Upchin vs Roots

The one that asks what you will do instead

Most of the apps in this comparison, ours included, know how to say no. Roots is the only one here whose second step points off the phone.

Its Scroll replacements are a list you prepare in advance — read, walk, call someone — and one of its block screens, Do This Instead, shows it to you at the moment you are turned away. Its Before each unblock menu comes from the same instinct: before the app opens, you wait a few seconds, take three breaths, listen to a minute of nature, sit for a two-minute meditation, or pet a dog. That last one is real and it is in their documentation.

Nothing in Upchin is as warm as that. It is also not what Upchin is trying to do: our answer to "what instead?" is the phone going down, not a second thing to do on it. Both are real positions, and theirs is the warmer one.

The table that follows sets the two side by side on Upchin's features. Roots documents a great deal — their help centre runs to a hundred and seventy articles — so every row could be checked against their own material, and the table carries the date it was checked.

What Roots has that Upchin does not

Its friction menu is richer than ours: Monk Mode, a twelve-hour delay before you can change your own rules, uninstall protection, streaks, and days off you earn.

It is honest about its own way out. Their documentation says you are "never really locked in", then explains exactly how to take Screen Time access away from them if you need to. Not every publisher prints that.

It reaches slightly more phones. iOS 18 against our iOS 26 — our own choice, and a real cost to you on an older device.

And it explains its limits well, down to a dedicated article on why an embedded YouTube video inside another site is not blocked.

It allows breaks. In normal mode you can stop for 5, 10 or 15 minutes, at the cost of your streak; Monk Mode allows none.

What Upchin does that Roots does not offer

A daily limit is spent; a short block comes back. With Roots you set one limit a day, and once it is reached the app stays shut until tomorrow. Delay Lock counts nothing: on every opening you get a short grace period, then the door closes for the length you chose and reopens on its own. Next time, it starts again. There is no allowance to watch, and nothing runs out.

And a block can start from walking. Motion lock reacts to the movement 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. Your apps close while you walk, with nothing to launch. Roots ships a Shortcuts action and a Focus filter, so Apple's automations can be wired to it; the example their documentation gives is a time of day.

Both share one property, and it is the one that counts: they ask nothing of you at the moment it matters. A limit to set, a ritual to follow, a list to prepare all assume you agree with yourself at the exact moment you least do. Delay Lock and Motion lock are set once, calmly, and fire afterwards on what you do.

And the block screen carries your words. Roots' screen rotates through six fixed styles they wrote — gentle, tough love, reset, stoic quotes, faith, and your replacements list. You choose which ones appear; their dedicated article lists styles and no text field. Upchin shows up to ten sentences you typed yourself. Theirs is an invitation, ours a reminder.

Price, language and the account

The two price lists are not shaped the same: Roots sells one subscription, we sell two plus a one-time purchase, and its yearly plan is worth about two of ours. The card below sets them side by side, plan by plan. On a subscription, Upchin is free and fully featured for 7 days; then it is paid, and you can cancel at any time.

On the free offer, their own pages disagree: their pricing page sells a $0/month plan capped at two blockings, while their help centre says "Roots is subscription-only, so every feature is included with your subscription. There's no free plan with limited features." Both pages are live today, and we report both rather than pick the one that suits us.

Roots ships in English only: its App Store listing and Apple's metadata both show a single language code. Upchin ships in twenty-one. And Roots needs an account — their setup guide lists creating one as a step, and paid access is granted server-side against an email address. Upchin asks for none, which has its cost: nothing to restore if you change phone.

Privacy

Roots writes, in its help centre: "Your data stays on your device — we don't collect it, store it on our servers, or share it with anyone."

The first half is true, and it is worth being precise rather than mean about it: the per-app Screen Time figures really are protected on the device by Apple's framework. Roots is right about the architecture.

The sentence is still broader than their own documents support. The App Store privacy label for the same app declares identifiers used to track you across apps and websites owned by other companies, under a purpose Apple names Developer's Advertising or Marketing. Their privacy policy says their servers are in the United States and lists ad networks and retargeting platforms among the categories of third parties they may share personal information with. Both of those are Roots' own publications. We are not calling it dishonest — we are saying their sentence cannot be read literally alongside them.

Upchin's label declares no tracking and nothing linked to your identity.

The short version

Roots costs about twice our price, speaks one language and needs an account. On those three it is not close.

But no app here treats a block as the start of something the way Roots does, and if what you are missing is a reason to put the phone down rather than a rule that puts it down for you, no row in our table measures that.

Roots if you want something else offered to you at the moment you are turned away, and English costs you nothing. Upchin if you want your own language, no account, half the price, your sentence on the screen, and blocks that fire without asking you anything.