Freedom blocks across your phone, laptop, and browser with sessions you start yourself. Fella is iPhone-only, runs sessions on scheduled routines, and needs no daily setup. Here's how they compare.
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Freedom covers everything you own. Phone, laptop, browser, all locked down together through sessions you schedule or start yourself. It's built to be comprehensive, which means it's also built around upkeep: sessions to plan, start, and remember to keep running.
Fella covers the one device that actually gets you. Start a focus session yourself or let a routine start one on a schedule. Pick your apps once, set a routine, and the block runs on schedule, with one 5-minute emergency unlock per session if you truly need in.
Freedom's sessions can typically be ended early or skipped when you decide you've had enough. Fella's unlock re-locks itself the moment the 5 minutes are up. Both sit on top of Apple's Screen Time tools on iPhone, and Fella runs $9.99 a month or $34.99 a year, no free trial on either plan.
A normal Freedom session is easy to quit. End it early, edit the blocklist mid-session, or just not start one in the first place, and the block was never really there. Freedom knows this, which is why it built Locked Mode: turn it on, and you can't end the session early or touch the blocklist until the timer runs out.
That's a genuinely strong feature, and it's also opt-in. Locked Mode has to be switched on before each session starts, the same way Opal's Deep Focus or ClearSpace's Strict Mode require arming in advance. On a day you're already tempted, remembering to lock yourself in is exactly the step most likely to get skipped.
Fella has no unlocked state to forget to lock. There's no toggle called "Locked Mode" because the block doesn't have an unlocked mode to begin with. It's simply on for every session, and the one 5-minute emergency unlock per session is the only planned exception.
Freedom's real strength is genuinely rare: one blocklist across your phone, Mac, PC, and browser at once. If your distraction follows you from your laptop to your phone and back, that reach is not something Fella tries to compete with. Freedom also sells a one-time "Forever" plan for anyone who wants to stop the subscription clock entirely. If price is part of the decision, continue with our other free app blockers for iPhone.
But more surfaces means more places for a gap to hide. A session started on your Mac doesn't automatically mean your phone is covered unless you set it up that way too. An unsynced blocklist, a device you forgot to add, or a session you only started on one of your four devices are all small, human ways the same blocklist stops being the same everywhere.
Fella only has one device to get right. There's no cross-device sync to configure and nothing to verify is running on a second screen, because there's only the one screen this was ever built for.
| At a glance | Fella | Freedom |
|---|---|---|
| Devices covered | iPhone | Phone, Mac, PC, browser |
| Session setup | Manual sessions or scheduled routines | Each time |
| Hard-lock enforcement | Default behavior | Opt-in Locked Mode, armed manually |
| Ongoing upkeep | None | Required |
| Lifetime option | No | $199 one-time "Forever" plan |
Nothing to re-arm. Routines start sessions on schedule, so there's no session you have to remember to start before you're tempted, extend when you're not ready to stop, or forget to renew until the block has quietly lapsed. Fella's routines just run, whether you remembered to think about it or not.
One unlock, not an early-end button. Fella's 5-minute unlock per session is the only exception, and there's no button waiting nearby for the moment you decide the session's gone on long enough. When the 5 minutes end, the lock comes back on its own, no matter how badly you want otherwise.
Simpler by design. No cross-device account syncing, no session management to keep straight across three different apps. Just your iPhone, blocked, and one less thing pulling at your attention before you've even opened it.
If your distraction lives on more than your phone, Freedom's ability to enforce one blocklist across iPhone, Mac, PC, and browser at once is a real, meaningful advantage Fella doesn't try to match.
Fella is for a narrower problem. If the iPhone itself is where the habit actually happens, and cross-device coverage isn't the gap you're trying to close, that's the specific case Fella is built around.
Fella costs $9.99 a month or $34.99 a year, no free trial on either plan. Pricing changes over time on both apps, so check current pricing before deciding on cost alone.
No. Fella blocks selected apps on your iPhone specifically. Freedom's cross-device reach is a real advantage if your distraction happens on a laptop or in a browser too.
Freedom sessions can typically be ended or adjusted before they finish. Fella's 5-minute unlock per session has no early-end equivalent, once it's used, it's gone until your next session.
Locked Mode is Freedom's strictest setting and genuinely hard to bypass mid-session, but it still requires starting a session first. Fella has no unlocked starting state to opt out of.
Fella is built on Apple's Screen Time frameworks (FamilyControls, ManagedSettings, and DeviceActivity). Both apps operate within the same Apple-provided app-blocking capabilities available to iOS developers.
Locked Mode is a Freedom feature that prevents ending a session early or editing your blocklist once it's running. It closes the main loophole in session-based blocking, but it's opt-in: you have to choose to enable it before each session, and every session it isn't enabled reverts to the easy-to-quit default.
Yes, Freedom sells a one-time "Forever" plan alongside its monthly and annual subscriptions. It costs more upfront than a year of Fella, but removes the recurring charge for anyone certain they'll use it long-term.
Not automatically. Freedom's cross-device reach means more surfaces to configure correctly, one missed device, an unsynced blocklist, or a session that wasn't started, and the gap is right there. Fella only has one surface to get right: the iPhone.
