Comparison
Opal vs Cohesive
Two different bets about what the problem is. One of them is downloadable today, and it isn't ours.
The short answer
Opal blocks apps on phone and desktop, runs a lockable focus timer, and summarises your sleep, focus and rest into an Opal Score with Focus Gems for milestones. Cohesive does none of that — no blocking, no timer, no score, no achievements — because it treats the moment as information about you rather than as behaviour to suppress. The decisive practical difference right now is availability: Opal is released and Cohesive is not. If you want something today, get Opal.
Before anything else, the thing that decides this for most readers today:
Opal is a released product you can install right now. Cohesive is a rebuild in progress with a waitlist and nothing to download. If you have a problem this week, that settles it — use Opal. The rest of this page is about how the two differ in approach, which matters if you’re deciding what to look for rather than what to install today.
What Opal does
From Opal’s own pages, as of 31 July 2026:
- Blocking. Blocks apps of your choice on phone or desktop.
- Focus Timer. Pick what to focus on, set a length, and lock in until the timer runs out.
- Opal Score. Combines signals from sleep, focus and rest into a single wellbeing measure.
- Focus Gems. Unlocked for milestones — focusing ten hours, inviting friends, consistent use.
- Platforms. iPhone, Android, Mac.
It’s a polished, well-regarded app with an Apple Design Award, and the focus timer in particular is a clean implementation of a genuinely useful idea.
What Cohesive does
Cohesive is a digital detox app that never promises you’ll consume less.
- Catch. You record what you were doing and what was around it. Two taps. That alone is a complete session.
- One question. If you continue, it asks a single question you can answer by remembering something that happened — never a quiz about who you are.
- Decide. At the end, everything you said comes back word for word. You keep a sentence, write your own, or keep nothing.
- A map. What you keep is a short, editable, exportable list of sentences about what matters to you — in your words, because you typed or tapped them.
No blocking. No timer. No score. No streak. No notification designed to pull you back.
The actual disagreement
It isn’t features. It’s what the two products think the scroll is.
Opal treats it as behaviour to be reduced, and reduces it well. Everything follows from that premise: block the app, time the focus, score the week, reward the streak.
Cohesive treats it as evidence, and refuses to rank it. The same hour of the same app is fine for one person and a flare for another, and nothing observable in the act distinguishes them — so it never classifies, scores, or tells you what a behaviour means.
Both premises are defensible. They just produce products that share almost nothing.
Side by side
| Opal | Cohesive | |
|---|---|---|
| Available now | Yes | No — waitlist only |
| Blocks apps | Yes, phone and desktop | Never |
| Focus timer | Yes, lockable | No |
| Screen-time score | Yes — Opal Score | No number, anywhere |
| Streaks / achievements | Focus Gems | None |
| What accumulates | Focus history and score | Sentences you chose to keep |
| Platforms | iPhone, Android, Mac | Not released |
| Free tier | Yes | 7-day full-access trial (planned) |
| Paid | $99.99/yr, or $399 lifetime | €92.99 once, or €14.99/mo (planned, not active) |
Prices are in different currencies and are not converted here. Opal’s are from their pricing page on 31 July 2026; Cohesive’s are the planned figures for an offer that is not yet live.
Which one to pick
Pick Opal if you want the app closed and you know it, you work in timed focus blocks, a score or a streak is genuinely motivating for you, or — the big one — you want something today.
Wait for Cohesive if you’ve already used blockers and the hour came back with nothing to put in it, you don’t want your behaviour scored, or the honest description of your problem is “I don’t know what I’d rather be doing with this evening” rather than “I use this app too much.”
They’re not really competing for the same minute. It’s entirely coherent to use Opal to get an afternoon back and want something else to work out what the afternoon is for.
Questions people ask
Is Cohesive an Opal alternative?
Not yet in any practical sense — Opal is released and Cohesive is not, so today there is nothing to switch to. When Cohesive does open it will be an alternative in the sense of solving a different problem, not a cheaper version of the same one. It has no blocking and no scoring, so anyone who wants those specific mechanisms should stay with Opal.
Which is cheaper, Opal or Cohesive?
They are priced in different currencies, so this is a comparison of shapes rather than an exact conversion. Opal Pro is $99.99 billed annually or $399 as a one-time lifetime payment, alongside a free tier. Cohesive plans a seven-day full-access trial and then €92.99 once or €14.99 a month, with no annual plan. The structural difference is that Cohesive's one-time price is its main option rather than a premium tier — but Cohesive's offer is not active yet, so nothing can be bought.
Does Cohesive block apps like Opal does?
No, and it isn't a missing feature that will arrive later. Cohesive never blocks an app, locks a device, or stands between you and anything. The product's position is that the same hour means different things for different people, so suppressing it uniformly gets one of those people wrong.
Does Cohesive have anything like the Opal Score?
No. There is no score, no streak, no achievement, and no number anywhere that summarises your behaviour. That's a deliberate constraint rather than an unbuilt feature: a score can say how long, and it can't say whether it was worth it.
Where these facts come from
Every claim about another company's product on this page comes from that company's own public pages. Prices and features change; each link records the date it was checked. If something here is out of date, tell us at [email protected] and it gets corrected.
- Opal — features and Opal Score — checked 2026-07-31
- Opal — pricing plans — checked 2026-07-31
- Cohesive — planned pricing and product scope — checked 2026-07-31
Last reviewed: · Written by Alejandro Carbajo