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SelfControl VS Graphite

Compare SelfControl VS Graphite and see what are their differences

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SelfControl logo SelfControl

V2 updates! - Custom time interval for distraction free mode - Ability to turn off ' always on' mode - Improved UI -- Self Control -- A simple app to keep you focused online by blocking sites that you spend way too much time on.

Graphite logo Graphite

Graphite is a highly scalable real-time graphing system.
  • SelfControl Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-06-19
  • Graphite Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-10-13

SelfControl features and specs

  • Effective Website Blocking
    SelfControl blocks access to distracting websites based on a customizable blocklist, helping users stay focused.
  • Timer Functionality
    Users can set a timer for how long they want websites to remain blocked, ensuring focused work periods without distraction.
  • Free to Use
    SelfControl is open-source and free to download and use, making it accessible to anyone without financial barriers.
  • Easy to Use
    The interface is straightforward and user-friendly, allowing users to quickly set their preferences and get started.

Possible disadvantages of SelfControl

  • Mac-Only
    SelfControl is only available for macOS, excluding Windows and Linux users from using the application.
  • No Undo Option
    Once the block period is set and started, it cannot be undone even by restarting the computer, which could be an issue if access to blocked sites is needed unexpectedly.
  • Limited Feature Set
    The app primarily focuses on website blocking, lacking additional productivity tools or features like app blocking or usage analytics.
  • No Scheduled Blocking
    SelfControl does not offer the ability to schedule block sessions in advance, meaning users must manually start each session.

Graphite features and specs

  • Scalability
    Graphite is designed for high performance and can handle large volumes of time-series data, making it suitable for scaling up as data grows.
  • Flexibility
    Graphite offers a flexible schema, allowing users to define their own metrics and naming conventions that best suit their monitoring needs.
  • Integration
    Graphite integrates easily with a variety of data sources and visualization tools such as Grafana, making it a versatile option for many monitoring setups.
  • Open Source
    Being an open-source tool, Graphite has a strong community for support and contributions, and it is also free to use without licensing costs.
  • Customizability
    Graphite allows for extensive customization of dashboards and visualization options, providing users with many ways to view and interpret their data.

Possible disadvantages of Graphite

  • Complex Setup
    The initial setup and configuration of Graphite can be complex and time-consuming, often requiring in-depth knowledge of the system.
  • Performance Issues
    While Graphite is designed for high performance, it can sometimes struggle with write-heavy loads and may require additional setup to maintain efficiency.
  • High Resource Consumption
    Graphite can consume significant system resources, especially disk I/O and CPU, which might be a concern for environments with limited resources.
  • Limited Built-in Visualization
    The native Graphite-web UI is considered less feature-rich compared to more modern tools like Grafana, which may necessitate additional tools for better visualization.
  • Maintenance Overhead
    Due to its complexity and resource needs, maintaining Graphite can involve a significant overhead, particularly in larger or more dynamic environments.

Analysis of SelfControl

Overall verdict

  • Overall, SelfControl is a highly recommended tool for individuals looking to enhance their productivity by minimizing digital distractions. Its open-source nature and no-nonsense approach make it a popular choice among students, freelancers, and professionals alike.

Why this product is good

  • SelfControl is considered a good application because it effectively blocks distracting websites, helping users focus on their tasks without getting sidetracked by online distractions. It's simple to use, efficient, and highly customizable, allowing users to specify which sites to block and for how long, ensuring a tailored productivity experience.

Recommended for

    SelfControl is ideal for students who need to concentrate on studying, remote workers who want to avoid procrastination, freelancers who require discipline in managing their time, and anyone who needs a simple solution to reduce digital distractions during focused work periods.

Analysis of Graphite

Overall verdict

  • Graphite (graphiteapp.org) is generally considered a good tool for real-time graphing of time-series data.

Why this product is good

  • Graphite is appreciated for its powerful and flexible graphing capabilities, scalability, and open-source nature. It's widely used for monitoring and visualization due to its robust ecosystem and the ability to handle large amounts of data efficiently.

Recommended for

    Graphite is recommended for developers, system administrators, and IT professionals who need to monitor and visualize time-series data, particularly those working in environments with large-scale data monitoring needs.

SelfControl videos

How to block websites that distract you ? Selfcontrol [Mac App review and tutorial]

More videos:

  • Review - SelfControl Review - Block distracting websites

Graphite videos

Review: Samson Graphite 49 & Graphite 25 | Audio Mentor

More videos:

  • Demo - Faber-Castell 9000 graphite pencil review and tiger demo - w/ Lachri
  • Review - Graphite pencil brand review

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to SelfControl and Graphite)
Time Tracking
100 100%
0% 0
Developer Tools
0 0%
100% 100
Time Management
100 100%
0% 0
Monitoring Tools
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare SelfControl and Graphite

SelfControl Reviews

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Graphite Reviews

The 10 Best Nagios Alternatives in 2024 (Paid and Open-source)
Although Graphite's UI might not be the most impressive, it seamlessly integrates with Grafana for improved visualizations. It's important to note that Graphite itself doesn't collect data directly; instead, applications need to be configured to send data to Graphite. Carbon then listens for this data and forwards it to Whisper, where it is stored in time series format on...
Source: betterstack.com
4 Best Time Series Databases To Watch in 2019
Graphite is a even more established and very widely used time series database system. Graphite is a powerful monitoring tool that store numeric time series data and display them on demand via its Graphite-web interface at a fair speed. Graphite is most of the time used as a system, network and application performance metric store. Big companies such as Booking.com, Reddit...
Source: medium.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, SelfControl should be more popular than Graphite. It has been mentiond 79 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

SelfControl mentions (79)

  • Oregon School Cell Phone Ban: 'Engaged Students, Joyful Teachers'
    A combination of https://selfcontrolapp.com/ and Hammerspoon automation and you can lock yourself out of pretty much everything. - Source: Hacker News / 4 months ago
  • Kiki โ€“ The accountability monster for people who are easily distracted
    Happy to see it still exists, and free https://selfcontrolapp.com/. - Source: Hacker News / 5 months ago
  • How do you fight YouTube addiction and procrastination? I'm struggling with it
    I have found that a useful method for getting distractions off my work laptop has been https://selfcontrolapp.com/ (if you're on mac). - Source: Hacker News / 10 months ago
  • Using an $8 smart outlet to avoid brainrot
    Pro tip for macos/ios folks: - Macos: Install https://selfcontrolapp.com/, add every website and their alternatives you know, set it to 24 hours. Really hard to bypass this even if you know networking stuff - iOS: Enable downtime 24/7 ask someone else to set the password. I'm down to about 35 minutes a day of mobile usage, and laptop usage is only work related things. You really need two or three days to clear... - Source: Hacker News / about 1 year ago
  • My 30-Year Quitting Addiction
    There is a free and open source app called SelfControl for macOS. It allows one to block access to any site one adds to the list in the app for the amount of time the user chooses. Attempt to use multiple browsers, restarting one's machine, deleting the app, etc. won't get around the block either. It's been super helpful for me, so I thought I'd just throw it out there. https://selfcontrolapp.com. - Source: Hacker News / over 2 years ago
View more

Graphite mentions (16)

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What are some alternatives?

When comparing SelfControl and Graphite, you can also consider the following products

Cold Turkey - Cold Turkey is a free productivity program that you can use to temporarily block distractions so that you can get your work done!

CodeRabbit - Unleash AI on Your Code Reviews with CodeRabbit

Freedom.to - Freedom is a productivity hack that lets you block apps, websites or the entire Internet on iPhones, iPads, Windows and Mac computers.

GitHub - Originally founded as a project to simplify sharing code, GitHub has grown into an application used by over a million people to store over two million code repositories, making GitHub the largest code host in the world.

Focus App - New Tab page that gives you a moment of calm and inspires you to be more productive.

Prometheus - An open-source systems monitoring and alerting toolkit.