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Moda vs Teen Driving Log: Which App Tracks Hours Better?
The Short Version
Teen Driving Log is a bare-bones timer app. Moda is a full driving practice tracker. Both are on the App Store. Both target the same use case. But the gap between them is massive. If you just want to tap “start” and “stop,” Teen Driving Log technically works. If you want your hours actually organized and ready for the DMV, Moda is the better pick.
What Is Teen Driving Log?
Teen Driving Log does exactly what the name says. You open it, start a timer, drive around, stop the timer. It saves the session. You can see a list of your sessions and a running total of hours.
That’s it. That’s the app.
No GPS tracking. No automatic night detection. No weather logging. No family linking. No DMV form exports. No Live Activity on the lock screen. Basic backup and restore, but no cloud sync.
The interface is simple. Really simple. It looks like someone’s first SwiftUI project, which honestly it might be. There’s nothing wrong with that on principle, but when you’re trusting an app to track months of driving data, polish and reliability start to matter.
There’s no indication of active development. No social proof to speak of. The app exists, it records time, and that’s about the extent of the commitment.
What Is Moda?
Moda costs $4.99 one-time and does significantly more with the same basic premise.
You start a session when your teen drives. You stop it when they’re done. But between those two taps, Moda is doing a lot of work in the background.
GPS tracking records the route. Not for surveillance or uploading your location anywhere. The route data stays on your device. But it gives you a real record of each session beyond just a number on a timer.
Night driving auto-detection uses sunset/sunrise calculations to tag sessions that qualify as nighttime practice. Most states require 10-15 hours of night driving specifically, and manually remembering which sessions counted is a pain. Moda does it for you.
Weather tracking logs conditions during each session. Rain, snow, clear skies. Some states want this documented. Even if yours doesn’t, it’s useful for making sure your teen gets experience in varied conditions.
Family linking lets both parents track hours from their own phones. The data syncs between them. If Mom drives with your teen on Tuesday and Dad drives Thursday, both sessions end up in the same log without anyone copying numbers into a spreadsheet.
DMV form exports generate the actual paperwork your state requires. Real forms for Indiana, North Carolina, New Jersey, Nevada, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, with more states coming. Not a generic printout. The real thing.
Live Activity puts the active session timer on your iPhone lock screen. Glanceable, no need to unlock and open the app mid-drive.
Feature Comparison
| Feature | Moda | Teen Driving Log |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $4.99 one-time | Free / low cost |
| Session timer | Yes | Yes |
| GPS route tracking | Yes (on-device) | No |
| Night auto-detection | Yes | No |
| Weather tracking | Yes | No |
| Family linking | Yes | No |
| DMV form exports | Yes (7 states) | No |
| Live Activity (lock screen) | Yes | No |
| Cloud backup/sync | Yes | Basic backup |
| Active development | Yes | Unclear |
Where Teen Driving Log Wins
It’s simple. If you are completely certain all you want is a start/stop timer with a total, and you don’t care about anything else on this list, Teen Driving Log does that one thing. It’s also free or very cheap, depending on when you download it.
Some people genuinely prefer minimal apps. No features to learn, no settings to configure. Open, tap, drive, tap, done. Fair enough.
Where Moda Wins
Everything beyond the timer button.
The night detection alone justifies Moda’s price. Tracking nighttime hours manually is the kind of thing that seems easy until you’re three months in and realize you forgot to mark half your evening sessions. Then you’re sitting in the DMV parking lot trying to reconstruct which drives happened after dark. Moda prevents that entirely.
Family linking solves a problem that every two-parent household hits. Practice hours come from both parents. Without syncing, you’re maintaining two separate logs and merging them by hand. Or one parent does all the logging, which means the other has to text after every session. It’s friction that adds up over months.
And when you finally hit your required hours, Moda generates the DMV form. Not a screenshot of your log. Not a notes app printout. A proper form that matches what your state expects. Teen Driving Log gives you a list of sessions and wishes you luck.
The Verdict
Teen Driving Log is a timer. Moda is a tracking system. If a timer is genuinely all you need, go for it. But most families discover halfway through the permit process that they need more than a timer. They need night hours broken out, weather conditions noted, both parents’ sessions combined, and a DMV-ready document at the end.
Moda does all of that for $4.99. Once. No subscriptions. That’s less than a gallon of gas in most states, for an app you’ll rely on almost daily for the better part of a year.
Moda wins this one pretty clearly.