Screen time app alternatives: one sec, Opal, Forest and Sprout compared
Updated 4 August 2026
If you are looking for an alternative to one sec, Opal or Forest, the useful answer is that they are not competing for the same job. one sec adds friction before an app opens. Opal blocks apps on a schedule and reports on where your time went. Forest turns a single focus session into a game. Sprout blocks apps against a daily limit and only gives the time back when you do something else. Pick by the problem you actually have.
one sec: a pause before the app opens
What it does well. one sec intercepts the app launch and makes you wait through a breathing animation before letting you through. It is quiet, cheap, and genuinely effective against reflexive opens, the ones where your thumb got there before you did. On iOS it works through Shortcuts, so you are not handing over broad control of the phone.
Where it stops. It does not enforce a budget. If you decide to scroll for an hour, one sec will let you, ten seconds at a time. It is a speed bump, not a limit.
Opal: scheduled blocking and reporting
What it does well. Opal is the most thorough blocker of the three. Sessions can be scheduled, the stricter modes are genuinely hard to bypass, and the usage reports are the best looking in this category. If your problem is that you need these apps gone between nine and five, Opal answers it directly.
Where it stops. It is a subscription, and one of the pricier ones. The model also assumes you know in advance when you want to be blocked. If your distraction is spread across the day rather than concentrated in work hours, schedules are an awkward fit.
Forest: a game around one focus session
What it does well. Forest is pleasant to use, which is not a small thing. Planting a tree that dies if you leave the app is a light, non-punitive commitment device, and the shared sessions work well for study groups.
Where it stops. Forest blocks nothing. Leaving is always one swipe away and the only consequence is a dead tree. For a focused study hour that is enough. For a habit you are trying to break, it is not.
Sprout: a daily limit you earn back
Sprout sets a daily limit on the apps that take too much of your time and blocks them when the limit runs out. The part that differs from everything above is what happens next: more screen time is earned, not requested. Pushups, reading, a focus session, a chore. Completing an activity credits minutes back to your budget, and the block lifts because you did something.
That changes what five more minutes costs. With a scheduler it costs a tap. With Sprout it costs a set of pushups.
Where it stops. If what you want is a hard, unbypassable block during working hours and nothing else, a pure scheduler like Opal is a more direct fit. Sprout is built around a daily budget, not a calendar.
Which one to pick
- You open apps reflexively and want that interrupted: one sec.
- You want apps gone during fixed hours: Opal, or Screen Time and Digital Wellbeing for free.
- You want a pleasant timer for study sessions: Forest.
- You keep lifting your own limits and want that to cost something: Sprout.
All of them beat doing nothing, and the free built-in tools beat all of them if you can leave the passcode alone.
Try the earn-your-time approach
Sprout blocks the apps you choose once your daily limit runs out, and gives minutes back only when you complete an activity: exercise, reading, a focus session, a chore. There is no button that grants more time. Free to start, on iPhone and Android.