the API server the apps talked to has no DNS record.

When did OurHome stop working?

Families lost access in late September 2023, with dated user reports clustering between 22 and 30 September 2023. Warning signs go back to July 2023, and the last Android release was 27 October 2020.

Why does the OurHome website still load?

Because it is a static site nobody took down. Its files have not changed since 23 July 2022, it still runs the original marketing copy with no shutdown notice, and it now answers only over plain HTTP. That live-looking site is the main reason people assume the app is fine.

Can I export my OurHome data or import it somewhere else?

No, and no other app can do it for you either. There was never an export feature, the servers are unreachable, and support went unanswered; users were still asking for their data in June 2024 and never got a reply. Expect about ten minutes of manual setup wherever you land.

Is the OurHome in the App Store now the original?

No. "OurHome by Elusios" is another developer's roommate-focused app, released 21 October 2025. Installing it recovers nothing.

Is OurHome coming back?

We found no developer statement about the shutdown or a relaunch. Both listings are gone and the backend does not exist. Plan as though it is not returning.

What is the closest free replacement?

It depends which half you want. Cozi's free tier is the best free answer for calendar and groceries; Joon has a permanently free version for kid motivation; Family Tasks is free for unlimited children, up to 20 active tasks and one AI report a month. None is free the way OurHome was.

Do my kids need email addresses or their own accounts?

Not in Family Tasks: a child joins with an 8-character family code, no email and no password. OurHome accounts used an email address and password. Other apps vary, so check before setting up four child profiles.

Does Family Tasks work on Android?

No. iPhone and iPad only, iOS 14 and later. For mixed-device households, Chorsee, Sweepy and Joon all publish Android apps.