The Commons User Reviews

Name: The Commons: Students
Rating: 1.31606 (193 reviews)

The Commons: Students

The Commons, Inc.

📚 Education

📊 Productivity

What users say

Summarized from real user reviews of The Commons. Based on 193 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

Top reviews

Most Recent Highest Rated Lowest Rated

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

2 months ago

Good solution

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

StellaFJ

2 months ago

Horrible

Doesn’t work my school dont even try

cheeseman545

3 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

3 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

3 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.

3 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

3 months 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.

Horrible app

I hate my school

hellojelloyousmello

3 months ago

Bad app

Horrible app, never use this ever

unicorn meatball

3 months ago

i don’t like it

spiderbug14

4 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

4 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

4 months ago

Working good

Updates have improved the issues. Not so bad.

Mary Basset

4 months ago

Disappointed with lack of quality

Just an absolutely garbage app. Turns on randomly on weekends, uses up more phone battery than watching a netflix movie, and yet, still is unable to know whether I’m in class or in the north pole.

The app oftentimes sends threatening notifications to me and my administrators, but funnily enough, does so on weekends too! Good luck explaining how I had my phone’s location services disabled while I was at 0% battery!

Also, I don’t know much about the confidentiality of your data, but as a rule of thumb, never trust an app with your location. It’s your right to keep your data private and you shouldn’t be forced to deliberately send your data to a chinese database selling your information, all in the supposed name of “social media addiction”.

Fortambo

5 months ago

Response from developer

Thanks for taking the time to share your feedback. We’re sorry to hear you’ve had a frustrating experience. The Commons is designed to operate only according to the school’s configured schedule, and it should not be activated outside of those hours. If you’re seeing behavior like activation on weekends or unexpected notifications, we’d definitely like to investigate that further. We also want to clarify that The Commons does not collect personal content from your device or sell data. The app uses limited system permissions to help schools reduce distractions during the school day while keeping students’ devices private and secure. If you’re open to it, please reach out to our support team at support@the-commons.app so we can look into what’s happening on your device and help resolve it.

No

Memer_god75

7 months ago

I hate this

sucks

helosoauaha

7 months ago

drains battery

at the end of the school day it’s says i’ve been in my phone for 5 hrs and my battery has dropped down to 5 %. it also tracks your location at all times. deleted immediately.

fpe 18

8 months 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.

Endcapp

8 months 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

gross

doesn't work and creates more problems that it fixes. if you are considering this for your school, don't do it. this app makes me feel like my phone isn't my property during school hours

lalalalallalalalaldjrhbemd