Upchin vs Opal

Two apps that agree on a lot

Opal blocks properly, it has a free tier you can keep for ever, it runs on the Mac and Android as well as the iPhone, and it does several things Upchin does not do at all.

It also rests on the same foundations. Both apps block through Apple's Screen Time framework, both use Apple's picker, and both can take individual apps, whole categories, or a mix. If you have read our comparison with Apple's Screen Time, the argument that opens it does not apply here: on that point Opal and Upchin are even.

So this page is about where they genuinely part. The table carries the date it was checked.

What Opal has that Upchin does not

It is free, and we are not. Opal's free tier works indefinitely: it blocks apps, it runs recurring blocks, it gives you a daily score. Upchin offers seven days, then you pay. If you are not going to pay for a screen-time app — and that is a perfectly sound position — Opal works and Upchin does not.

It runs on more things: Mac, Android, a Chrome extension, an iPad app. Upchin is an iPhone app with a watch companion, and nothing else. And it reaches more phones, iOS 18 where we ask for iOS 26.

It has features we simply do not have: protection against deleting the app mid-block, a Vacation Mode, a Sleep Mode built around your bedtime, a focus score with history, and a leaderboard you can share with friends.

And their help centre does not hide its limits, which belongs on their side of the ledger: they write themselves that a list holds at most 49 apps or sites and that the picker is Apple's, that you cannot type a domain, that iOS's "Always Allowed" list will "supersede any restrictions Opal puts in place", that an open Apple bug makes their Time Limits fire early, that nothing syncs between iPhone, iPad and Mac, and that there is one emergency pass a week. We have our own list of those limits — it is the honest cost of building on Screen Time.

Two rows of the table want reading closely rather than taking on trust, in either direction. Privacy: the social features mean daily totals leave the device for Opal's servers, and their App Store label declares tracking identifiers; it only turns on if you ask for it, their detailed data does stay local by their own account, and it is a different trade from ours rather than a worse one. Advertising: their policy announces a free ad-supported tier and says it is on Android. On the iPhone this page is about, nothing of the sort is documented, so the cell says the same thing as ours.

It allows breaks during a block. Depending on the level you choose, you can take a short break.

Your words, not their quotes

Opal's block screen is theirs: the text on it is Opal's, not yours. You pick a style — the documented set is Default, Pop Culture, Focus Haiku, Luminaries, Offline Ideas, and AI Personalities on Pro — and their App Store page describes the result honestly: you discover quotes and wordplay.

Upchin's block screen carries up to ten sentences you typed yourself, shown in turn, exactly as you wrote them. Not a quote from someone admirable: the reason you installed this, in your own hand, arriving at the one moment you had stopped listening to anybody else's words.

A block that starts when you start walking

Opal has no movement trigger of its own. One can be built at the edge with Apple's Shortcuts — their help centre shows an automation that starts a block when you arrive at work — and their own note on that page gives the honest limit: Opal has no access to location data at all, Shortcuts is what recognises it and simply tells Opal to begin.

Motion lock is not an arrival trigger. It fires on the departure itself: GPS confirms displacement of more than 5 metres and only counts it when the margin of error on the reading is smaller than that distance, so indoor drift does not block you while you sit still. It is for the moments you did not plan, in places you never told an automation about.

And on the other trigger, it is a question of reserve. Opal's Open Limit is a quota: you set how many times a day you can open an app, each unlock lasts up to a length you choose, and when the opens are spent you are blocked until tomorrow. Their Time Limit works the same way with minutes. Delay Lock has nothing to spend: each opening is measured on its own — a grace period, then a block of the length you set, thirty seconds by default and up to an hour — then the delay comes back whole, on the next opening and on all the others. A quota ends your day when you spend it; this one is still there at midnight.

A lock that holds outside any block

Opal has an Allow List: everything blocked except what you choose, your phone turned into a basic phone for a while. Two things bound it. It is an Opal Pro feature, and it is limited to one block — you switch it on for a slice of time, and when the slice ends, it is over.

Upchin's "everything except" web lock is permanent. It is not a mode you enter; it is the state the phone is in, outside any block, until you change it. It has a cost we print in our own app: it blocks web pages inside apps too, and our text tells you not to use it if that is too much. The difference shows on the evening you planned nothing.

Two shorter rows to finish. Opal's App Store listing shows only the iPhone and Apple's metadata lists no Watch model, where Upchin has a watch app and complications for the face. And Opal ships in ten languages, Upchin in twenty-one.

The short version

Opal is free to start, runs on more machines than we do, and its help centre states its limits without your having to go looking. On a page where both apps share the same foundation, those are real reasons.

Opal if you are not going to pay, if you want the same app on the Mac and on Android, or if the score, the leaderboard and Sleep Mode are what keep you going.

Upchin if you want a block that starts from the walk rather than the arrival, a delay that does not run out, a web lock that holds outside any block, and your own sentences on the screen instead of somebody else's quotes.