PhoneStop, compared

Honest comparisons that say plainly where the other app is the better choice, plus the head-to-heads people search for between the other apps. Most of them have a case.

By Ruslan Shchuchkin, who built PhoneStop · Updated 17 September 2026 · Read this page as Markdown

Head to head

• PhoneStop vs Opal: The polished iPhone focus-session app: block lists, schedules, scores and a subscription.
• PhoneStop vs one sec: A breath before the app opens. The purest friction app, and the one with the best evidence behind it.
• PhoneStop vs Forest: Plant a tree, stay off the phone, keep the tree. The category's emotional favourite.
• PhoneStop vs Freedom: The cross-device blocker. One session locks your laptop and your phone at the same time.
• PhoneStop vs ScreenZen: The best free app in the category. A pause, a reason and a cap, per app, on both platforms.
• PhoneStop vs AppBlock: The serious Android blocker. Profiles, schedules, and a strict mode that will not let you out.
• PhoneStop vs StayFree: The tracker. The clearest picture of where your hours went, on Android, for free.
• PhoneStop vs Digital Wellbeing: Already on your phone, free, and the reason most people think screen time apps do not work.
• PhoneStop vs Brick: A $59 magnet you tap to lock and tap to unlock. The most effective answer, if you leave it in another room.
• PhoneStop vs Jomo: The deepest iPhone screen time tool. Enormous flexibility, if you enjoy configuring things.
• PhoneStop vs Apple Screen Time: The iPhone default. Genuinely capable, and one tap away from being ignored.
• PhoneStop vs BePresent: Duolingo for screen time: streaks, XP, leaderboards, and friends who are told when you fail.
• PhoneStop vs Cold Turkey Blocker: The strictest blocker ever made, for desktops. It cannot touch your phone.
• PhoneStop vs Unpluq: A physical key for your distracting apps. The most deliberate unlock in the category, on a subscription.
• PhoneStop vs minimalist phone: A grey text-only home screen. It removes the pull of the icon rather than blocking anything.

Other apps, compared with each other

• Freedom vs Cold Turkey Blocker: Two of the oldest blockers still standing, and the choice between them comes down to one question: how much do you want to be able to change your mind?
• Brick vs Freedom: A $59 magnet against a subscription. One makes the undo physical, the other makes it synchronised, and they fail in completely different ways.
• BePresent vs Opal: The two big iPhone screen time subscriptions, at roughly the same price, betting on opposite theories of why you fail.
• Opal vs Freedom: The polished iPhone focus app against the veteran cross-device blocker. Both subscriptions, and they are not competing for the same person.
• Opal vs Jomo: The two best iPhone screen time apps, built on the same Apple API, aimed at opposite kinds of person.
• Opal vs ScreenZen: One costs about $100 a year and one costs nothing. The interesting part is how much of the gap you would actually notice.
• Opal vs Forest: One of these blocks your apps and charges you for it. The other blocks nothing and asks you to care about a cartoon tree. They are not really the same product.
• one sec vs ScreenZen: Both put a moment between you and the app. one sec has the research and the polish; ScreenZen does nearly the same thing for nothing.
• one sec vs Opal: one sec asks you to wait. Opal refuses to open the door. The choice is really between friction and force.
• Unpluq vs Brick: Both put your distracting apps behind something you have to physically tap. One asks for a yearly fee, the other for $59 once.
• Opal vs Brick: Opal charges you every year to make a block hard to lift. Brick charges you once and makes the block a thing you have to walk to.
• ScreenZen vs Freedom: One is free and works one app at a time on your phone. The other costs money and blocks your laptop, phone and browser together.
• ScreenZen vs Brick: One costs nothing and lives entirely in software. The other costs $59 and lives in your pocket, or better, in another room.
• AppBlock vs Opal: These are the same idea on opposite platforms: a strong, schedulable blocker. Which one you should read about depends entirely on the phone in your hand.
• AppBlock vs Freedom: Both are blockers you configure. AppBlock goes deep on one Android phone; Freedom goes wide across every device you own.
• Opal vs Apple Screen Time: Opal is built on the same Apple API that powers the Screen Time you already have. The real question is what the subscription buys on top of free.
• Freedom vs Apple Screen Time: Apple Screen Time is free and already on your iPhone. Freedom costs money and reaches your Windows PC, your browser and your Android phone too.
• Brick vs Foqos: Both lock your apps behind an NFC tap. Brick sells you the puck for $59; Foqos is free and open source, and works with any cheap tag you already have.
• Locked (NowLocked) vs Brick: Locked and Brick are almost the same product: a physical tag you tap to unlock your apps. The real gap between them is price, shipping and which phone you carry.

Looking for an alternative to something?

• Opal alternatives
• one sec alternatives
• Forest alternatives
• Freedom alternatives
• ScreenZen alternatives
• AppBlock alternatives
• StayFree alternatives
• Digital Wellbeing alternatives
• Brick alternatives
• Jomo alternatives
• Apple Screen Time alternatives
• BePresent alternatives
• Cold Turkey Blocker alternatives
• Unpluq alternatives
• minimalist phone alternatives

The data behind the comparisons

See Google Play ratings of every major screen time app, pulled from each listing and refreshed monthly.

Disclosure: we make PhoneStop, so treat our own entry with the scepticism it deserves. Everything else here is written from public information and hands-on use; prices and platforms were checked in September 2026 and change often, so check the vendor before you pay.