ScreenZen vs Sisyphus
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
ScreenZen
This app offers multiple strategies to help you reduce screen time and control app usage. Features include delayed app opening, timed scrolling interruptions, and customizable app limits. It also provides options for strict blocking, settings protection, and encourages mindful breaks.
- Delayed app opening
- Scrolling interruption
- Set app goals and limits
- Configurable daily schedules
- Strict app blocking
- Screen time tracking for distracting apps
- Settings protection locks
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Multiple strategies to reduce your screentime 1. Delay before opening your app: A bit of time before choosing if you need to open your distracting app. You can have the wait time increase each time you open your app. 2. Interrupt your scrolling: Check your distracting apps for short periods of time so you don't get sucked in. 3. Set an app goal and optionally block when you reach your limit. 4. Configurable for different days of the week and time by app. 5. Messages like "Is this important" before opening your app. 6. See your screen time for only your distracting apps. Don't worry about Google Maps bloating up your time. 7. Strict block your apps: Either for time ranges, after a certain number of opens or ScreenTime. 8. Locks on Settings to prevent you from changing your settings when you want to open an app. 9. Breathing and other activities to encourage you not to need to open the app while waiting for it to unlock. 10. Streaks to encourage you not to exceed your limits or override your settings.
Sisyphus
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The dishes come back. The inbox refills. The laundry basket is never done being a laundry basket. Most apps treat that as failure. Sisyphus — the recurring-chores app built on Albert Camus's "The Myth of Sisyphus" — treats it as the whole point. Name your boulders: the pieces of your work that always return. Push them up the mountain each day. Reach the summit by evening, lose everything by midnight, and come back gladly. One must imagine Sisyphus happy. A MOUNTAIN THAT LIVES The scene is drawn by code, not stock art. The sky follows your real clock — dawn breaks, dusk burns, stars wheel past a crescent moon. The seasons follow your calendar: snow in January, wildflowers in April, amber leaves in October. And the man with the rock is your day, exactly as far up the slope as your labor has gone. PUSHING TAKES EFFORT You don't tap a checkbox — you hold the stone. A ring fills, a rumble builds under your finger, stone grinds on stone until the push lands with a satisfying thud. Finish the day's labor and Sisyphus stands at the summit, arms raised. THE MOUNTAIN REMEMBERS Every forty pushes raises a cairn beside the trail. The path itself wears deeper over your first two months. A year in, your mountain looks lived-on — and nobody else's looks like yours. REST IS PART OF THE PRACTICE No streak-shaming. Declare a rest day and the mountain rests with you — Sisyphus sits down beside his rock, nothing is due, and your rhythm holds. The day rhythm counts summits gently: quiet days and rest days hold it. Only abandoned work breaks it. PHILOSOPHY, EARNED Sixteen short musings — the myth, Camus, the Stoics, Nietzsche — unlock one per three pushes, the honest way. Each one shares as a postcard of the mountain at dusk. And The Year on the Mountain sums your year in stone: pushes, summits, rests taken, cairns raised. EVERYWHERE YOU LOOK • Interactive widgets — push boulders right from the home screen • Lock-screen widgets, StandBy, and Siri: "Push the dishes in Sisyphus" • iPhone and iPad, syncing privately through your own iCloud FREE, HONESTLY Every feature is free, forever. No subscriptions, no ads, no account, no AI, no tracking — your data never leaves your devices and your own iCloud. The Agora sells three optional cosmetics as thank-yous (a traveler's hat, a wine-dark cape, a boulder of Parian marble), worn where you can see them. Gratitude, never features. The gods thought endless labor was the worst punishment they could invent. They forgot to check whether the laborer might come to love the work. Shoulder the boulder.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Sisyphus at none against ScreenZen's 4. ScreenZen's advantage is ratings volume (52K vs 1) and chart position (#163 vs unranked). On price, rating, ads and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. ScreenZen sells 4 one-off in-app purchases. Sisyphus asks for nothing beyond the download.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.9 for ScreenZen against 5.0 for Sisyphus. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: ScreenZen has 52K ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two.
| Parameter | ScreenZen | Sisyphus |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.9 (52K ratings) | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 93.4% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 52K — better | 1 |
| Update frequency | Every 3 weeks | — |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | — |
| Best chart rank | #163 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Mac — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 16.4 — better | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 159 MB | 2 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | ScreenZen LLC | Hessam Zahedi |
Customer experience
ScreenZen
Sisyphus
Bugs and requests
ScreenZen
Reported bugs
3 issues- Unlock button not working as expected
- App stops working after some time
- Compatibility issues with iOS 16 update
Requested features
4 requests- Add more customization options
- Integrate with productivity/to-do apps
- Add more pause/break options
- Improve website blocking functionality
Sisyphus
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
ScreenZen
- Kind Tip$5.00
- Generous Tip$10.00
- Amazing Tip$20.00
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- Fantastic Tip$40.00
Sisyphus
No in-app purchases









