Unpluq interrupts automatic phone use with a “Distraction Barrier” — a digital key you pass through before a blocked app opens — and can turn your phone into a dumbphone on demand. Paused is a different shape of app, so this is a comparison rather than a pitch — the table starts with what Unpluq does better.
| Unpluq | Paused | |
|---|---|---|
| Known for | Unpluq interrupts automatic phone use with a “Distraction Barrier” — a digital key you pass through before a blocked app opens — and can turn your phone into a dumbphone on demand. | 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. |
| Genuinely better at | The barrier. Unpluq makes every open of a distracting app a conscious act, and its dumbphone mode strips the phone back when you want it. | Paused has no barrier to pass — during a Block Schedule the app does not open at all — and keeps a streak for the days you held the line. |
| Day to day it feels like | The apps still open, but not instantly: a pause, a breath, a question or a reason first. It lowers the number of impulse opens rather than switching anything off. | A small, boring wall. You pick the apps, pick the hours, and they stop opening — no coins, no plants, no hardware, no reasons to type. A calm Paused screen where the app used to be. |
…you want a think-twice moment on every open rather than a wall for set hours.
We would rather you kept an app that fits than switched and quietly turned it off after a fortnight. A blocker you have disabled is not a blocker.
Said up front, because this is the part comparison pages usually leave out.
Get Paused — free on the App StoreGet →