BlockSite vs StayFocusd: Which One Keeps You Off Sites

Short answer for the BlockSite vs StayFocusd question: StayFocusd wins on price, because it is free with unlimited sites while BlockSite's free tier stops at 3 sites and then asks for $49.99. BlockSite wins on polish. Neither wins on recent reliability: BlockSite's latest reviews average 3.2 and StayFocusd's average 3.9, with users reporting paywalls on one side and bugs on the other. The full comparison below covers both honestly, and ends with a third option worth knowing before you commit.

Both of these extensions have been around long enough to accumulate millions of installs and thousands of reviews, which is great news for a comparison: we do not have to guess, we can read what actual users say. Everything below comes from store listings and verbatim reviews as of August 2026.

How we compared them

Five criteria, in the order they tend to matter for a blocker you will actually keep:

• Price and site limit: what free really gets you, and what the paywall costs.
• Recent reliability: not the all-time rating, which carries years of history, but what reviews from the recent period average. A blocker that broke last month is broken, no matter how good 2019 was.
• Blocking model: hard lists, time budgets, schedules.
• Privacy and ownership: who runs the tool and what the listing discloses.
• Ease of leaving: because "difficult to cancel" is a real review quote below, and it should weigh on the way in.

A note on method: every quote below is verbatim from a store review, with its star rating, and every number comes straight from the listings. Where a complaint appears once, we ignored it; the ones cited here are the recurring themes. And since we make a competing extension, we have kept our own product out of the head-to-head entirely; it appears in its own clearly labeled section near the end, where you can judge it by the same criteria.

BlockSite vs StayFocusd: summary table

BlockSite: polished, but the meter is always running

BlockSite is the bigger name, with 1,000,000 installs and a 4.5 all-time rating, and the polish is real: it looks and feels like a finished consumer product. If those were the only numbers, this comparison would be short.

But the recent review average is 3.2, and the reviews explain why in plain language. The core complaint is the free tier. One reviewer put it in eight words: "only blocks 3 websites then ask for money" (1 star, 10 August 2026). Three sites is not a free plan for a blocker, it is a demo: most people's distraction list is longer than that before they finish typing it.

Past the limit, the price is $49.99, and the tone of recent reviews suggests users do not feel they are getting fifty dollars of software. One 1-star review calls it "One of the more scammy extensions. So many things behind paywalls". Another goes further: "Highly commercialized bloated and full of tracking for basically 100 lines of code, what a joke. Choose an Open Source version." And for anyone who does pay, there is a parting gift in the reviews: "difficult to cancel".

The fair summary: BlockSite is a capable, polished product wrapped in a monetization model its own recent reviewers describe as aggressive. If you happily pay for software and only need to block a couple of sites, it may serve you fine. We wrote a dedicated BlockSite alternative guide for everyone who read those quotes and winced.

StayFocusd: free and unlimited, but shakier than it was

StayFocusd is the veteran, with 700,000 users and a 4.4 all-time rating, and its pitch is the mirror image of BlockSite's: everything is free, sites are unlimited, and there is no account. Its signature model is the daily time budget: you allow yourself, say, 20 minutes across all distracting sites, and when the budget is spent, they are gone until tomorrow. For people who want less feed rather than zero feed, that model is genuinely smart, and its Nuclear Option covers the days when you want zero after all.

The concerns are about the present, not the concept. The recent review average is 3.9, decent but slipping, and reviews report bugs. A Spanish-language 2-star review states it plainly: "A dejado de funcionar en Brave", it stopped working in Brave. If Brave is your browser, that is disqualifying, and if it is not, a blocker that can silently stop working is still a blocker you have to babysit.

One more thing worth knowing before you commit: the store listing shows StayFocusd is owned by Sensor Tower, an analytics company. That is a disclosed fact, not a scandal, but people picky about who sits behind their productivity tools deserve to know it going in. The full picture is in our StayFocusd alternative guide.

Setup and everyday feel

Day to day, the two tools feel like products from different decades, and which decade you prefer is a real factor. BlockSite behaves like a modern consumer app: guided setup, friendly visuals, and, per its recent reviewers, regular reminders that the good parts cost money. StayFocusd behaves like a long-serving utility: a plain options page, every feature available immediately, and no upsell anywhere, with the flip side that when something breaks, as its recent reviews describe, it breaks quietly and you find out when the blocking silently is not happening.

For a blocker, the second failure mode deserves extra weight. A paywall announces itself; a silent bug does not. A tool you have to periodically test is a tool that will eventually fail you during the exact week you needed it most.

So which one wins?

Head to head, on the classic criteria:

• Price: StayFocusd, and it is not close. Free and unlimited beats 3-sites-then-$49.99 for almost everyone.
• Polish and features: BlockSite. It feels like a product; StayFocusd feels like a long-serving utility.
• Recent reliability: StayFocusd on the numbers (3.9 vs 3.2), with the caveat that its own reviews report bugs and a Brave breakage.
• Privacy simplicity: StayFocusd needs no account; weigh the Sensor Tower ownership per your own comfort. BlockSite's recent reviews include complaints about tracking and about cancellation.

If you must pick between the two: most people should pick StayFocusd and pocket the $49.99, unless they use Brave or hit its bugs, in which case neither answer feels great. Which is exactly why this comparison has a third section.

Try ZalipOff free: 12 character coaches, soft nudge or hard block, no account needed. Your data never leaves your browser. Add to Chrome.

The third option: ZalipOff

Full disclosure: ZalipOff is our extension, which is why it appears here at the end rather than declared the winner in the first paragraph. Judge it on the same criteria as the other two.

ZalipOff is a free Chrome extension that blocks distracting websites, with no site limit, no trial, and no premium tier. There is no account and no sign-up, and all data stays local in the browser, nothing is transmitted. On the BlockSite pain points, that means: no 3-site demo, no $49.99, nothing to cancel. On the StayFocusd comparison, it means the same price (free) with a different philosophy about what happens when you drift.

That philosophy is the actual differentiator: instead of a cold block page, a 3D coach character reacts when you land on a distracting site. There are 12 characters, gentle to strict, and two modes: soft mode shows a small reminder card in the corner, hard mode dims the screen with a blocking overlay, and repeated visits escalate automatically from reminder to block. The honest limits: it is browser-only, so no mobile apps (BlockSite has those) and no cross-device sync.

Why does the tone matter in a head-to-head about features? Because the most common way any blocker fails is not a bug or a paywall: it is you, uninstalling it during a weak moment. A wall invites you to fight the wall. A character that catches you kindly is much harder to rage-quit, and a tool that is still installed next month beats a technically superior one that is not.

Verdict by use case

• You want a daily time budget and use Chrome: StayFocusd. Free, unlimited, proven model; just watch for the bugs its reviewers mention.
• You use Brave: not StayFocusd, per its own reviews. ZalipOff or another actively maintained extension.
• You want mobile apps in the same ecosystem and will pay: BlockSite, going in with open eyes about the $49.99 and the "difficult to cancel" reviews.
• You want free, unlimited, no account, and something you will not uninstall in a weak moment: ZalipOff. The coach-instead-of-wall approach is specifically designed for that weak moment.
• You are not sure what you want yet: our guide on how to choose a website blocker walks through the decision, and the best website blockers of 2026 roundup covers the whole field beyond these three.

Whatever you pick, pick something today: the tab you were avoiding is still open. If you want the free option with a personality, add ZalipOff to Chrome: no account, no site limit, one minute to set up.