Short answer
Circle filters kids' phones through an app that runs a VPN on the device, and earlier sold a Circle Home Plus box for home Wi‑Fi; it's now sold mainly as a subscription app. Sheepdog Filter needs no box and no VPN app: one setting on each device, or once on your router, filters every device at home and away, with per-child rules, bedtimes, homework mode and weekly reports. Free to start.
How Circle works
Circle filters phones and tablets with an app that routes traffic through a VPN on the device. For home Wi‑Fi, Circle used to sell the Circle Home Plus box, which sat next to your router; today Circle is sold mainly as an app subscription.
What Circle does well
- Time limits per app and per category, plus an "Off time" and bedtime.
- Pause the internet for a child with one tap.
- Rewards, like extra time for good behavior.
Where Sheepdog Filter is different
- No VPN app on the phone. A VPN app can conflict with school VPNs, be switched off in Settings, or drain the battery. Sheepdog Filter uses the phone's own encrypted DNS setting instead.
- No box. For the whole house, change one setting on the router you already have. See home Wi‑Fi parental controls.
- Blocks the workarounds: VPNs, proxies and "unblocked games" mirrors, with an email if someone tries.
- Free to start, with every feature.
Switching from Circle
Remove the Circle app (or its VPN profile) from your child's devices, unplug any Circle box, then follow our five-minute setup.
Sheepdog Filter
The internet, childproofed in five minutes.
One switch per worry, every device in the house, and a plain-English report each week. Free to start, no app to install.
Start freeQuestions parents ask
Do I need to buy hardware for Sheepdog Filter?
No. It works with the router you already have, and on phones it uses a built-in setting. There's nothing to buy.