Marlow vs Cozi for a family looking after a parent

If you have kids, there’s a fair chance Cozi is already on your phone. It’s the family organizer a lot of households run on: a shared color coded calendar, the shopping list, the meal plan for the week, the reminder that somebody has to be at soccer by 5:30. Cozi has been doing that job since 2005, it passed its 17 millionth user back in 2016, and the shared shopping list alone is why plenty of families would never give it up.

So when a parent starts needing rides to appointments, the natural move is to add her to the Cozi calendar. Mom’s cardiology, in purple. It works for a while. This post is about why it stops working for that specific job, and what Marlow holds that Cozi doesn’t.

Side by side

Of the 19 things in this table, how many each one covers

• Cozi 5 / 19
• Marlow 18 / 19

Feature	Cozi	Marlow
Best for	A busy household with kids: the week, the lists, the meals.	A family sharing a parent's rides, and her own screen.
The rides
A ride marked as needing a driver until someone takes it	No Events have attendees; somebody assigns them	Yes
Claim a ride in one tap, no confirm step	No	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	Yes
Hand a ride back and the circle is asked again	No	Yes
A be ready time worked out from the actual drive	No	Yes
Picked up and home updates to the family	No	Yes
Who drove how often, on a feed	No	Yes
Your parent
A screen for your parent that she never has to operate	No No restricted access option	Yes
No account or password for her	No A shared family password	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	Yes	Yes
Repeating appointments	Yes	Yes
Free of ads on every plan	No Ads on the free plan; Gold removes them	Yes
Never sells your data	Yes	Yes
Android	Yes	Built, in testing
Runs in a browser	Yes	No
Price	Free with ads; Gold $39 a year, Max $79 a year	Free, permanently; Plus optional at $6.99 a month

Scroll sideways for the rest of the table.

Cozi is built for a household’s week, and a parent’s rides are a different job

Cozi’s job is what the family is doing this week, and what it needs to buy for it. The calendar is the center, with a color for each person and up to 12 people on it, and the lists and meal plan hang off the side. That’s a real job, and a household with two working parents and three kids’ schedules is exactly who it’s for.

Looking after an aging parent is a different job with a different cast. The people sharing it are usually adult siblings in their fifties, often in different towns, and the thing they’re sharing is not a week of soccer but years of appointments. What has to be settled, over and over, is which of them is driving on which day.

Five and a half years is a long time to keep “Dana driving?” in an event title. It’s long enough for the fairness question to come up, and a family needs a record to settle it rather than a feeling.

Marlow is built around that one loop and nothing else. An appointment goes in, with the real address and a “be ready” time worked out from the drive. It shows orange until somebody in the circle claims the ride, and green with a name on it once they have. Repeating appointments are one entry, a round trip is one appointment with two rides, and the circle has no cap because circle size is never going to be a paid feature. There’s no list and no meal plan, and there won’t be.

Who wins? Marlow. The job is a parent’s rides, and that’s the one it’s built around.

An event with attendees isn’t a ride with a driver

Both apps show everyone the same calendar, so if the whole problem is “nobody knows when the appointment is,” either one fixes it. The difference is what an entry can hold.

In Cozi an event has attendees, and somebody assigns them. That’s the right shape for a household: soccer has the kid on it, the dentist has the parent taking her. It’s the wrong shape for a ride that nobody has agreed to yet. There’s no way for a sibling to volunteer. You can put “Dana driving?” in the title, and families do, but then the question mark lives in a text field, the answer arrives in a text message, and three weeks later nobody can say who drove how often. Cozi’s FAQ says assigning a list doesn’t alert the person it was assigned to. That’s the family group chat’s failure, moved into a calendar.

Marlow’s entry holds the state. Anyone in the circle taps “I’ll take this” and it’s theirs; the claim is the commitment, and there’s no confirm step. Can’t make it after all? Say so and the ride goes back to needing a driver, where everyone can see it. If nobody claims it, the circle is reminded as the day gets close, and if it’s still open the organizer hears about it louder. Notifications are delivered by Apple and Marlow’s own terms say nobody guarantees delivery, so the orange mark on the schedule is the thing to trust.

A standing driver on a repeating series covers the case where it’s always the same person: physical therapy every Tuesday and Thursday is one entry with Mike on it, and nobody gets asked twice a week. Months later, the activity feed says who claimed what and search finds any appointment by driver.

Who wins? Marlow. It’s the one thing it does that Cozi doesn’t try to.

Cozi gives every member the full app, and your parent may need the opposite

Cozi’s FAQ says it plainly: there’s no restricted access option, and everyone on the family account has full edit access. You could give your mother the app and her own color, and she’d have a complete family organizer in her hand, with everybody’s dentist appointments and the grocery list, behind the shared family password. Some parents would enjoy that.

A parent with a tremor, or one who has simply had enough of apps, needs the opposite: less on the screen, and nothing to press. Marlow’s senior side is one screen. Today, in order, as a list rather than a grid. The next appointment sits at the top with the time to be ready and who’s coming, then later today, then tomorrow, then a line saying that’s everything. No account and no password; her phone is paired once with a code shown on yours. She can’t add, move or cancel anything, and that’s enforced at the database rather than by hiding buttons, so a wrong tap can’t change the schedule. If a ride isn’t claimed yet, her screen says it’s being arranged and never shows her the gap.

Text starts at 20px and follows the phone’s text size setting, and you can set it larger from your side. The next thing sits in a home screen widget, and while a ride is happening it’s on her lock screen with nothing about the appointment itself, because a lock screen is public. Her medicines and their reminder are on the same screen, and she can tap that she’s taken them. All of it in English, Spanish, Chinese, Hindi or French, chosen for her, whatever you use yourself. The senior side shows what she sees.

Cozi is in English. For a parent who reads Spanish or Chinese, that’s a decision on its own.

Who wins? Marlow. Her screen is what the senior side is for.

For lists and meals, Cozi does more

This is the section that keeps Cozi on a lot of phones. The shopping list, the recipes and the meal plan are things Marlow has no version of and won’t. The other lists, likewise. Cozi runs on iPhone, on Android and in a browser at my.cozi.com, so the grandparent on a tablet and the teenager on Android are on the same calendar. Marlow is iPhone today, with the Android app built and in testing, and there’s no web app; everyone who claims rides needs the app on an iPhone.

Cozi has a home screen widget too, on Android and, with Cozi Gold, on iPhone. Its free plan enters events up to 30 days ahead from the Agenda view and allows one reminder per attendee, and the paid plans remove the ads. Twelve people is the cap, which is plenty for a household and tight for a large family sharing a parent.

Running both is possible, and some households do it: the week on Cozi, the parent’s rides in Marlow. The two don’t sync, so anything on both gets typed twice. Weigh that before adding a second app to a family that already has one working.

For lists and meals, Cozi does more. The rides are Marlow’s.

What each costs

Cozi’s free plan carries ads and Gold removes them for $39 a year, which for a household that lives in the app is a fair trade. Marlow shows no ads on any plan and runs no analytics or trackers, so there’s nothing to pay to remove. The everyday app is free, permanently, with no card and no trial clock. Plus is optional, and the pricing page has the rule for what goes in it and what never will.

When Cozi is the better choice, and when Marlow is

If your parent still drives herself and you just want her appointments visible next to the kids’ schedule, Cozi is the right tool and Marlow is overkill. If she lives with you, there’s no ride to hand around; you’re going anyway, and a calendar entry is all the coordination there is.

If the hard part of your week is meals and groceries, Cozi does that and Marlow does nothing about it. If the coordination is between you and your partner rather than among siblings, an assigned event is exactly as much system as you need. And if a driver is on Android while the Android app is still in testing, Cozi reaches them today.

Questions people ask

Can Cozi be used to coordinate rides for an elderly parent?

It can hold the appointments, and for a household where one person always does the driving that's enough. What Cozi doesn't have is a way for someone to claim a ride; events have attendees and somebody assigns them. If several people share the driving, the question of who is taking Thursday ends up in a text thread beside the calendar, which is the problem Marlow was built for.

Does Cozi have a simple view for a grandparent?

No. Cozi's own FAQ says it does not offer a restricted access option, and every member of the family account has full edit access to the whole organizer. Marlow's senior side is the other extreme: one read only screen, no login, and nothing she can change, enforced at the database rather than by hiding buttons.

Can I use Cozi and Marlow together?

Yes, and some households do: the family week in Cozi, the parent's rides in Marlow. They don't sync, so an appointment that belongs in both gets typed twice. That's manageable for a few appointments a month and tiresome for more, so we'd suggest deciding which app owns her schedule rather than splitting it.

Does Marlow do lists or meal planning?

No, and it isn't going to. Marlow is the schedule, the rides and the parent's screen, with her medicines and their reminder alongside. If lists and meals are a big part of what your family needs from an app, keep Cozi for them.

What about Android?

Marlow's Android app is built and in testing; today it's iPhone only, and there's no web version. Until Android ships, every person who claims rides needs an iPhone. Cozi runs on iPhone, Android and the web, so if a driver is on Android right now, we'd rather say so than have you invite everyone and find out.

Is Marlow free like Cozi?

Cozi is free with ads, and Gold at $39 a year removes them. Marlow's everyday app is free, permanently, with no ads on any plan and no trial clock. Plus is optional at $6.99 a month, and the pricing page says what goes in it. Circle size is never a paid feature.

The rule is the job, not the app. If the week you’re running is a household’s, keep Cozi, and if your parent’s appointments fit comfortably inside it, put them there and stop. If what you’re actually running is a parent’s rides shared among siblings, with a screen she can read and a record of who drove, that’s Marlow’s job and Cozi never claimed it. How it works shows both halves of Marlow in a few minutes.

Marlow is new, and iPhone today, with the Android app built and in testing. It isn’t a medical device or a safety system, it doesn’t vet, insure or background check drivers, and the everyday app is free, permanently, with no card.