PhoneStop vs Opal

The polished iPhone focus-session app: block lists, schedules, scores and a subscription.

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

The short version

Pick Opal if you are on an iPhone, you know which apps are the problem, and you will pay a subscription for a block you cannot argue with. Pick PhoneStop if you are on Android, your problem is total time rather than one app, and you want the intervention to arrive without you having to plan for it.

How each app stops you

Opal blocks. You pick apps, you start a session or let a schedule start one, and those apps stop opening until the session ends. Deep Focus removes the escape hatch, which is the paid feature that actually changes behaviour.

PhoneStop does not block anything. It counts. You get a budget for the day, every app spends from it, and when the budget is gone the phone puts a full screen in front of you asking you to stop. Nothing is ever locked, so nothing has to be unlocked, which means there is no lock to defeat and no reason to uninstall the app on a bad evening.

Where Opal is the better choice

• It is the more finished product. Onboarding, charts, session presets: Opal is a real company's app and it shows.
• Per-app control. If your problem is one app rather than the phone, Opal blocks that one app and leaves the rest alone. PhoneStop cannot do that.
• Deep Focus is genuinely hard to bypass. For people who cheat on themselves, that matters.
• iPhone. Opal is there today. PhoneStop is Android only, with an iPhone version coming soon.

Where PhoneStop is the better choice

• It is free. An optional $9.99 Supporter upgrade adds an extra notification tone; every core feature stays free.
• It works without you deciding anything. No session to start; the budget runs from the moment you wake up.
• It reaches you inside the app you are in. Warnings land at 60, 30 and 10 minutes left, on top of whatever you are scrolling.
• Your screen time never leaves the phone. There is no account, and the app sends only anonymous taps, which you can turn off.

What PhoneStop does at the limit

The whole product is three moments. Warnings arrive as the budget empties, inside whatever app you are in:

Then, at zero, the screen is taken over: a fifteen-second breath or twenty squats, and a button that locks the phone. If you genuinely need it, one tap extends the window and says so honestly, because an intervention you cannot escape is one you uninstall.

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.