--- title: "Opal alternatives (2026): five honest picks by what you actually need · finit" description: "Why people leave Opal, and the five honest alternatives depending on what you want: a free pause, evidence-backed friction, a physical lock, the wall you already own, or a record that lasts." url: https://getfinit.com/blog/opal-alternatives lang: en published: 2026-07-07 modified: 2026-07-07 --- # Opal alternatives: five honest picks by what you actually need 7 July 2026 · 4 min read · by the makers of finit, which blocks nothing and competes with Opal for neither your money nor your lock screen · no affiliate links People rarely leave Opal because it is badly made. [Our review](https://getfinit.com/blog/opal-review) calls it the best-built hard blocker in the store, and we stand by that. People leave for three quieter reasons: the subscription is priced like a commitment you are not sure you have made; the strictest lock is exactly the thing you delete in a weak moment; or you slowly notice that what you wanted was never a warden at all, but an honest picture of where your time goes. Which of those is you decides which alternative actually fits. Here are the five we would genuinely point a friend at, including one that is not us and costs nothing. ## Say what you're replacing Opal is three things in one subscription: a hard wall, a coach's voice, and a score. Almost nothing else bundles all three, so the honest first question is which part you used. If it was the wall, you want another wall. If the wall kept failing, you want friction instead. And if you mostly opened Opal to look at the number, you want measurement, which is a different product category, and the cheapest thing in it is already on your phone. [The full map of the category](https://getfinit.com/blog/best-screen-time-apps) sorts all of this by job; below is the short version for Opal leavers. ## ScreenZen: the free one to try first [ScreenZen](https://getfinit.com/blog/screenzen-review) is the best free thing in this entire category, and it is not close. Pause screens before the apps you flag, per-app rules tuned to how you actually fail, no subscription, no ads, funded by donations. It is gentler than Opal on purpose: a pause you can wave through instead of a wall you cannot. For most people leaving Opal over price, this is the answer, and the only cost of finding out is thirty seconds of setup. ## one sec: friction with actual evidence [one sec](https://getfinit.com/blog/one-sec-review) makes you take one slow breath before the app opens, and it holds a distinction no rival can claim: the delay mechanism survived a serious dismantling experiment in a peer-reviewed journal. If Opal's problem was that the wall invited demolition, a breath you can pass, but must notice, is the better bet. [The research on friction versus restriction](https://getfinit.com/blog/do-app-blockers-work) is worth ten minutes before you decide. ## Brick: when the lock has to live outside the phone If your problem is that every software lock eventually loses to the person holding the phone, Brick moves the key into the physical world: a small NFC tag you tap to block and unblock, ideally kept in another room. You are buying a physical object rather than a subscription, and the friction of walking to it is the entire product. Honest caveat: the determined version of you owns legs too. ## iOS Screen Time: the wall you already have Before paying anyone: Apple's own App Limits and Downtime do basic blocking for free, and for a defined season, an exam month, a launch, they are often enough. They are easy to wave through, and [the iPhone quietly deletes its own usage history after about four weeks](https://getfinit.com/blog/screen-time-history), so do not expect them to remember anything. But as a first experiment, free beats everything. ## finit: if what you wanted was the picture, not the police We should be upfront: finit blocks nothing, so if you need a wall, pick one of the four above. What finit does is the part Opal's score only gestures at. It keeps your real screen-time record, day by day, for years instead of Apple's four rolling weeks, puts the number on your home and lock screen, and shows what your hours add up to across a life. Some people discover that seeing the honest number, kept somewhere it cannot vanish, does the work they hired a blocker for. That is who we built it for. ## The short answers ### What is the best free alternative to Opal? ScreenZen. Pause screens before the apps you choose, unusually deep per-app rules, no subscription and no ads. It is gentler than Opal by design, which is exactly why it is the right first experiment. ### Is Opal free? There is a free tier that covers basic blocking. The features Opal is known for, like the strictest no-unblock sessions and unlimited rules, sit in the paid Pro subscription. ### How do I cancel an Opal subscription? Subscriptions bought through the App Store are cancelled in your iPhone settings: open Settings, tap your name, tap Subscriptions, choose Opal, then tap Cancel. Deleting the app does not cancel the subscription. ### Is there an Opal alternative without a subscription? ScreenZen is free and funded by donations. Hardware locks like Brick are one-time purchases. And Apple's own App Limits cost nothing and are built into every iPhone. Whichever door you take out of Opal, keep one thing that does not depend on the tool of the month: your own record. Blockers rotate; [the number you keep](https://getfinit.com/why) compounds either way. [Download on the App Store](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/finit-screen-time-life/id6786888937?pt=128650426&ct=web-agent&mt=8) [See it in the app →](https://getfinit.com/#app) --- Markdown twin of https://getfinit.com/blog/opal-alternatives. Site map for agents: https://getfinit.com/llms.txt. Every English page in one file: https://getfinit.com/llms-full.txt. The same page in another language: the same path with a language segment in front, https://getfinit.com/de/blog/opal-alternatives.md for one; the list is in llms.txt.