Forest and Flight both turn a focus session into something you can watch: in Forest a tree grows, in Flight a plane flies a real route. The short answer: pick Forest if your phone is the problem and you want an app that punishes you for picking it up. Pick Flight if you work at a computer and want a calm, hours-long session that runs in any browser, with no install and no account.
Disclosure: Flight is our product, and this blog belongs to it. We've tried to be fair: what we say about Forest comes from its own site and app listings, checked in October 2026. Apps change, so check prices there before you decide.
At a glance
| Flight | Forest | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A focus timer you fly: each session is a real flight | A focus timer that grows a virtual tree |
| Runs on | Any modern browser: Windows, Mac, Linux, ChromeOS, Android, iPhone | iPhone and Android, plus browser extensions |
| Install or account | Neither, to start a flight | App install; an account for syncing |
| How you choose a length | By destination: London to Paris is about an hour | By timer: you set the minutes |
| Keeps you off your phone | No: a web page can't block apps | Yes: leave the app and the tree dies |
| Sounds | Nine real recordings, from a cabin hum to rain | A soundscape in the free version, more paid |
| Stats and history | No | Yes, with tags |
| Price | Free to start a flight | Free download with paid extras; check your store |
Where Forest is stronger
Forest's big idea is loss aversion, and it works. Since 2014 it has made leaving the app during a session cost you something: your tree dies, and the dead tree stays in your forest. If your focus problem is the phone in your hand, that sting is hard to beat. It also has statistics and tags to see where your time goes, a mode for growing trees together with friends, and a partnership with Trees for the Future that plants real trees when you spend in-app coins.
Where Flight is stronger
- It's built for the computer. Most deep work happens on a laptop. Flight runs full screen in the browser you already have open, on Windows, Mac or Linux, and nothing has to be installed.
- Long sessions feel like a journey, not a countdown. You pick where to fly, and the flight time is the session: an hour to Paris, an afternoon to New York. Watching a plane cross the globe toward a real city is a more motivating picture of progress than a number ticking down.
- It's calm. No coins, no unlocks, nothing to lose. Many people find a tree that dies a source of stress; Flight just lands.
- The sound is real. The cabin hum is a recording made on an airliner, played without a loop point, and it's free.
A day with each
With Forest, you'd plant a 25 or 45-minute tree when you sit down, put the phone face down, and get the small satisfaction of a living tree when the timer ends. Over the day your forest fills up, and the stats show which tags got your time. The pull is avoidance: you don't touch the phone because you don't want to kill the tree.
With Flight, you'd open a tab in the morning, see your nearest airport already chosen, and pick a destination about as long as your hardest task: London to Rome for a two-hour report, say. The cabin hum comes up, the plane leaves, and the countdown shows how far there is to go. When it lands you get the seat-belt chime, stretch, and either fly on to the next city or stop. The pull is arrival: you keep going because you can see the plane getting closer.
Switching from Forest to Flight
- Keep Forest on your phone if it helps you leave it alone; Flight doesn't replace that.
- On your computer, open Flight and set your home airport in settings so every flight starts there.
- Translate your usual tree length into a route: 45 minutes is a short hop, 90 is a mid-range flight.
- Turn on landing notifications, so you hear when the session ends even with Flight in a background tab.
Who should choose which
- Choose Forest if you mainly work on your phone, or the phone is what keeps breaking your focus.
- Choose Flight if you work at a desk, want sessions of an hour or more, and want them to feel like getting somewhere.
- Use both: plenty of people grow a tree on the phone to keep it face down, and fly a route on the laptop.
If the phone is your weak spot either way, our post on how to stop checking your phone has habits that work with any timer, and the free Pomodoro timer needs no app at all.
Try Flight
Open Flight, pick a destination, and see whether a focus session feels different when there's a city at the end of it.
