Marlow vs CaringBridge. Which one does your family need, or is it both?
CaringBridge keeps sixty people informed through the worst weeks. Marlow settles who is driving on Thursday and shows your parent who is coming. Many families use both.
CaringBridge is the site people reach for in the worst weeks. A diagnosis, a surgery, and suddenly there are sixty people who love your mother and want to know how she is, and you cannot make sixty phone calls. So you write one update at eleven at night, and they all read it, and they leave a note underneath. It has done that job since 1997, and its own figures say more than 300,000 people use it every day.
The journal is the best thing about it. One update, written once, read by everyone, with a place under it for them to answer. Nothing else in this category does that as well, and Marlow doesn’t do it at all.
What CaringBridge no longer does is keep a calendar. It retired its Planner in December 2023 and replaced it with Requests, which is a post in the feed with an “Offer to Help” button. That’s the gap this post is about. The rides, the parent’s screen and the record of who drove are Marlow’s; the journal is CaringBridge’s; and most families who read this will end up using both. Everything here about CaringBridge comes from its own site, help center, terms and privacy policy, read on September 13, 2026.
Of the 18 things in this table, how many each one covers
- CaringBridge 6 / 18
- Marlow 17 / 18
| Feature | CaringBridge | Marlow |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Keeping a wide circle of family and friends informed through a health crisis, and letting them offer help in reply | A few family members sharing a parent's rides, and a parent who sees who is coming on her own phone |
| The rides | ||
| A ride marked as needing a driver until someone takes it | A request shows Offer to Help until taken | Yes |
| Claim a ride in one tap, no confirm step | Yes | Yes |
| A ride there and a ride back on one entry, each leg with its own driver | No | Yes |
| A standing driver on a repeating appointment | No No calendar | Yes |
| Hand a ride back and the circle is asked again | "Unassign myself" | Yes |
| A be-ready time worked out from the actual drive | No | Yes |
| Picked up and home updates to the family | No | Yes |
| Your parent | ||
| A screen for your parent that she never has to operate | No Roles are Author, Co-Author and Visitor | Yes |
| No account or password for her | No Sign-in on the default privacy setting | Yes |
| Says the ride is being arranged, never shows her the gap | No | Yes |
| Read-only for her, enforced by the server | No | Yes |
| Her screen in her own language | No English only | Five, chosen per person |
| Practical | ||
| A shared calendar | No The Planner was retired in December 2023 | Yes |
| Repeating appointments | No | Yes |
| Never sells your data | No Its policy names advertisers among parties it sells or shares with | Yes |
| iPhone | Yes | Yes |
| Android | Yes | Built, in testing |
| Runs in a browser | Yes | No |
| Price | Free, donor supported | Free, permanently; Plus optional at $6.99 a month |
For keeping sixty people informed, CaringBridge is the tool
When something is happening to a person, dozens of people want to know, and the family cannot be the switchboard. CaringBridge takes that load off. An Author writes, a Co-Author can help, and Visitors read and reply. Their site counts more than a million pages since 1997. It is the best known tool for this job, and it deserves to be.
Marlow has no journal, no comments and no way to say how she’s doing. It will never tell your cousin in Phoenix that the surgery went well. It tells your brother that Thursday’s ride still needs a driver, and it tells your mother that Dana is coming at 9:20. Those are different sentences for different people, and only one product writes each.
If you try to run the rides in a journal’s comments, which families do in a pinch, you hit the same wall as the family group chat. A comment thread has no state. “Can someone take Thursday?” gets a reply, and a reply to the reply, and the current answer is somewhere in the middle.
Who wins? For keeping sixty people informed, CaringBridge is the tool.
The Planner is gone, and Requests isn’t a calendar
CaringBridge’s own help center puts it plainly: “As of December 2023, the Planner feature has been retired. In its place, we’ve introduced Requests.” A Request is a post in the page’s feed, in a category like Meals or Transportation. A Visitor taps “Offer to Help,” one person can pick up each request, and a helper can “Unassign myself” later. There is no calendar view, so there’s no way to look at next week and see which days are covered.
That’s fine for “somebody bring dinner on the 14th.” It’s a poor fit for dialysis every Tuesday and Thursday for a year, where the question isn’t whether one kind soul will step up but which of four siblings has the 14th, the 16th, the 21st and every date after.
Marlow is that calendar. Day, week, month or a plain list, with every appointment showing whether somebody has the ride. Orange means nobody yet. A repeating appointment is one entry that can carry a standing driver, so nobody gets asked twice a week about a ride that has been the same person since spring. A round trip is one appointment with two legs, each with its own driver.
Who wins? Marlow, for anything with a date on it.
In practice the split is clean. The update after the surgery, and the sixty replies to it, go on CaringBridge. “Can someone take her Thursday at 9:40?” goes on Marlow. Meals for the first month, from the neighbors and the congregation, are Requests on CaringBridge, which is what Requests are for. The standing Tuesday dialysis run, shared among three siblings for a year, is a repeating appointment on Marlow with a standing driver. Who drove how often, when the fairness conversation comes, is Marlow’s activity feed. And what your mother sees on her own phone is Marlow’s screen, which shows her the result and none of the working.
Nothing in that list is on both. That’s the tell that these are two tools and not two versions of one.
Seven visits a year is only the doctor’s office. Add the lab work, the imaging, the physical therapy, and the number a family is actually driving to is higher, for an average of five and a half years. A journal is for the crisis. The driving is for the years after it.
In Marlow the claim is the commitment
On CaringBridge a Visitor taps “Offer to Help” on a Request, one person can pick up each, and a helper can “Unassign myself” later. That is a real handoff, and it’s the part of Requests that works.
In Marlow claiming a ride is the commitment. There’s no confirm step, on purpose, so nobody is asked to confirm their own claim and nothing sits in limbo. Say you can’t make it and the ride goes straight back to needing a driver, where everyone can see it. As the date gets closer the circle is nudged about anything still unclaimed, and if it’s still open the organizer hears about it more loudly. Every claim and every hand-back lands in the activity feed, which is where “who drove how often” gets answered when the fairness conversation comes.
The ride you claim also goes into your own Google, Apple or Outlook calendar, with a warning if it clashes with something already there, directions to the door, and a “be ready” time worked out from the drive so she has her coat on when the car pulls up.
Who wins? Marlow. Both can hand a ride back; the claim that is a commitment, the be ready time from the drive and the picked up and home updates are Marlow’s.
Marlow gives your parent a screen. CaringBridge gives her a page about her
CaringBridge’s roles are Author, Co-Author and Visitor. If your mother is well enough to write, she can be the Author of her own page, and a lot of people are. That’s a voice, and it’s a real thing that Marlow will never give her. If she isn’t well enough, someone writes about her, and she reads it like a Visitor or hears about it secondhand. There’s no role for the person the page is about, and no view built for her. A page full of kind comments is a lovely thing to be shown on a Sunday afternoon. It’s not the thing that tells her when to have her coat on.
Marlow’s parent side is one screen. No account, no password, nothing to operate. A family member pairs her phone once with a code, and from then on it shows today and what’s next: the appointment, the time to be ready, and who’s coming. She can’t add, move or cancel anything; the server refuses a change from her phone even if the app had a bug. If a ride hasn’t been claimed, her screen says it’s being arranged, and she never sees the gap. The same line sits on her lock screen while the ride is happening, without the appointment’s name, because a lock screen is public.
Who wins? Marlow. A voice on her own page is CaringBridge’s to give; the screen that tells her who’s coming and when to be ready is Marlow’s.
Marlow collects less
CaringBridge’s privacy policy names advertisers among the parties it sells or shares personal information with. The same policy says it does not sell Consumer Health Data. The product asks for donations.
Marlow has less to say because it collects less. No analytics, no crash reporter, no trackers, no ads, no location tracking. Nothing is sold to anyone, and the website sets no cookies. Nothing is sent to a language model today, and if that ever changes it gets announced before it ships. You can get your data out in a readable form, and deleting a circle deletes its contents.
Who wins? Marlow. There is less to disclose because less is collected.
What each one costs
Marlow
- Free, permanently $0 The whole coordination loop and your parent's screen: the shared schedule, claiming rides, unlimited people, repeating appointments and round trips, medicines and the reminder, five languages. No ads. No card.
- Plus, optional $6.99 a month Add an appointment from a photo of a clinic letter, the medication record with missed dose alerts, and Ask Marlow on your parent's phone.
No card and no trial clock.
CaringBridge
- Free, donor supported $0 The journal, updates and Requests. A 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and the only tier. Asks for donations in the product.
Prices as of September 2026.
Which to choose
Choose CaringBridge if
- Sixty people love her and want to know how the surgery went, and you can't make sixty phone calls.
- The help you need for the next few weeks is meals and visits from a wide circle, offered in reply to what you post.
- She is well enough to write her own updates and would like somewhere to.
- Your helpers need it in a browser or on Android this week; Marlow's Android app is built and in testing.
Choose Marlow if
- The question every week is who is driving, and the people answering are a handful of family.
- The rides repeat and need a be ready time, directions to the door, and a place in the driver's own calendar.
- Your parent has an iPhone and should see who is coming without an account, and never the negotiation.
- You want a record of who drove when the fairness conversation comes.
Questions people ask
Does CaringBridge have a calendar?
Not any more. Their help center says the Planner was retired in December 2023 and replaced with Requests. A Request is a post in the page's feed, in a category such as Meals or Transportation, with an "Offer to Help" button. One person can pick up each request, and there's no calendar view. Marlow is a calendar first: day, week, month or a list, with every appointment showing whether it still needs a driver.
Is CaringBridge free?
Yes, and it's the only tier. CaringBridge is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit supported by donations, and it asks for donations in the product. Marlow's everyday app is free, permanently, with no ads and no card; Plus is optional at $6.99 a month, and there's no card to enter.
Can we use CaringBridge and Marlow together?
Most families in this situation probably should. The update after the surgery and the sixty replies go on CaringBridge. The Tuesday dialysis run, shared among three siblings for a year, goes on Marlow, and your mother sees who's coming on her own phone. The two don't talk to each other, and they don't need to, because they hold different things.
Does CaringBridge send text messages?
No. Their help center says text message notifications are not available at this time; reminders go by email and push. Marlow doesn't send texts either. It sends push notifications through Apple, and the version that would call or text a parent without a smartphone is designed and not built.
Does Marlow post updates about how she is doing?
No. Marlow holds appointments, rides and who's taking them, plus her medicines and the reminder. There's no journal, no comments, and nothing about how the appointment went. If you need to tell people how she is, that's CaringBridge's job, and we'd send you there.
What does my mother see on Marlow?
One screen with today and what's next: the appointment, the time to be ready, and who's coming. No account, no password, nothing to tap into. If nobody has claimed a ride yet, her screen says it's being arranged rather than showing her the gap. Her phone can read the schedule and nothing else, and the server enforces that.
The decision rule
Ask which way the information runs. If it runs outward, from one or two of you to everyone who loves her, that’s CaringBridge, and you should start the page tonight. If it runs inward, among the few of you deciding who has Thursday, that’s Marlow. A diagnosis usually produces both at once: the sixty who want news and the four who can drive. There’s no reason one tool has to carry both, and of everything compared on this blog, CaringBridge is the one that overlaps with Marlow least.
If the discharge is the part you’re facing this week, hospital discharge on a Friday is about the afternoon that follows it, and how it works shows both halves of Marlow side by side.
Marlow is new and iPhone today, with Android built and in testing. The everyday app is free, permanently, with no card. It isn’t a medical device or a safety system, and it doesn’t vet, insure or background check drivers; they’re the people you invited. If anything here about CaringBridge is out of date, write to support@getmarlow.app and the post will be corrected.
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