There are dozens of screen time apps, and most comparison articles are secretly ads. This one is written by the maker of one of the apps below (Bedside), so let's be upfront about that — and then be genuinely fair to everyone else. Each of these tools is good at something. The right pick depends on why you overuse your phone, not on which app has the longest feature list.
We'll compare five well-known options across four dimensions that actually matter in daily use:
| App | Mechanism | Pricing | Privacy | Escape hatch |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Opal | Hard blocking sessions + focus scores and reports | Free tier; subscription, on the order of tens of dollars per year | Account-based; some stats sync to the cloud | Configurable — from gentle to a nearly unbreakable "deep focus" mode |
| one sec | Friction: a breathing pause before the app opens | Free tier; subscription, on the order of tens of dollars per year | Largely on-device processing | Always lets you through after the pause — that's the design |
| Forest | Gamification: grow a tree while you stay off your phone | One-time purchase on iOS; free with premium upgrade on Android | Optional account for cross-device sync and social features | You can always quit — your tree dies, nothing else happens |
| ScreenZen | Friction: pauses, open limits, gradual delays | Free (donation-supported) | Data stays on device | Configurable strictness per app |
| Bedside | Scheduled night blocking + anti-binge breaks, with gentle friction | Free with optional ads; small one-time purchase removes them forever | No network permission at all — everything stays on your device | Emergency unlock always exists: a short task, never a dead end |
Opal's biggest strength is its data layer: focus scores, session reports, and week-over-week dashboards that make your progress visible in a way few competitors match. If seeing charts of your improvement motivates you, Opal delivers real positive feedback. The trade-offs are the classic ones: it's subscription-priced, it's account-based with some data in the cloud, and its strictest mode can feel punishing if you lock yourself out at the wrong moment.
one sec has arguably the most elegant single interaction in this category: before a distracting app opens, you're asked to take one deep breath. That tiny gap is often enough to break an autopilot open, and the research-inspired premise — interrupt the habit loop, don't fight the person — is genuinely humane. Its limitation is the flip side of its elegance: it never truly blocks anything, so on nights when your willpower is at zero, a breath may not be enough.
Forest turns not touching your phone into growing a virtual tree, and the positive-feedback loop is excellent: streaks, a forest that visualizes your discipline, and a real-tree planting program that adds meaning. It's also one of the few one-time purchases on iOS. The catch is that Forest works session by session — you have to choose to plant a tree. It's a great focus companion, but it won't stop you at 1 a.m. when you never intended to start scrolling in the first place.
ScreenZen deserves more attention than it gets: it's free, keeps data on the device, and offers surprisingly granular friction controls — pause screens, limits on how many times you can open an app, and delays that grow with each reopen. If budget is the constraint, start here. The interface is more utilitarian than the paid options, and configuring it well takes some tinkering, but the core mechanics are solid.
Bedside (that's us) is narrower on purpose: it's built for the specific problem of scrolling in bed. You pick a sleep window and the apps that keep you up; when the window starts, they're blocked. An anti-binge mode also forces a 15-minute break after sustained continuous use during the day.
Three design choices set it apart:
What Bedside doesn't do: rich analytics dashboards (Opal is better there), all-day focus sessions (Forest is more fun for those), or cross-device sync (there's no cloud to sync through — by design).
Honestly, these tools also combine well — plenty of people run Forest for daytime focus and Bedside for the night shift. Whatever you choose, the goal is the same: the phone goes down, and you go to sleep.
Sleep first. Scroll tomorrow.