Otto's Free App Blocker

Free alternatives to the paid app blockers

Nearly every app blocker worth installing is a subscription. Here is what fourteen of them actually charge, what you get without paying, and what each one is genuinely better at than a free app. Otto is the last row.

Prices checked in September 2026 against each app's own US store listing or pricing page. Prices change and vary by country, so treat these as the shape of the market rather than a quote. Where a company does not publish a figure, this table says so instead of guessing.

What each one is better at than Otto

None of these are bad apps. If one of the following is the thing you actually need, pay for it and skip the rest of this page.

• Freedom — one blocklist across a Mac, a PC and a phone at once.
• Cold Turkey — desktop blocks you genuinely cannot talk your way out of.
• Opal — coaching, streaks and deep usage analytics.
• one sec — the breathing pause before the app opens.
• Jomo — the deepest rule engine, with NFC and location unlocks.
• Roots — limiting by how many times you open an app, not just minutes.
• Clearspace — a human accountability partner.
• AppBlock — blocks that switch on by location or Wi-Fi network.
• BlockSite — category and keyword blocking that follows you into the browser.
• Forest — the guilt of killing a virtual tree.
• Focus Bear — step-by-step routines built for ADHD and autism.
• Brick — a physical object you have to walk to before the phone unlocks.
• Unpluq — an NFC key you can deliberately leave at home.
• Lock Me Out — the hardest Android lockouts, with uninstall protection.

The ones that are already free

Otto is not the only free option and it would be dishonest to pretend otherwise. ScreenZen is free with no paid tier at all, funded by tips, and runs on iPhone, Android, Mac and Windows. StayFree is free and ad-free, and tracks usage across phone, desktop and browser. And both phones ship with something: Screen Time on iPhone, Digital Wellbeing on Android. They are easy to switch off, which is the whole problem, but they cost nothing and they are already installed.

Before you pick one

No app on this page works if the setup around it is wrong, and some of the standard advice is actively counterproductive. The guide to cutting phone use goes through what the trials found, what backfires and what to expect — about 6,800 words with the references attached.

What Otto does

• A daily budget. Pick the apps, give them minutes. The timer counts down while you use them and resets each morning.
• Hard mode. A start, an end and the days it runs. Inside that window the apps do not open at all.
• Greyscale. The screen drops to black and white when you open something you are trying to cut down on. Nothing else in this table does this in the app.
• Strict training. Ten days to settle in, then you can lock the settings so you cannot talk yourself out of a rule at one in the morning.

What Otto does not do

It is a phone app and only a phone app. No desktop client, no browser extension, no website blocking on a laptop. No accountability partner, no team plan, nothing social, no streaks and no analytics worth the name. If you scrolled the table looking for those, Freedom and Cold Turkey do the desktop side properly and Opal does the analytics.

Why free

One person built it and there is no company behind it that needs a revenue line. There is no account, so there is no server, so there is almost nothing to run. Your usage never leaves your phone. If it saves you an hour a week there is a tip jar in the settings.

Otto is free, on both stores

No paid tier, no trial that expires, no account. There is a tip jar in the settings and that is the whole business model.