The Commons User Reviews

Name: The Commons: Students
Rating: 1.3 (216 reviews)

The Commons: Students

The Commons, Inc.

📚 Education

📊 Productivity

Customer Experience

Positive experience17.3% of reviews

Neutral0.0% of reviews

Negative experience82.7% of reviews

~ Based on 75 written reviews from the US App Store.

What users say

Summarized from real user reviews of The Commons. Based on 216 reviews and a 1.3/5 average, it highlights the 1 positive and 4 negatives reviewers mention most about this Education app.

Positive things

💡Helps students focus on school work

Negative things

🚫Blocks access to social media and communication apps
🔒Privacy concerns with VPN and data tracking
🐛Causes issues with phone functionality
🤬Perceived as an unnecessary and intrusive app

Is The Commons Safe?

The Commons: Students does not appear safe based on available data. AppsHunter Safety Score for The Commons is 30/100.

This assessment is based on 216 user ratings, with an App Store average of 1.3/5.

Safety Analysis

6.9% of ratings point to a safe experience

0.9% of ratings suggest some concerns

92.1% of ratings point to a risky experience

~ Based on 216 App Store ratings for The Commons.

Is The Commons Legit?

The Commons: Students appears legitimate, with a few gaps. AppsHunter Legitimacy Score for The Commons is 60/100.

Based on 60 of 100 points across 7 verification signals from App Store and developer data.

Top reviews

Most Recent Highest Rated Lowest Rated

Poorly made, controlling

This app just doesn’t work well at all, bans every app on my phone INCLUDING the weather app and my clock. The geofence system doesn’t seem to work so great either, since when I drive by my school it will shut everything down as if i’m on campus. I hope you rethink this sorry app and take it down

BAN COMMONS

17 days ago

strongly dislike

i feel there are way better ways to limit phone usage in schools, this is simply invasive to students and their privacy and i don’t think schools should use it :(

lemonhead67

20 days ago

Stupid idea

This app doesn’t even work. It tracks my precise location from my house to my school, yet it only turns off long after I left my school. It doesn’t let me send texts, and turns off everything on my phone, thus making it useless. I often need to contact people within a moments notice, and when I am on campus, I can’t do that. This app has so many problems, I’m surprised it’s not being published under the title of a prototype. They can say what they want, but this app is idiotic. The only it has reconnected my school is that we all despise it, because it doesn’t work, and is a stupid idea. I would humbly ask the devs to immediately remove this stupid attempt of an app

Endcapp

21 days ago

Response from developer

Thank you for sharing your concern — we want to be very clear about how The Commons works. The Commons does not track or store a student’s location. Our app uses Apple’s approved geofencing technology, and iOS is required to display notifications whenever location services are active. Apple simply verifies when a student enters or leaves a school zone and then informs our app to turn on or off. That’s it — the location data itself stays on the device and is never sent to The Commons. We built The Commons to be privacy-first, and our practices are outlined in our privacy policy. We take this seriously and encourage anyone with questions to reach out directly at support@the-commons.app

Genuinely broken app

The wonderful devs decided to make sure this somehow worked outside of the regular range and lock me out of my phone in my own home

RqmenL

21 days ago

Ts is awful

App is something you would hear an article about coming from mainland China about media censorship and digital espionage. Also why no half stars?

Mike Tyson 3

22 days ago

Location

I believe its ridiculous that this app should have access to my location all of the time. We are required to put it on our phone before school even starts in order to get important information for the upcoming year. There is absolutely no reason I should give this app access to my location 100% of the time as well as screen time access. Crazy.

AvaGepr

22 days ago

At last a good experience

I use The Commons app last year. It didn’t work that good.
I’m testing it this summer as a student council member and I actually like the experience. Distractions are completely blocked and I can track my usage data. Hopefully it continues to get better👻

awesgt

25 days ago

Response from developer

Thanks for the review! We know phones can be super distracting, so The Commons is here to make school time less stressful and more focused. It doesn’t collect personal info or sell data; it just helps students stay present while building healthy tech habits.

New updates

I appreciate the updates to the app. New features are great and work well.

Mary Basset

a month ago

Awful

They are spying on my phone, It’s not like there going to find child p*** on there so idk what they are looking for. This app locks me out on weekends and drains my battery to the ground. I would rather have a flip phone than have to install this awful app. I want my phone on the weekend.

Big daddy balls3775

3 months ago

Good solution

This is a good solution to the phone problems that hurt students learning and mental health.

StellaFJ

3 months ago

Horrible

Doesn’t work my school dont even try

cheeseman545

4 months ago

Poor Experience

Laggy, unresponsive, and every time it’s in use, my phone battery drains at a much higher rate than usual even though I have good battery life. I find myself bringing multiple charger packs to school to combat this poorly designed app.

dnsjalriaaigivka

4 months ago

Poor Quality App

I could complain about this being implemented in my school but I will not. I want to talk about how ineffective it is. It almost never works and only turns on when it is not supposed to. We can’t even use powerschool or google apps which makes certain school tasks incredibly tedious and inefficient. It turns on, on weekends, when i’m outside campus, and more. I would not recommend and I am also mad they added this to my school. -John Phillips

John Coolidge Phillips

4 months ago

App quality

We have been piloting this new app at our school. Overall it has helped alongside a strong policy rollout. App reliability has significantly improved with their last upgrade. Hoping it continues to show improvements

AP.101.

4 months ago

Trialed at our school

Overall this app reduced behavioral instances across the board - phones were a huge issue before - this has helped to make the manageable

awesgt

4 months ago

Response from developer

Horrible app

I hate my school

hellojelloyousmello

4 months ago

Bad app

Horrible app, never use this ever

unicorn meatball

4 months ago

i don’t like it

scaredconsumer444

5 months ago

IF YOU ARE A SCHOOL DO NOT USE THIS APP!

It’s honestly useless and it makes the problem worse. Punishing students for their app not working when it’s not their fault.

I am a dude you got face

5 months ago

absolutely not

Everyone hates it. We cant even send pictures? Like what’s up with that. I don’t even know why my school has this app, we can’t even have our phones in class so really there’s no point.

cinnabunzzzzzz