Beachsafe vs OWNA Childcare App
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Beachsafe
Discover Australian beaches with real-time information on surf conditions, weather, hazards, and lifesaving services. Find patrolled beaches, learn about safety, and get expert advice on rip currents and marine life.
- Find nearby beaches with GPS
- View surf, weather, and tide forecasts
- Check patrol service information
- Identify beach hazards and warnings
- Access surf safety advice
- Save favorite beaches
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Taking a road trip up the coast? On holiday? Or just looking for the right beach for you? Find your nearest beaches in seconds. Brought to you by Surf Life Saving Australia, the Beachsafe app includes the location, weather, surf conditions and hazards plus the local facilities for all Australian beaches. Importantly, the current lifesaving service for each beach is listed to help you find the nearest patrolled beach. Beachsafe also provides expert advice about rip currents, flags and signs, waves, marine creatures, surf skills and more. SLSA recommends swimming at patrolled beaches, between the red and yellow flags. App Features Find a beach • Find beaches near you with your device’s GPS • Use the map view to quickly locate beaches near you • Search for a town, city, region or beach • Save your favourite beaches Patrol service information • Quickly and easily see if a beach is patrolled by surf lifesavers or lifeguards • Find out when a beach will be patrolled using the future search function Conditions • View detailed weather forecasts • See the tide information • Check the swell and wind forecast • Push notifications - Beach closures and major hazard alerts for Beaches that you follow Hazards • Review a beach’s hazard rating • Read detailed summaries of each beach written by coastal safety experts • See hazard information about a patrolled beach including rip currents, stingers and sharks when these have been entered by surf lifesavers or lifeguards Surf Safety • How to identify and escape rip currents • Lifeguard’s top tips • Read about flags and signs • Waves and weather • Surf skills • Marine creatures • Stingers • First aid advice • And more… The Beachsafe app was produced in conjunction with SLSA's beach safety website beachsafe.org.au. If you find this app useful and you wish to help support Surf Life Saving Australia and our 160,000 volunteers, please visit https://sls.com.au. Be safe at the beach, get Beachsafe.
OWNA Childcare App
This app connects childcare centers, educators, and parents, offering features for curriculum planning, daily routine tracking, portfolio creation, and secure communication. It streamlines administrative tasks for center management and provides parents with real-time updates on their child's day.
- Curriculum programming and planning
- Child portfolios and daily routine tracking
- Secure messaging and notifications
- Digital attendance and check-in/out
- Center administration dashboard
- Document and policy management
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Welcome to the OWNA Childcare App! The Best Childcare App for Families and Centres and it's all for FREE. For Educators - Curriculum Programming & Planning - Upload Images, Videos & PDFs - Portfolios - Observations, Follow Ups, Learning Stories ++ - Record Daily Routine - Meals, Sleep, Sunscreen, Nappies, Bottles, Sleep Check++ - Complete Checklists - Private Messaging - Receive Notification Alerts - Checkin/Out (Timesheets) - QIP - View & Contribute - Looks Great & Easy to use - Super fast and robust - Plus loads more+++ For Parents - View children's Daily Stats (meal, sleep, bottles etc) with past history - Digital Attendances (time logged, signature captured) - View Writeups, Images and Videos - Read Children's Portfolios - Notify Centre of Non Attendances - Upload Immunisation Record - View Programs, Policy Documents & more - Events Calendar - Secure Communication with Centre - Receive Notification Alerts - Looks Great & Easy to use - Plus loads more+++ For Owners/Directors/Management - App for both Educators & Parents - Responsible Person & Daily RP Log - Room Ratio/Across the Service Check - Digitise Reports - as per ACECQA's req'd - Administration Dashboard to oversee your Centre or multiple Centres - Centre Documents, Policies & Procedures, Helpful websites and more - Staff Timesheets, Stats & Performance - Events Calendar - Centre's Menus with automatic rotation - QIP Report - Safe & Secure Platform. Data stored locally. Adhere to industry standards. - Plus loads more+++ So if your centre is not on OWNA - tell them to get on it now! Enjoy and do let us know what you think. - OWNA Childcare App
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Beachsafe at 5.0 against OWNA Childcare App's 3.7. Beachsafe also leads on iOS requirement (13.0 vs 15.0). OWNA Childcare App's advantage is update cadence (every 9 days vs every 6 months) and review sentiment (60% vs 46%). On price, ratings volume, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Beachsafe holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 3.7. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 3 and 6 respectively. Written reviews complicate that: 46% of Beachsafe's written reviews are positive against 60% of OWNA Childcare App's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
Beachsafe ships an update every 6 months, OWNA Childcare App every 9 days. Both last shipped on October 29, 2026.
| Parameter | Beachsafe | OWNA Childcare App |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 5.0 (3 ratings) — better | 3.7 (6 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 46.5% of reviews | 60.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 3 | 6 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 6 months | Every 9 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 13.0 — better | 15.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 100 MB | 118 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Surf Life Saving Australia Ltd. | Owna |
Customer experience
Beachsafe
OWNA Childcare App
User reviews
Beachsafe
From 3 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Great info on beach conditions
- 👍 Useful for planning beach days
- 👍 Provides vital safety information
- 👍 Comprehensive beach details
- 👍 Good for discovering new beaches
Room to improve
- 🐛 App frequently fails to load
- 🐛 Information is often inaccurate/outdated
- 🐛 Search functionality is poor
- 🐛 Updates have made the app worse
- 🐛 Requires account creation for basic features
OWNA Childcare App
From 6 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 📱 Real-time updates on child's activities, meals, sleep, and toileting
- 📸 Photo and video sharing throughout the day
- ✅ Easy check-in/check-out functionality
- 💬 Seamless communication with educators
- 📋 Centralized platform for all childcare information
Room to improve
- 🗺️ Confusing and illogical navigation structure
- ❌ Poor user interface design
- 🐛 Frequent freezing and crashing
- ⏱️ Slow loading times for photos and videos
- 🔀 Inconsistent menu placement across app
Bugs and requests
Beachsafe
Reported bugs
15 issues- App stuck on loading screen
- Algal bloom report button does nothing
- Photo quality makes beaches look clean
- Search no longer works correctly
- Beach closure information incorrect
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- App fails to load anything
- App stays on loading screen forever
- Favorite beaches disappear
- App crashes on opening screen
- Swell forecast not updating
- Location is incorrect
- Water temp inaccurate
- App changes beach selection automatically
- Favorites wiped by updates
- Login button not functional
Requested features
16 requests- Integrate beachwatch pollution data
- Add Face ID authentication
- Improve photo quality
- Fix algal bloom report button
- Provide reasons for beach closures
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- Add tide times
- Integrate with BOM for weather warnings
- Add advice on dog-friendly beaches
- Add details on rips and water safety
- Link to clubbie/surf sports events
- Add webcams
- Add water temperature
- Allow offline caching of data
- Improve search engine sophistication
- Add a downloadable database
- Make learning about rips mandatory
OWNA Childcare App
Reported bugs
20 issues- App crashes and freezes frequently
- Sign-in/sign-out not registering properly
- Photos and videos fail to load or load slowly
- Video playback without sound
- Notifications delayed by hours or days
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- Date picker selecting wrong year (2025 vs 2026)
- Child profile photos not displaying (only initials)
- Some notifications missing from in-app list
- Ad pop-ups blocking account switching
- Dynamic Island covering video player buttons on iOS
- Single tap on photos unexpectedly exits view
- Like button slow to register
- Comments and notes disappearing from checklists
- Attendance records not showing after sign-in
- Form data not saving properly on connection drop
- Mute button for conversations not functioning
- Dark mode toggle not working
- Back gesture not supported on iOS
- Photo gallery not updating properly on iPad
- Slow performance and responsiveness issues
Requested features
19 requests- Dark mode or customizable color themes
- Multi-child support in single login account
- Direct messaging with educators
- Ability to mark favorite or pin important items
- Photo thumbnail preview while scrolling
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- Live chat support, especially for finance
- Multiple parent/guardian access from one account
- Permanent booking options
- Group booking and cancellation functionality
- Draft save feature for long enrollment forms
- Confirmation copy of submitted forms
- Badge notifications for new posts
- Chronological photo viewing by child
- Better iPad landscape/portrait layout support
- Ability to filter marketplace by multiple locations
- Notification preferences and mute options
- Improved roster viewing for staff
- Under/over threes staff ratio display
- Integrated form functions instead of linked ones
In-app purchases
Beachsafe
No in-app purchases
OWNA Childcare App
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Beachsafe free?
Is OWNA Childcare App free?
Which has better reviews, Beachsafe or OWNA Childcare App?
Do Beachsafe or OWNA Childcare App have ads?
Which is updated more often, Beachsafe or OWNA Childcare App?
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