Upchin vs ScreenZen

Free, and funded by donations

ScreenZen is entirely free. Not a free tier with a paid one above it — free, for ever, funded by donations. Their own home page sums it up in one line: Less screen time. No subscription. The only money involved is an optional tip, and halo, a box sold separately at $49.

Their privacy statements are short: blocking data stays on the device, a single daily total leaves it for analytics they host themselves, and their App Store label declares two types of data for that analytics, product interaction and performance, none linked to your identity, and no tracking. On advertising, two signals disagree — where these things are actually declared, at Apple, ScreenZen declares no advertising purpose of any kind; its age rating nonetheless carries "Advertising" under what the app contains, which is also a developer declaration. The row records both rather than choosing.

So this page has a narrow job: to describe the band of ground where the two differ, and to say honestly that it is a band. The table carries the date it was checked.

What ScreenZen has that Upchin does not

It costs nothing at all, where Upchin is paid. No tier, no trial, no ceiling. If spending on a screen-time app is out of the question, ScreenZen does the job and we do not.

It reaches more phones and more machines. iOS 16.4 where we ask for iOS 26 — on an older device, between the two, it is them or nothing — plus iPad, Mac and Apple Vision apps, and Android.

It does far more at the moment you open an app: breathing, arithmetic, a reason to type, replacement apps, opens you earn, streaks, and an accountability partner who can let you back in.

It does more on the web on the Mac than anything compared here, per-path rules included.

And its privacy label is shorter than ours. It declares two types of data; Upchin's declares four (product interaction, other usage data, a device identifier, purchase history), none linked to your identity, no tracking. On your Screen Time figures it is the other way round: Upchin's never leave the device, ScreenZen lets one daily total out.

The friction comes after, not before

This is a real difference of philosophy, and ScreenZen's side of it is richer than ours.

They intercept at the door. Their Mindful pause puts a wait in front of the app before it opens — a few seconds, and the wait grows each time you come back — and that wait can be filled with a breathing exercise, arithmetic, a reason to type, or a replacement app. Then comes a session length, then a daily quota of opens, and then it is blocked.

Delay Lock intercepts after. You open the app and it opens; you get your grace period — sixty seconds by default — then the block lands, for a length you set, and lifts on its own. Nothing is spent, nothing is counted down for the day, and the same grace period is waiting next time.

Which is better depends on what actually catches you. If it is the reflex to open, their door is the right place to stand. If it is the quarter of an hour you lose after opening on purpose, the door was never the problem.

And when the block lands, the screen carries your words. Upchin shows up to ten sentences you typed yourself, in turn, exactly as written. On ScreenZen's side, the screenshots show a Reminder field with preset prompts and a chooser — "Is this important?", "Why am I checking?" — rather than a text box, and a three-dot carousel indicator under the prompt: a set that rotates.

This is the cross we are least sure of on the whole site, and it is worth saying why. ScreenZen has no help centre — a home-page FAQ, an email address, and that is all — so there is very little to quote, and it would be unfair to hold that against a free app. Above all, the contrary evidence is theirs: a testimonial on their own home page quotes a user with a sentence that is not among their prompts. On a row we win, the flattering reading is the one to distrust. The cross stands because the rule is strict — what we cannot show is not counted — but it is the one we would most like to be wrong about.

Movement, without buying anything

ScreenZen does block on physical presence — not what you expect from a free app. It is called halo: a small device you place in a room, which draws a Bluetooth boundary around it. You walk in, distractions are blocked until you leave, with an adjustable radius, and the boundary can be inverted so the block applies outside it instead.

Two things bound it: it is a place, not a movement, and it is a $49 box, sold separately.

Motion lock is the walk itself, with nothing to buy. 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. There is no room to be in and no device to forget. The supermarket aisle counts, and so does the pavement of a city you have never been to.

Their answer is better inside a room. Of the two, ours is the one that follows you outdoors.

On the iPhone, not only on the Mac

ScreenZen's Mac app does a great deal on the web: per-path rules that block facebook.com while allowing facebook.com/marketplace, priorities between rules, a tester that tells you which rule won, a Whitelist mode switch, and support for Brave, Arc, Vivaldi and others through a companion extension.

None of that is documented on the iPhone, where their web blocking works at the domain level, across all browsers. Per-page rules we do not do at all: it is simply something they do on a Mac rather than on the phone this page is about.

On the phone, Upchin's "everything except" web lock is permanent — it holds outside any rule or schedule, with nothing running. And it has a cost we print in our own app: it blocks web pages inside apps too, and our text says that if adding every blocked site to your list is not enough, you should not use the mode.

Two shorter rows to finish: ScreenZen ships in six languages, Upchin in twenty-one — the widest gap on this page, and for most of the world the one that decides. And their listing names no Watch model, where Upchin has a watch app and complications for the face.

The short version

The ScreenZen app is free for ever, does more than we do at the moment you open an app, and its privacy label declares less than ours. None of that is in dispute. One nuance, on your Screen Time figures: with Upchin they never leave the device; ScreenZen lets one total a day out.

ScreenZen if you do not want to pay anything, if what catches you is the reflex to open the app, or if your iPhone cannot move to iOS 26.

Upchin if it is the quarter of an hour after you open it that costs you, if you want a block that fires as soon as you walk, with no $49 box to place in a room, your own sentences on the block screen, an app for your watch, and Upchin in your language.