Read this knowing who wrote it. We’re building an app blocker for iPhone — Daily Offline — and it hasn’t launched yet. So this page is deliberately about what the existing apps do, drawn from their own product pages, the App Store, and what people complain about in reviews and on r/nosurf. Our own product gets one clearly-marked section at the end, and no row in the comparison table, because nothing we haven’t shipped belongs in one.
Prices move constantly in this category, so there are none below — check the App Store for the current number before you commit to anything.
The short version
- one sec — the friction one. A short pause before the app opens, plus reflection prompts and scheduled blocking. The most generous free tier in the category. Best if your problem is reflex rather than intent.
- Opal — the automation one. Schedules, a guided program, and the best onboarding anybody in this category has built. Its own users’ loudest complaint is the price.
- ScreenZen — the free one. Mindful pause plus limits, no subscription at all.
- Jomo — the configurable one, and the only one with free Squads: real accountability with other people rather than with yourself.
- Brick — the physical one. A tile you tap with your phone to start and end a blocking session, which is a genuinely different answer: the escape hatch is a place, not a button.
- Freedom — the cross-platform one. Mac, Windows and phone together; its iOS enforcement is the weakest part of it.
Side by side
| App | The idea | Free tier | Accountability | Most-cited weak spot |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| one sec | A pause before the app opens | Generous — one app free, indefinitely | No | You habituate to the pause |
| Opal | Blocking on a schedule, on autopilot | Trial-gated | Leaderboards | Price; blocks stay bypassable |
| ScreenZen | Mindful friction, free | Fully free | No | The effect fades; bypassable |
| Jomo | A power tool with a community | Soft paywall | Squads, free | Fiddly to set up |
| Brick | Tap a physical tile to lock and unlock | Needs the hardware | The tile’s location | You have to keep the tile away from you |
| Freedom | One blocker across all your devices | Freemium | No | Weak enforcement on iOS specifically |
The weak spot they all share
Read enough reviews of enough blockers and the same four complaints come back, regardless of which app is being reviewed.
You know the escape hatch, because you built it. This is the number-one complaint in the category, and it isn’t a bug in any of these apps — it’s the shape of the problem. Any block you can configure, you can unconfigure, and iOS gives every one of these apps the same tools.
The friction stops working. A pause that was a real interruption in week one is muscle memory by week three. one sec’s own users describe this most often, but nothing here is immune.
Subscription rage. Surprise renewals, hard cancellations, and paywalls that arrive before you’ve seen anything work. Opal takes the most heat for this, mostly because it’s the most expensive.
One strength for the whole phone. This is the one nobody names directly, and it’s the reason most setups end up too loose to matter. If a blocker is strict enough to keep you out of TikTok at midnight, it’s also strict enough to lock the messaging app your job runs on. So people dial it down until it does nothing at all.
How to choose, by symptom
- “I open it before I’ve decided to.” → one sec, or ScreenZen if you want it free.
- “I want it handled without me thinking about it.” → Opal.
- “I need someone else in this with me.” → Jomo’s Squads.
- “I’ll tap past anything on the screen.” → Brick, and keep the tile in another room. Or the Screen Time route below, with a passcode somebody else sets.
- “My laptop is the real problem.” → Freedom.
- “I don’t want to pay anything.” → ScreenZen, or one sec’s free single app.
Worth knowing before you install any of them: iOS itself gets you further than most guides admit. A one-minute App Limit with Block at End of Limit turned on, behind a Screen Time passcode, is a real block and costs nothing — the full walk-through is here. Try that first, and you’ll know much more precisely what you actually need to buy.
What we’re building, and what it isn’t yet
Daily Offline starts from the fourth complaint — one strength for the whole phone — because it’s the one nobody in the list above has answered.
Every app you add sits on one of three rungs. Block: the app doesn’t open, and one tap turns the rung off — we say that out loud rather than pretending it’s a wall. Earn: the app doesn’t open, but you can earn ten minutes with a breath, a written reason, or 100 steps; turning the rung off instead costs a twenty-minute wait. Lock: nothing to earn, and the same twenty-minute wait to switch it off. Your own setting is the floor — a schedule can raise a rung, nothing lowers it.
It also counts the thing none of these apps report: not how long you were in an app, but how many times you reached for it and turned around. That’s the number that moves first when this starts working.
The honest limits, while we’re being honest about everybody else:
- It hasn’t launched. Everything above is designed and built; none of it has been used by you.
- The Earn rung needs notification permission. Without it, iOS gives us no way to deliver Earn at all, so we don’t offer it — rather than offering it and failing.
- The ladder lives on one device. iOS issues the handle for an app per device, so there is nothing portable to sync. Your written entries and program progress do sync; your rungs don’t.
- We only know about the apps you put on the ladder. Nothing about the rest of your phone.
If that trade sounds right, the waitlist is on the home page.
Quick answers
What’s the best free app blocker for iPhone? ScreenZen, which has no subscription at all, or one sec’s free tier if you only need one app covered. Apple’s own Screen Time is also free and stronger than most people realize.
Is there an app blocker that genuinely can’t be bypassed? Not on iOS, and treat anyone claiming otherwise carefully. Every blocker here runs on the same Apple frameworks, and you hold your own passcode. The strongest available version is a Screen Time passcode set by somebody else; the next strongest is a block that costs you a real delay rather than a tap.
Opal or Apple’s Screen Time? Screen Time does limits, Downtime and per-app restrictions for free; Opal adds scheduling, a program and much better presentation. If you’ve never actually configured Screen Time properly, do that first — you may not need the subscription.
ScreenZen or Opal? ScreenZen if you want the mindful pause and no bill. Opal if you want it automated and don’t mind paying the highest price in the category for the smoothest experience.
Which one has accountability with other people? Jomo, with free Squads. Opal and Roots have leaderboards, which is a different thing — competition rather than someone noticing you slipped.
How this was put together. Each app’s own product pages and App Store listing, checked in August 2026, plus complaint threads on r/nosurf, r/digitalminimalism and r/getdisciplined for the “most-cited weak spot” column. Brick is described by its published mechanic only — we have not tested the hardware. Nothing here is sponsored, and no affiliate links: the links above go straight to each app’s own site or App Store page.