Comparison

Basic Mode vs DetoxBrain

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

Head to head
About

Basic Mode

Transform your phone into a focused device on a schedule. Block distracting apps, categories, and websites while keeping essential functions accessible. Create custom modes for work, sleep, or family time, with an emergency unlock option.

Highlights
  • Customizable focus modes
  • Block apps, categories, and websites
  • Scheduled blocking sessions
  • Emergency app unlock
  • Essential app access
  • Privacy-focused design
Features
Read full description

Basic Mode turns your iPhone into a dumb phone — on your schedule. Pick a mode — Work, Night, Family, Deep Reset, or your own — choose which apps, categories, and websites go quiet, and start a session. Distractions get blocked. Essentials like calls, messages, maps, and camera stay available. • Saved modes for work, sleep, family time, and deeper resets • Block by app, category, or website — you decide • Timeboxed emergency unlock when you truly need it • Always reversible — restore app access anytime • 100% private: no account, no tracking, everything stays on your device Built on Apple's Screen Time. Basic Mode is free to use. Pro is an optional subscription that unlocks scheduled sessions, Commitment Lock, and custom modes. Cancel anytime. Terms of Use (EULA): https://probabilityapps.com/basic-mode/terms Privacy Policy: https://probabilityapps.com/basic-mode/privacy

About

DetoxBrain

This app helps you regain control of your digital habits by blocking distracting applications and setting screen time limits. It offers focus sessions, detailed insights into your usage, and privacy-focused architecture that keeps your data on your device.

Highlights
  • Block distracting apps with enforced system-level blocking
  • Set daily time and open-count limits per app
  • Recurring schedules for bedtime, work, and mornings
  • Timed sessions with growing delays before app access
  • Focus sessions for uninterrupted work or study
  • Detailed usage insights and streaks
  • Privacy-first architecture with data stored locally
Features
Read full description

You didn't mean to spend two hours on that app. DetoxBrain puts a moment of friction between the reflex and the scroll — and makes blocking that actually holds. 1. Block distracting apps - Pick the apps that pull you in. DetoxBrain shields them — enforced by your phone's own system, so it works even when DetoxBrain isn't open, even offline, even after a restart. - Multiple independent block groups: your bedtime rules don't have to fight your work rules. - A "Fix blocking" button and self-healing shields, because a blocker that silently stops blocking is worse than no blocker. 2. Screen-time limits that fit a real life - Daily time budgets per app, plus open-count limits — for the apps you don't spend long in, you just open forty times. - Recurring schedules: bedtime, mornings, work hours. - A pause and an intention prompt before you go in, with a delay that grows as the day's opens add up: 10 seconds, then 30, then a minute. - Need in anyway? Take a timed session — 5, 10, 15 or 30 minutes — and it re-locks itself. A decision, not a slip. 3. Focus sessions - Start a 25, 50, or custom-length session. Your blocked apps stay blocked; the timer keeps running in the background. - Finish, and your streak grows. 4. Insights & streaks — free, all of it - Today's total, per-app breakdown, pickups, yesterday's comparison, a 7-day chart, a calendar heatmap. - Distraction-only mode: only the apps you chose count. Maps, music and messages don't get held against you. - A brain-health score with real long-term progression — yesterday's discipline doesn't get erased overnight. 5. Private by default — not as a promise, as an architecture Your usage data never leaves your device. Not "we don't look at it" — we can't. Apple's Screen Time framework confines your screen-time data to a sandbox on your phone, and we built no server that could receive it. Your app list, your blocklist, how long you spend where: all of it stays on the device. Nothing to sell, nothing to leak. No account required to use any of it. 6. Premium The free tier is meant to be genuinely useful — full stats, three blocked apps, the friction layer, streaks, and your emergency pass are free forever. Upgrade for: - Block as many apps as you want, organized into separate groups — and block a whole category, like Social, in one tap - Strict mode: once a focus session starts, you can't switch it off from inside the app. Your weekly emergency pass still works, and "Remove all shields" is always there — it just takes two hours to land. - Custom shield screens - Detailed weekly insights Monthly, annual (with a 7-day free trial) and lifetime plans. No full-screen ads, ever — an app about protecting your attention has no business interrupting it. 7. There's always a way out An emergency pass, once a week. A "Reset all shields" button that's never behind a paywall. If your subscription lapses, everything you set up keeps running exactly as it was — nothing is switched off, nothing is deleted. To change it you'd come back to Premium or trim down to the free tier, but the way out is never for sale. Getting locked out of your own phone is a bug, not a feature. Built with care by a solo developer in Hanoi. Email me — I actually reply: support@detoxbrain.web.app Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

Screenshots

Basic Mode4 screens
DetoxBrain4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is ratings volume: DetoxBrain at 19 against Basic Mode's 1. DetoxBrain also leads on update cadence (every 2 weeks vs monthly) and device support (3 vs 1). On price, rating, review sentiment and ads 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. Basic Mode sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per 7 days and DetoxBrain sells 4 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Basic Mode holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.8. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: DetoxBrain has 19 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews split almost evenly too, at 100% and 100% positive.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Basic Mode ships an update monthly, DetoxBrain every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 31, 2026 and November 5, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard4 real differences · 6 level
Basic Mode versus DetoxBrain: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterBasic ModeDetoxBrain
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (1 ratings) — better4.8 (19 ratings)
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews100.0% of reviews
Number of ratings119 — better
Update frequencyMonthlyEvery 2 weeks — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFreemium
DevicesiPhoneiPhone, iPad, Apple Watch — better
Requires iOS26.017.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size4 MB23 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperPROBABILITY LLCDuc Hoan Nguyen

Customer experience

Basic Mode

All ratings1 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews1 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

DetoxBrain

All ratings5 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews4 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

3 purchases

Basic Mode

Subscriptions3
  • Basic Mode Weekly Lite$2.997 Days
  • Basic Mode Weekly$4.997 Days
  • Basic Mode Weekly Plus$7.997 Days
4 purchases

DetoxBrain

Subscriptions2
  • Premium Monthly$4.991 Month
  • Premium Annual3 Days trial$29.991 Year
One-time2
  • Premium Lifetime$69.99
  • Premium Lifetime$119.99

Questions

Is Basic Mode free?
Basic Mode is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is DetoxBrain free?
DetoxBrain is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Basic Mode or DetoxBrain?
Basic Mode is rated higher. Basic Mode averages 5.0 out of 5 from 1 ratings, while DetoxBrain averages 4.8 from 19 ratings.
Do Basic Mode or DetoxBrain have ads?
Neither Basic Mode nor DetoxBrain shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Basic Mode or DetoxBrain?
Basic Mode ships an update monthly, and DetoxBrain every 2 weeks. Most recently, Basic Mode was updated on October 31, 2026 and DetoxBrain on November 5, 2026.

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