# Cocoon - Private Sharing — user reviews > 50 indexed App Store user reviews of Cocoon by Glasswing Inc, rated 4.45/5 from 469 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/cocoon-private-sharing/id1439649269/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/cocoon-private-sharing/id1439649269.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 358 · 4★ 42 · 3★ 23 · 2★ 13 · 1★ 33 ## What do users think of Cocoon? Overall sentiment: mixed **Pros** - 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Excellent for staying connected with distant family - 🎨 Beautiful, minimalist, elegant design - 🔒 Private, secure space away from public social media - 📸 Convenient photo vault feature for organizing shared images - 😌 Non-intrusive, no excessive notifications - 💬 Easy to use and intuitive interface - 🌍 Location sharing feature appreciated by families - ✨ Thoughtful way to passively share updates **Cons** - 💀 App appears abandoned after acquisition by Substack - ⏱️ No updates in over a year - 🍎 iOS-only, no Android support - 📱 Requires phone number to sign up (excludes iPod/iPad users) - 🔐 Severely insecure 6-letter password system - 🔧 Broken help center and unresponsive support - 📊 Limited to single cocoon per account - 🎯 Landscape mode not supported on iPad - 🚫 No ability to delete individual photos after posting - 💳 Misleading subscription option when app is unsupported **Commonly reported bugs** - Apple share extension broken, causes errors - App crashes when adding photos on iPhone 11 Pro Max - Home timeline not updating for days - Weather information shows 'not available' - Member status information not updating - Invitation key system doesn't work - Comments overlay all photos in a group instead of single photo - Safari content blockers not honored, causing pop-ups on shared links - Language input conversion issues (Japanese text not converting properly) - App no longer appears on Play Store **Most requested features** - GIF integration and support - Multiple cocoons per user account - Search functionality for past conversations - Notifications center or activity feed - Customizable app icon or monogram personalization - More reaction options beyond 'like' - Collective family calendar with event/schedule visibility - Video calling/sharing capability - Support for non-Apple devices (Android) - Better language support (Japanese, etc.) - More color options for user profiles (beyond 12) - Widget for iOS showing cocoon activity - Media sharing categories (movies, music, books) - Private direct messaging between specific members - Location-based notifications - Ability to delete individual photos (not just groups) - Better timestamp visibility on posts ## Newest reviews (13 of 50) ### 4/5 — Superb idea and app with one new problem *2021-11-26, version 3.1.3* Love using this app with my family. It’s our go to app and allows us to enjoy communicating fun photos and news items and saving iMessage for urgent matters only. BUT some bug has surfaced and we can no longer use the Apple share option to share an item without an error. Now we have to copy/paste after opening the app. Way more time consuming and is taking the fun out of sharing. Hope this can be fixed soon. ### 4/5 — A Suggestion *2021-08-03, version 3.1.1* Search. Right now it’s nearly impossible to find an old conversation ### 3/5 — Only works right on phone *2020-11-11, version 2.0.8* It’s a good idea, but the fact that it can’t switch to landscape mode in an iPad is a real drawback. ### 3/5 — Basic Info Missing *2020-07-20, version 1.5.3* You can’t see the time when any posts were made. I keep trying to swipe to the left to see the time like you can in IOS Messages but that feature just doesn’t exist in Cocoon. It honestly makes the app unusable now because no one knows when anyone posted anything. ### 4/5 — Love it but one downside *2020-05-24, version 1.4.9* Really loving this app and SO happy to finally have a replacement for Path. The only downside is not having a notifications center of some sort. In order to see if anyone has connected or responded to anything is by scrolling through the whole feed and trying to notice if anything is new in an old post I appreciate that cocoon doesn't try to interrupt daily life by sending a notification for everything, but it does take unnecessary time by having to scroll through everything and try to see responses or comments. Once that is made easier, I would give it 20 ⭐️ if it was possible ### 3/5 — I hope the developers see this suggestion *2020-05-03, version 1.4.7* This app definitely has potential and is a cute idea for trying to provide that same kind of closeness you feel with your special someone in-person and replicate it within a messaging/social hub. Hard to go up against normal texting apps, but I have one suggestion that might make a big difference in such a simple (and sure, shallow) way. Give the choice of changing/personalizing the app icon. I know it’s such a shallow thing to reject an app for its app icon, but that’s truly what made my wife and I remove this from our homepages. If you gave us some options to choose from, or even gave us a way to create a monogram, bigram, etc, that personalizes our cocoon, even make it a paid feature, I bet you’ll have lots of people more interested in this app. I feel so shallow for complaining about an app icon but I would rather be honest because we want to use this app, we just don’t like the badge and don’t want to look at it versus look at iMessage. Please consider this an implement it fast fast fast! I’ll be checking back! Thanks and best of luck, devs! ### 4/5 — Great app for a family social group! *2020-04-27, version 1.4.7* So much better than the incessant notifications from iMessage for a close-knit family group that likes to share stuff! Really well done. I’d like to see more reactions than just a “like”. Only reason it’s not 5 stars is because Safari Content Blockers are not honored, so links shared in the Cocoon are full of crap, and sometimes full-page pop-ups/videos/whatever take over and prevent easy commenting because they are overlaid on “top” of the link. ### 3/5 — Hoping for more polish *2020-04-16, version 1.4.6* I was hoping for something a little more polished and feature rich. It doesn’t seem much more than a running Messenger app conversation. I was hoping it would be more of maintaining a profile page like FB and posting things inside your Cocoon. Without all the advertisements and political BS. I do like the idea of a closed close-nit family thing. I’ll keep checking back to see how it develops. ### 3/5 — Room for improvement *2020-02-27, version 1.4.1* App has interesting concept and potential. Nice minimalistic Yet organic UI Some feedbacks: - needs better Gif compatibility - can’t type other languages (I can type them but didn’t convert properly when typing in Japanese) - can’t select a color when it’s already taken. Also not enough color choices. There are 12 colors to choose from but what happens when there are more than 12 people? Please add more colors. ### 4/5 — Wonderful, but Crashing! *2020-02-09, version 1.4.0* This app is wonderful—but I've encountered a crash while adding new photos on my 11 Pro Max. The button forced close me everytime I want to add new photos, and the error persists even after restarting my phone. Please fix it soon. Thanks!. Anyway, the app's awesome! ### 4/5 — Great App: word “family” is a hinderance *2020-02-08, version 1.4.0* I love the app, but I find the positioning around “family” makes it more difficult to convince close friends to download and join. ### 4/5 — Has potential *2020-01-04, version 1.3.3* I love having a smaller space to share with friends or family but I'm hesitant to start inviting others until we can delete content. Once you share a photo, there is no way to remove it. Could be embarrassing if you accidentally share something you didn't want to. Other than that I think it's easy to use and has a nice design. I'm just waiting for updates (ability to remove content and join multiple cocoons). **Developer response:** Hi there! Thank you for your review and feedback. You should be able to delete any post with a press-and-hold (from the Home tab), and a little menu will appear. We'll work on making this more discoverable. Multiple Cocoons is also coming very soon! Thanks again. ### 3/5 — Not quite there yet *2019-12-31, version 1.3.3* Simple fixes would transform this app. First, make it non-iPhone friendly. Second, allow someone to be in multiple cocoons. This app won’t be very useful for me and my family until these changes are made. ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — Unsure if its dead, but hasn’t been updated in some time *2023-02-10, version 3.1.3* A couple friends recommended I try cocoon in place of FB/WA/Vero. I really enjoy the privacy and control, but am concerned because I’m not able to upgrade to the paid membership anywhere and it doesn’t seem like this app has been updated in over a year. Super bummed, hope Cocoon wasn’t abandoned after their Substack acquisition. ### 1/5 — Major flaw for an app that is geared toward the family. *2021-08-29, version 3.1.1* Pretty simple major flaw: you must have a phone number to use it. Many families have children with iPods or iPhones with no phone number yet. Seems like a really poor decision to require a phone number. Makes it unusable. ### 1/5 — Doesn’t work *2019-12-29, version 1.3.3* Downloaded this after it was featured on the Today Show. Tried multiple times to set up a cocoon and invite others. Each time the key didn’t work. There’s no support, there’s no activation email, no answers at all... I was looking forward to exploring this platform. ### 1/5 — Dangerously insecure *2019-11-26, version 1.3.0* This app uses an extremely insecure method to make your family’s chats private. It is essentially a six-letter password that you cannot change, that a malicious actor would have infinite tries to guess, and once that malicious actor gets access to your cocoon they cannot be removed. A six letter password is not enough to put in front of the locations of all your family members and your private conversations with them. This shows a serious lack of understanding of even the most fundamental ways your safety could be compromised, and does so while advertising itself as a privacy focused platform. Until this fundamental flaw is addressed, you should look elsewhere for private communication. ### 2/5 — Great app but no longer supported *2022-03-28, version 3.1.3* My family started using this app during the pandemic to keep in touch; it’s really great. However, it is seemingly no longer supported — the team was acquired by another company and even though the announcement said this app would continue “independently”, the help center link is broken and their contact email address returns as undeliverable. (I discovered this when my dad got a new phone and could no longer find the app on the Play store.) Really disappointing that they aren’t more upfront about the lack of continued support — and it seems borderline unethical to charge people a subscription too! We don’t pay for a subscription but like, don’t give people the option to pay monthly for your app if you’re not going to continue supporting it, that’s just gross. My family will be finding a different app, sadly. ### 2/5 — Like the idea, but many issues *2020-01-10, version 1.3.4* A few issues I’ve run into so far: The “Home” timeline hasn’t updated in 2 days. Weather almost always shows “not available” for everyone in my Cocoon. One Cocoon member’s info hasn’t updated in days. A few suggestions: Although I can delete images from the Home timeline, there’s no delete available in the Vault. It would be nice to be able to branch separate/private chats with only specific members of the Cocoon. Would be nice to set location based notifications. All in all, I like the idea, but the functionality is still pretty basic, and status info updates are awfully flakey. ### 2/5 — Non Apple phones *2019-12-29, version 1.3.3* This app is cool so far however about half of my family doesn’t have Apple phones! Do you know when any phone will be available? ### 2/5 — Only works for all Apple Families *2019-12-29, version 1.3.3* Seems really great and I like the concept of keeping a tight group tighter as you are all in different parts of the world. Privacy is a big issue for our family since there are so many little ones and we want to share photos with the grandparents. My drop in stars is because 2/3 of the family do not use Apple devices. If I can’t really share this with a majority of the family then there is no reason to keep the app in all honesty. A for effort but a C- in execution. ### 3/5 — Abandonware, sadly *2022-07-15, version 3.1.3* This had so much potential, but the entire dev team got acquired and there hasn’t been an update in months, and it’s impossible to coax people into something with no future. If someone else would take it up, it’s a five star app - particularly loved the flight status sharing. ### 3/5 — Very nice but not quite there yet *2021-06-20, version 2.1.11* It really is a beautiful app, works well, and has a lot of potential. But there’re a few gaps that keep it from becoming my primary family messaging app. K so I hate to give so much weight to something as petty as gifs, but I apparently use this feature so much elsewhere that the absence of a gif integration on Cocoon is a huge drawback for me. A widget for iOS 14 with like a snapshot of what’s going on in each cocoon would be a great way to subtly notify us of activity throughout the day. Also would like to see a collective calendar that lets you see events, flights, work schedules, etc for the group at a glance. (Bonus points if it could show collective availability to simplify selecting commonly free dates for getting together IRL) And finally, maybe some more categories to quickly share. for instance: media sharing like what we’re watching, reading, listening to, with the ability of engage in inline discussions about those topics. Every time a new episode comes out, or album drops, or a chapter is read, discussing what happened would be so interesting— Anywayy I’ve only just started using cocoon so hopefully I haven’t just missed these features from being a new user. I have high hopes and will keep my eye on release notes as they continue to update. **Developer response:** Hi, thank you so much for the detailed reviews! All great feedback and suggestions. We just released GIF support with a built-in GIF picker for replies and new posts if you want to check that out :) ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — Will this project continue? *2022-03-26, version 3.1.3* Cocoon seems ok, just want to know if you plan on continuing the project or if it will die in a couple years? I don’t want to waste my time to get family and friends involved if it’s just going to disappear, but it’s the best thing I have seen so far. ### 5/5 — Umm.. *2021-07-09, version 3.0.2* I’m on a iPad I don’t have a phone number I have a email why can’t u use that? ### 5/5 — Love this app!! *2021-01-06, version 2.1.3* We were users of Path before that discontinued. I’ve been using this app with my family for the better part of a year, and I just love it! I gravitate to using this app far more than other social media because these are the people I care most about and want to share things with FIRST! It’s easy to share, to comment, to discuss, and to even look at things shared in the past! ### 5/5 — Amazing way to stay in touch *2020-04-17, version 1.4.6* Our family has been using cocoon since the beginning! It is an amazing way to keep in contact with grandparents or family far away without sharing photos on public sites. It also helps keep our close family in touch much easier. We love it! ### 5/5 — Good *2020-04-16, version 1.4.6* Really good app during these time of social distancing. It’s easy to use and has a great design ### 5/5 — My new favorite app of 2020 *2020-02-18, version 1.4.0* This has gotta be one of the best apps I've seen in a pretty long time. ### 5/5 — This is the app *2020-02-13, version 1.4.0* I’m the oldest of 6 kids and just graduated college. Staying in touch with my fam has gotten to be really tough. What we needed was something exactly like this. Without having to call everyone individually or pay attention to social media, I genuinely feel in touch with my entire family spread across multiple US states and even London😬✈️ I suggest this for any family and friend group that simply wants to stay in touch. ### 5/5 — Really cool *2020-02-09, version 1.4.0* Nice to be able to share all things I want to share to a specific group. Functions great as well. Good work founders. ### 5/5 — Brought me closer to my in-laws family *2020-02-02, version 1.3.5* I love this app since it feels like a great in between from texting and other social media apps. It gives you a safe space to passively send updates to your cocoon, and the organization of content makes it very easy to check the app when it’s convenient to catch up. I appreciate that it’s helped me get closer and feel more connected to my in-laws. Great app! Highly recommend downloading ### 5/5 — Most useful app on my phone! *2020-01-01, version 1.3.3* This is the best app on my phone, my family (spread across the the US) uses it every day to share photos of my nephew, our dog, and all kinds of updates from our lives. It’s really easy to use and makes my parents especially happy to know a little more about what we’re all up to when we can’t be together in person. --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-06-10.*