A SelfControl alternative, with schedules

SelfControl is the free, open-source Mac app that blocks websites until a timer runs out, with no way to stop it early. What it doesn’t have is schedules. Asked about recurring blocks, its FAQ answers: “Yes and no. Not within SelfControl, but this is a top feature request so perhaps it’ll happen someday.” Cloister keeps SelfControl’s rule, no way out inside the app, and adds weekly schedules that start a session on their own. It is a paid Mac app, sold once.

What stays the same

• A session can’t be ended early. SelfControl’s FAQ: “You can’t. That’s the idea. Just wait.” Cloister has no Stop button either, and its support can’t end a session for you.
• Restarting doesn’t end it. Both keep blocking after the Mac restarts.
• No browser extension. Both block below the browser, for the whole Mac, rather than inside one browser.
• A 24-hour cap. SelfControl’s FAQ says longer blocks exist, “but we hide that functionality because it’s really easy to screw up longer blocks”. A Cloister session is one minute to 24 hours long, with no way past 24 hours.
• No account. Neither has one.
• Websites. Both block websites. SelfControl also blocks “your mail servers, or anything else on the Internet”. Cloister for Mac doesn’t block apps yet; that is planned for version 2.

What Cloister adds

• Weekly schedules. Choose the days and hours once, and a session opens on its own, even with Cloister closed, with five minutes’ warning. You can change a schedule for tomorrow, but not the session it has already started.
• Several lists at once. Seven ready-made lists (Social, News, Video, Shopping, Gaming, Adult and Sports) and your own, combined in one session.
• Shortcuts and Spotlight. Both can start a session. Neither can end one.
• Planned breaks. Choose 25 + 5 or 50 + 10 before a session starts, and the sites open when a break starts and are blocked again when it ends, on their own (how breaks work). SelfControl’s website and FAQ don’t mention breaks.

How Cloister was tested

Quitting Cloister, force-quitting it, removing the block by hand, tampering with its saved session, moving the clock forward 30 days and restarting the Mac were each tried in the middle of a session on a MacBook Pro (M1 Pro) running macOS Tahoe 26, in September and October 2026. The block held. A block removed by hand was back in under a second.

One exception, by design rather than by test: from version 1.0.3, switching Cloister off in Login Items, or stopping it another way, during a planned break keeps the sites open until it runs again.

On 20 September 2026, on macOS Tahoe 26, Chrome with secure DNS set to Cloudflare and Firefox with DNS over HTTPS at Increased or Max Protection stayed blocked.

What you give up

• The price. SelfControl is free. Cloister is paid for once, with no subscription, after a 14-day trial: see pricing.
• Open source. SelfControl’s code is public, under the GNU GPL. Cloister’s isn’t.
• Older Macs. SelfControl 4.0.2 runs on Mac OS X 10.10 and later. Cloister needs macOS 15 or later.

Where Cloister falls short

• Safari with iCloud Private Relay switched on gets past the block until Cloister’s network filter is on. The filter blocks it, once you allow it when macOS asks and turn it on in Cloister.
• An app that finds its servers by itself, or connects straight to an address, is not blocked.
• Anyone who starts the Mac in Recovery mode can remove Cloister. That is deliberate: Cloister is a commitment device, not a lock against the Mac’s own administrator.

The support page keeps this list current: known limits.

Moving from SelfControl

1. Let a running SelfControl block finish. It can’t be stopped early.
2. Download Cloister and follow its set-up.
3. Add the sites from your SelfControl blocklist to a Cloister list, or start from one of the seven ready-made lists.
4. Make a schedule for the hours you used to start SelfControl by hand. From then on, those sessions start themselves.

Weighing Cold Turkey or Freedom as well? Each has a page like this one, Cold Turkey and Freedom, and the full comparison sets all four side by side. On an iPhone, the Opal alternative compares Opal with Cloister for iPhone and iPad.

How this page was made

Everything here about SelfControl comes from its own website, FAQ and source code, read on 26 October 2026, and linked below. We have not tested SelfControl. What it says about how Cloister holds up comes from tests on a real Mac, dated where given. If anything here is wrong or out of date, write to support@getcloister.app and it will be corrected.