Rewire vs Forest
Pomodoro focus timer with a tree-growing mechanic.
Last updated May 2026.
Forest and Rewire show up in some of the same search results but solve genuinely different problems. Forest is a gamified focus timer with a tree-planting mechanic. Rewire is a behavioral change app for urge control and dopamine regulation. If you found this comparison, here is the honest take.
The one-line answer
Forest helps you stay focused during a work session. Rewire helps you stop the urges that derail your work, your sleep, your eating, and your habits in general.
These are complementary tools, not direct competitors. But the searches overlap, so it is worth being clear about the difference.
How they actually work
Forest is a Pomodoro-style focus timer with one elegant mechanic: when you start a session, a virtual tree starts growing. If you leave the app, the tree dies. Over time, completed sessions build a visual forest. Forest partners with Trees for the Future, so accumulated virtual coins can be redeemed to plant real trees (up to 5 per user). Forest Premium adds an Allow List (apps you can use during sessions without killing the tree), shared focus sessions with friends, and statistics.
It is genuinely well-designed. Forest works because killing a tree feels bad and growing a forest feels good. That is the entire psychological mechanism, and for many people it is enough.
Rewire is doing something fundamentally different. There is no timer. There is no virtual tree. When you have an urge (for porn, scrolling, weed, junk food, alcohol, anything), you tap the orange "I AM HAVING AN URGE" button and run an interactive intervention. The Dopamine Score (0 to 100) turns your logged habits into a quantified metric, and Detox Challenges of 24 hours, 7 days or 30 days give you a finish line, with three lives so one slip does not end the attempt.
Forest is about staying on task for 25 minutes. Rewire is about changing how your brain responds to dopamine triggers across all hours of the day.
Pricing
Forest: $3.99 one-time on iOS. Free on Android with ads, $1.99 to remove ads. Free browser extension for desktop.
Rewire: free core loop. Rewire Pro is a small subscription with a 7-day free trial.
Forest is one of the best-priced productivity apps on the App Store. Rewire's free tier is more capable than Forest's full app, but the two are not designed for the same job.
Where Forest wins
- Focus sessions. If you need to write a paper, code for two hours, or get through deep work without checking your phone, Forest is purpose-built for that and Rewire is not. Rewire does not have a timer mode.
- Beautiful, simple onboarding. Open the app, tap, plant a tree. That is it.
- Real tree planting impact. Over 2 million real trees have been planted by Forest users. This is a genuinely meaningful feature.
- Cross-platform. iOS, Android, and a browser extension for Chrome.
- One-time purchase. No subscription.
- Social focus sessions. Plant trees together with friends or study partners.
- Established user base. Top productivity app in 136 countries, featured in Apple's "Amazing Apps" TV commercial.
Where Rewire wins
- Behavior change versus task focus. Forest assumes you have a 25-minute task you want to focus on. Rewire assumes you have urges and patterns you want to change. These are different problems.
- Works on urges that bypass apps entirely. A weed craving, a porn urge, a food binge moment. Forest does not address any of these. Rewire is designed exactly for them.
- Quantified behavioral metric. The Dopamine Score is a single number that moves with your daily exposure to high-stimulation vs low-stimulation behaviors. Forest's metric is focused hours.
- Twelve research-cited interventions. Each one is a different clinical protocol. Forest's mechanism is a single virtual tree.
- Built for the long middle. Habits take a median of 66 days to form (Lally et al., 2010), long after the novelty fades. Rewire's Detox Challenges give you three lives and bank gems at milestones, so one slip does not end the attempt, and your daily streak counts showing up instead of resetting when you slip.
- No timer required. You use Rewire when an urge hits, not on a schedule. The interaction model is reactive, not scheduled.
- Identity-based change. Post-intervention choice screens ask you to declare who you are. Forest has no identity layer.
Use both
This is genuinely the right answer. Use Forest during deep work sessions when you need to keep your hands off your phone for a defined period. Use Rewire for the urge moments, the cravings, the bad-day spirals, the late-night scrolls. The Venn diagram has very little overlap.
If you have to pick one:
- Pick Forest if your problem is "I cannot focus during work sessions and I want a gentle gamified tool to help."
- Pick Rewire if your problem is "I have urges, cravings, or compulsive behaviors I cannot regulate and I want to actually change them."
TL;DR comparison
| Rewire | Forest | |
|---|---|---|
| Core purpose | Behavioral change, urge control | Pomodoro focus timer |
| Core mechanism | Interactive micro-interventions | Tree growth + tree death |
| Quantified metric | Dopamine Score (0 to 100) | Focused hours |
| Works on urges (not just focus) | Yes | No |
| Cost | Free core, paid Pro | $3.99 one-time (iOS) |
| Platform | iOS, iPad, Apple Watch, Android | iOS, Android, browser |
| Research-cited interventions | 12 | None (gamification only) |
| Real tree planting | No | Yes (2M+ planted) |
| Best for | Habit change, urge resistance | Focused work sessions |
Try Rewire free on iPhone and Android
Twelve research-cited interventions, the Dopamine Score, and Detox Challenges from 24 hours to 30 days. No account needed for the core app.
