Comparison

Days Left vs Furlough

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Days Left

Features
Read full description

Never forget deadlines and events. This ultra-lightweight countdown app displays remaining time on your lock screen/home screen widgets without opening the app. 【Key Features】 • Lock Screen Widget Support (Inline/Circular/Rectangular) • Home Screen Widget Support (Small/Medium) • Event Management (Create/Edit/Delete/Duplicate) • Automatic time calculation and display • Push Notifications (1 day before/1 hour before/morning)

About

Furlough

This app helps you regain control of your digital life by blocking distracting apps and websites. It offers two powerful methods: timed rules with daily budgets and NFC-based locking for instant access removal. Designed for focused productivity, it ensures you stay on track without easy bypasses.

Highlights
  • App and website blocking
  • Timed rules with daily budgets
  • NFC tag unlocking
  • Customizable schedules
  • Delay for rule changes
  • Shielded apps cannot be deleted
Features
Read full description

Furlough is an app blocker with no unblock button, and two ways to use it. Rules give an app the hours it is allowed and a daily budget, and loosen only after a delay you set in advance. The Anchor locks a list, or the whole phone, in one tap, and lifts only when you hold the phone to an NFC tag you paired. Use either on its own. THE ANCHOR One tap and everything on the list is gone. No timer to wait out, no code to type: the only thing that releases it is a physical NFC tag held to the phone. You supply the tag, and any NTAG sticker works. Up to three pair at once, so a key can live wherever you do. Switch its scope and the list turns inside out: every app and website is shielded and the list becomes what stays open. It can drop on a schedule — ten at night on school nights, lifted by the tag in the morning — and it carries to Furlough for Mac, which only your phone's tag will lift. While it is on, neither the list nor the tags can be edited, so no key can be cut from under the lock. RULES Pick the apps and websites that eat your time, from Apple's own picker. Give each a daily budget in minutes and, if you want, the hours it is allowed: eight to ten on school nights, later on weekends, different every day if you like. Outside its hours, or once the budget is spent, iOS shields it until it is due to open again. THE DELAY A shorter window, a smaller budget, a day taken off: those apply the moment you save. A longer window, a bigger budget, removing an app: those wait out a delay you chose beforehand, 24 hours by default. While it waits, a list shows the rule you have now against the one queued to replace it, cancellable until it lands. Each app gets a tier that scales its delay: Essential a quarter of the base, Useful the base, Idle twice, Hazard four times. Moving one toward Essential shortens its future delays, which is itself a loosening, so that waits too. Blocking something you need is warned about by name before you save: a messaging app stops texted codes arriving, an authenticator stops you signing in. With no emergency unblock, that is the last cheap moment to change your mind. THE SHIELD The block screen says which app is closed and when it opens next. That is the whole conversation: no snooze, no code, no one more minute. While anything is shielded, iOS refuses app deletion, so an app cannot be deleted to escape its rule. WEBSITES A site picked from Apple's picker behaves like an app: hours, a daily budget, Furlough's own shield. A site typed in by name goes to the system's web filter instead: hours but no budget, and iOS's block page, not Furlough's. THE WAY OUT There is one, it is Apple's, and it always works: Settings, Screen Time, Apps with Screen Time Access, Furlough, off. It lifts every shield at once. Furlough cannot prevent it and documents it on purpose. Everything else assumes you'd rather not. ALSO IN THE APP A home screen widget that enlarges for StandBy, a Control Center button and a Focus that drop the Anchor, and a Live Activity counting down the open window. Notifications at every edge: a window opening, five minutes before it closes, a budget about to run out, and a weekly digest. A record of streaks and hours shielded. A week of hours drawn on a grid, one app's rule copied onto any number of others, and a clock you cannot set forward to buy time. PRIVACY No account, no server, no analytics, no third-party code. Apple's Screen Time API is built so Furlough is never told which apps you picked. Rules stay on the iPhone that made them; what leaves it, once you link your devices, goes to your own iCloud alone — the Anchor's state, so your Mac locks with it, and the names of what you add if you let it. REQUIREMENTS iPhone, iOS 18 or later. Screen Time access, which iOS grants only to an adult Apple Account. Furlough asks for individual authorization: the person setting the rules and the person kept to them are the same. Not a parental control app.

Screenshots

Days Left4 screens
Furlough4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Furlough at none against Days Left's 1. On price, ads, device support and iOS requirement 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Days Left sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Furlough asks for nothing beyond the download.

Scorecard1 real difference · 8 level
Days Left versus Furlough: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterDays LeftFurlough
PriceFreeFree
Rating—5.0 (1 ratings) — better
Number of ratings—1 — better
Update frequency—Fortnightly
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
Monetization—Free
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad
Requires iOS18.218.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size5 MB12 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperLIZARIA LLCZach Short

In-app purchases

1 purchases

Days Left

One-time1
  • Upgrade to Pro Features$1.99
None

Furlough

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Days Left free?
Days Left is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Furlough free?
Furlough is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Days Left or Furlough have ads?
Neither Days Left nor Furlough shows ads.

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