FamilyChart vs Family Stork: a medication tracker vs. an automatic health timeline.

What does FamilyChart actually do?

FamilyChart is a progressive web app (PWA) — it installs on any device without going through an app store. It's focused on medication tracking and health data management: you log medications, track health information, and keep it organized across family members. There's also a self-hosted version available via Docker on GitHub, which is a real differentiator for families who care about data sovereignty.

What FamilyChart does well: it gives you a clean interface to manage what you already know — which medications everyone takes, dosages, refill dates, health notes. If your main problem is keeping track of pills across multiple family members, it's a focused tool for that job.

What FamilyChart doesn't do: it doesn't receive records from your doctors automatically. You enter the data. You keep it updated. When your child's pediatrician sends a visit summary, or your parent's cardiologist sends discharge papers, or the lab sends results — those don't flow into FamilyChart on their own.

Medication tracking vs. a health timeline — which problem are you solving?

This is the honest distinction, and it matters:

Choose FamilyChart if:

• Your main problem is tracking medications across family members (dosages, schedules, refill dates)
• You want a self-hosted solution with full data control
• You're comfortable entering and updating health data yourself
• You want a focused tool that does one thing well

Choose Family Stork if:

• You're managing records from multiple doctors for a child, an aging parent, and yourself
• You want clinical records to arrive automatically — visit summaries, lab results, discharge papers
• You need a lifelong timeline that starts from birth and stays with the person
• You're tired of logging into a different portal for every hospital
• You want to hand the school a complete record from one email address

They're not competing tools in the way you might expect. FamilyChart is a medication log you keep current. Family Stork is a health timeline that keeps itself current because clinics send records to it directly.

FAQ

Does FamilyChart receive records from clinics automatically?

Based on what FamilyChart describes, it's a medication and health tracking app where you enter and manage data yourself. It does not receive records from clinics automatically. Family Stork works differently — every clinic can email records to the private address on a person's record, and they file into the timeline without any manual action.

Is FamilyChart free?

FamilyChart is available as a PWA and also offers a self-hosted Docker version via GitHub (WheelieLabs/familychart). Check familychart.app for current pricing details. Family Stork is $99/year — or about $10 a month — and includes the private email inbox, AI to answer questions from the record, and coverage for every family member.

Can I use both FamilyChart and Family Stork?

Yes — they solve different problems. You could use FamilyChart to track daily medications and dosing schedules, and Family Stork to collect and organize the clinical records that arrive from doctors. The medication list your parent's cardiologist sends to the Family Stork address will sit alongside the dosing schedule you track in FamilyChart.

What if I have records scattered across multiple hospital portals?

That's exactly the problem Family Stork's email mechanic solves. Instead of logging into MyChart at three different hospitals, each clinic sends records to one address. One timeline, every doctor, every family member. MyChart from three hospitals → one family record.

Does Family Stork also track medications?

Family Stork records medication information that arrives from clinics — prescriptions, medication lists from discharge papers, changes noted in visit summaries. It doesn't currently offer a dedicated daily medication-tracking feature the way FamilyChart does. If daily pill tracking is your primary need, FamilyChart is the more focused tool for that.