Freedom, made by Eighty Percent Solutions, is one of the oldest and most established names in this category, and it earns that reputation on one feature in particular: a single blocking session can run across your Mac, Windows PC, iPhone, Android phone and Chromebook at once, all synced from one place. That's a genuinely hard engineering problem most competitors don't bother solving, and Freedom solves it well. It's also worth noting up front that Freedom offers a real free tier alongside its paid plans, which isn't true of every app in this comparison set, and a one-time lifetime purchase option for anyone who'd rather not think about a recurring subscription at all.
What Freedom actually does
Freedom lets you build a blocklist of apps and websites, then start a timed session that blocks them across every device signed into your account simultaneously — no need to separately configure your phone and your laptop. Turn on "Locked Mode" and the session becomes genuinely difficult to escape: Freedom blocks access to the system settings and task manager that would normally let you kill the process, and the block runs until the timer you set actually expires. Outside Locked Mode, a session can be edited or ended early like any ordinary app, which means the strength of the block is genuinely a choice you make when you start it, not a fixed property of the app itself. Freedom also supports recurring scheduled sessions, so a block can simply start itself every weekday morning without you needing to remember to switch it on. Freedom's Chrome extension can also enforce the same blocklist inside the browser itself, which matters because a surprising amount of phone and laptop distraction actually happens through a browser tab rather than a dedicated app.
Where Freedom is honestly the better pick
If what you actually want is a single lock that spans a laptop, a desktop and a phone at once, Freedom is the more mature, more tested tool for that specific job — cross-device sync at this level isn't something Mr. Grummel is built to do, and it isn't a small thing to build well. Freedom's Locked Mode is also, by design, a harder wall than a quiz question: once it's engaged, there genuinely is no button marked "never mind." Anyone who has tried and failed to stick to a softer block before should take that difference seriously rather than assume Mr. Grummel's approach is simply an upgrade. Freedom has also been refined over more than a decade of real-world use across millions of sessions, which is a track record a newer product like Mr. Grummel simply hasn't had time to build yet.
| Feature | Freedom | Mr. Grummel |
|---|---|---|
| Platforms | Mac, Windows, iOS, Android, Chromebook — one synced session across all of them | iOS & Android (in development) |
| Core mechanism | Scheduled timer block, with an optional “Locked Mode” hard lock | Answer a quiz question from the app's curriculum to unlock |
| Self-bypassable by the account holder? | Not during an active Locked Mode session; yes outside it | Not yet released — can't be assessed |
| Physical hardware required? | No | No |
| Price | Free tier plus paid plans from roughly $3.33/mo (billed annually) up to a one-time lifetime option | Not yet announced — join the waiting list |
The one mechanical difference that actually matters
Freedom's core bet is enforcement: once Locked Mode is on, the app is built specifically to prevent you from turning it off, full stop, regardless of how you feel about it thirty seconds later. Mr. Grummel's bet is friction, not enforcement — the app never claims to be unbeatable, it just puts a real cost (three questions you have to actually get right) between you and the thing you were about to open without thinking. Those are two different theories of why people break their own rules: Freedom assumes you need a wall you genuinely cannot remove, so the decision has to be made once, in advance, and then honored by the software no matter what. Mr. Grummel assumes you mostly just need a beat of friction and something better to do with it than stare at a countdown, re-deciding, in effect, every single time rather than locking in one decision for hours at a stretch.
Who should pick which
If you've tried soft blockers before and talked yourself past every one of them, and you specifically need one lock to cover a laptop and a phone at once, Freedom's Locked Mode is the more proven tool for that exact problem today — it has the cross-device reach and the track record to back that up. If what pulls you back to your phone is boredom or habit rather than a battle of will against your own settings menu, and you'd rather that moment cost you a genuine thirty seconds of thinking about something real instead of an all-or-nothing lock you set hours in advance, that's the gap Mr. Grummel is built to sit in. It's also worth factoring in that Freedom's free tier is genuinely limited, so anyone who wants Locked Mode and full cross-device sync should expect to pay for it, whereas Mr. Grummel's pricing hasn't been announced at all yet.