Dana vs 11pets: exhaustive tracking, or shared care
11pets advertises more than fifty features and, these days, family sharing too. The difference is no longer whether a second person can get in. It is what the record remembers about them.
11pets advertises a genuinely wide record: treatments, grooming, weight, vaccinations, documents, and a free tier that does not feel crippled. It also advertises sharing now. Its own site describes adding family members and choosing which data you share, of which pet, with whom, and for how long. On breadth of fields, Dana does not beat it.
Dana is narrower on purpose and deeper on one axis, which is what the record keeps about the person who wrote each line. Every entry carries a caregiver and a time, and a task that one person logs quiets its reminder for everyone else.
So the question has moved. It is no longer whether two people can both get in. It is whether, once they are in, the app can tell you which of them fed the dog.
| Capability | Dana | 11pets |
|---|---|---|
| Breadth of tracked fields | Focused | Extensive |
| Invite caregivers with roles | Graded roles | Invite + pick what is shared |
| Every log signed with who and when | ✓ | — |
| Reminders that stand down for the household | ✓ | — |
| Access you can put a time limit on | ✓ | ✓ |
| Weight tracking | ✓ | ✓ |
| Vet document storage | Pro | ✓ |
| Medication & vaccine reminders | ✓ | ✓ |
| GPS walk routes | ✓ | — |
| AI guidance when something feels wrong | ✓ | — |
| Streaks & motivation | ✓ | — |
| Free tier | ✓ | ✓ |
A bigger record does not settle an argument
Sharing gets a second person to the same data. It does not, by itself, say which of you wrote any given line, and that is the question a household actually argues about at nine in the evening.
11pets advertises control over what is shared rather than a signature on each entry. A shared log without attribution is still a list you have to ask about. With it, the answer is already on the screen you are both looking at.
The reminder problem is the giveaway
If you and your partner both get the evening medication reminder, one of two things happens: you both act, or you both assume the other did. A record that only stores facts cannot fix that; the reminder itself has to know it was handled.
In Dana, one person logging the dose stands the reminder down for the whole household. That single behaviour is most of the difference between the two apps in daily use.
When 11pets is the better answer
You want to record a lot, you want fine control over which individual fields a vet or a groomer can see, and you would rather have more fields than fewer. That is a real preference and Dana is not built to serve it.
One practical note from their own FAQ: 11pets stores your data in its cloud and says you can only work while you are online, which is true of Dana as well. Check both current listings before deciding, because this page states only what each app advertises today.
Questions about this, answered
- Is Dana just a lighter 11pets?
- No, it is built around a different question. 11pets optimises for how much can be recorded and how precisely it can be shared; Dana optimises for what the record keeps about who did each thing. Fewer fields is a consequence of that focus rather than a missing feature list.
- Do I have to pay to share a pet in Dana?
- No. Caregiver sharing with roles and attribution is on the free plan, along with unlimited pets and caregivers. Paying adds depth to AI checks, the Records Vault and streak protection, not the ability to coordinate.
- Can I keep vet PDFs in Dana?
- Yes, in the Records Vault, which is a Pro feature. Vaccination dates, medications, weights and the vet’s details are on the free plan; the Vault is for the scanned documents themselves.
- Does Dana track walks with GPS?
- Yes, for dogs. Start a walk and the route draws on a real map, pause holds both the clock and the route, and one walk can cover every dog who came along.