SqwarkSelf vs SelfControl
SelfControl is free, open source, and strict: once a block starts, you wait. SqwarkSelf costs money, and never locks.
SelfControl is a free, open-source Mac app. You list sites (or everything except a list), set a time, type your admin password, and it blocks them at the network level, for every browser and app, until the timer runs out. Its FAQ answers “How do I disable SelfControl once it has started?” with “You can’t. That’s the idea. Just wait.”
It’s the opposite of SqwarkSelf in almost every way, and that’s what this page is for. If you want a wall, it’s a good wall, and it costs nothing.
Side by side
| SqwarkSelf | SelfControl | |
|---|---|---|
| Runs on | Mac only, macOS 14 or later. | Mac only. The current version, 4.0.2, is for Mac OS X 10.10 or later. |
| When you drift | Only the off-task window goes dark, with your own words on it and a ten-second ring. Then the app is hidden, or the browser goes back to a tab you were working in. | Blocked sites and servers don’t load, in any browser or app. |
| Can you get past it? | Always. On a watch, “This is work” lets it through for the rest of the watch, and your call is logged; under a house rule, “Pause for 10 min”. There is no lock. | No. Not by restarting, not by deleting the app. (Its FAQ does admit “nothing is truly invincible”.) |
| What counts as a distraction | The kinds of thing you ruled out: social, chat, video, news, shopping. Built-in rules and your own entries settle the obvious cases (ad managers count as work). With your own Jev key, unknown sites and either-way ones like YouTube are checked against what you said you’d do. | Your blocklist, or allowlist, of sites, mail servers and ports. It blocks by server, so it can catch more than you listed. It doesn’t block apps. |
| Schedules and all-day rules | House rules: any of those five can be blocked all day, with a 10, 30 or 60-minute pause. No schedules. | No schedules: its FAQ points to other tools. Blocks run up to 24 hours from the app. |
| Tracking and history | Logs the app, window title and site. Shows today: where the time went, the top time sinks, focus kept. | None that we could find. |
| Account | None. | None. |
| Where your data lives | In local files on your Mac. Nothing it records is sent to us. With your own Jev key, the cases the rules can’t settle go to TypeSafe. | Since 4.0 it sends anonymised system data with update checks, and anonymised error reports. Both can be switched off, neither includes your blocklist, and it says personal data is never collected. |
| Teams | None. | None. |
| Price | US$49 once, for up to 3 Macs (not on sale yet). 14 days free; after that, logging and the Today view stay free. | Free, and open source under the GPL (version 3). |
What SelfControl does better
- Free, with no strings, and open source: you can read exactly what it does.
- A block that really can’t be undone, even by restarting or deleting the app.
- The network level: every browser and every app’s traffic to those sites is cut, mail too.
- Allowlist mode: the whole internet off, except what you list.
- Old Macs: it runs on Mac OS X 10.10 and later.
Where SqwarkSelf is different
- It asks rather than walls you off: ten seconds, your own words, and “This is work” when it’s wrong.
- It covers apps as well as sites: chat apps and video apps too, during a watch or as a house rule.
- With your own Jev key, it can tell a YouTube tutorial from a YouTube hole. A network block can only do all of YouTube, or none.
- It keeps a log, and shows you where today went.
- Worth knowing, from its FAQ: it won’t block properly with a VPN on, and Firefox, with its default DNS over HTTPS, needs restarting after each block starts. Its last release, 4.0.2, is from November 2021; newer, unreleased work is on GitHub.
Choose SelfControl if…
- you want a block that simply can’t be undone
- you don’t want to pay anything
- you want every app’s traffic to those sites cut, not just what’s on screen
Choose SqwarkSelf if…
- hard blocks catch your real work, and you’ve stopped using them
- your distractions include apps, not just sites
- you want a record of where the day went
What SqwarkSelf doesn’t do
- Mac only: no iPhone, no Android, no Windows.
- No hard lock. On a watch you can always say “this is work”; a house rule can always be paused.
- No schedules, and no reports beyond today.
- No team features.
- It’s new: a first version, from a very small company.
What we checked
Everything in SelfControl’s column comes from these pages, read on 21 September 2026. If something has changed since, their page is right and this one is out of date.
- selfcontrolapp.com: What SelfControl is; version 4.0.2, Mac OS X 10.10+; the lock
- selfcontrolapp.com/donate: Free
- selfcontrolapp.com/privacy: Anonymised data, opt-out
- selfcontrolapp.com/appcast.xml: Release date of 4.0.2
- github.com/SelfControlApp/selfcontrol: Source, licence, recent commits
- github.com/SelfControlApp/selfcontrol/wiki/FAQ: Can’t stop early; allowlist; no apps; no schedules; 24 hours; VPN and Firefox caveats
SelfControl is a trademark of its owner. SqwarkSelf isn’t affiliated with it, and this page uses no logos or screenshots of theirs.
