Alternatives
Every app on this page is a real iPhone app that does something Paused does not — earns you screen time, needs a card to unlock, grows a tree, redesigns your Home Screen. Each comparison starts with what the other app is better at, says when you should stay put, and names the free option first.
Apple Screen Time is built into iOS: Settings → Screen Time → App Limits blocks a specific app after a daily allowance, and Downtime switches apps off by time of day. Every app below — Paused included — runs on the same Screen Time framework. They exist because Apple's version is four screens deep and six seconds to undo.
Block Schedules that switch your chosen apps off at set times and back on afterwards, one-tap Focus sessions for right now, and a streak that counts the days you kept the block.
The closest cousins to Paused: rule-based shields built on Apple’s Screen Time framework. Most add mechanics Paused deliberately leaves out.
They don’t block, they interrupt. If a hard wall feels wrong, one of these might be the right shape — and we say so on each page.
A card, a tag or a device is the key. Strong when the key is in another room; the trade-off is carrying it.
Push-ups, steps, walks, chores or reading first, then the apps unlock. A genuinely different deal from a schedule.
Trees, plants, points and streaks. Paused keeps only the streak.
They redesign the Home Screen so temptation isn’t visible. Paused blocks the apps; these hide them.
Surgical: keep Instagram, lose Reels. A different answer to a different question.
Stats first. If you want the numbers more than the wall, start here.
Get Paused — free on the App StoreGet →