Two Tools, Two Different Questions

People look for a Freedom alternative for a handful of reasons, and the reason matters more than any feature grid, because these are genuinely different kinds of product. Freedom answers a question about time: when am I allowed to reach this. A domain rule answers a question about reach: can this machine get there at all.

Sorting out which question you are actually asking saves a bad purchase in either direction, so the comparison below is organized around that rather than around a checklist.

What Freedom Is Built Around

Freedom is a commitment tool. You keep blocklists, you start a session or let a schedule start one for you, and for the length of that session the things on your list are unavailable. It covers more than one kind of device, so a single session can take in a phone and a laptop at the same time, and it offers a locked mode for people who know they will try to talk themselves out of it halfway through.

That design is coherent and it solves a real problem: the problem of hours, and of a person who would rather agree to a boundary in advance than make the same decision forty times a day. Nothing below is an argument that it is built wrong.

When Freedom Is the Better Choice

Worth stating plainly before the comparison goes any further, because for a good number of people the answer ends here.

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  You want blocking on a timer: a session that starts, runs for a set length, and ends by itself

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  You want a schedule rather than a standing rule: mornings blocked, evenings open, with nothing to remember

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  You want commitment you cannot casually undo. A locked session exists for exactly that reason, and a domain rule is one Unblock away

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  You want your phone and your Mac covered by the same decision at the same time

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  You think about the problem in hours rather than destinations, including blocking apps by time rather than by what the machine is allowed to reach

If two or more of those describe you, use Freedom. SplitTunnel has no sessions, no schedules, and no lockouts, and pretending otherwise would only waste your afternoon.

What SplitTunnel Is Built Around

SplitTunnel handles your Mac's DNS lookups, so a rule applies at the DNS layer, below the individual apps and browsers. Add a hostname under Domain Rules and the name stops resolving for the whole machine: every app, every browser, every background helper, no matter whether that app's traffic goes out through a VPN or straight over your normal connection.

There is no session wrapped around that. The rule is in effect from the moment you add it until the moment you take it away, which is the entire model: not a window of restraint, but a standing decision about what this machine is allowed to reach.

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  Domain rules: any hostname you add stops resolving for the whole Mac, and a rule on a hostname also covers anything underneath it

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  Curated lists: two switches in Settings, Block Ads and Trackers, and Block Malware and Scams, for the categories nobody wants to maintain by hand. Individual domains cannot be excluded from them in this version

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  Per-app blocking: an app-level block in the Apps panel cuts one app off the network entirely, which is a different axis from blocking a name

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  Visibility: the Activity panel shows which app looked up which domain and where its connections went, so a rule can come from something you watched rather than something you assumed

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  Per-app routing: control which apps use the VPN and which connect directly, which is the job the app was originally built for

Where the Domain-Rule Approach Fits Better

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  You want the sites gone by default, not gone during a session you have to remember to start

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  The distraction has a desktop app. Blocking at the DNS layer covers the client and its background helper as well as the browser

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  You also care what your Mac contacts when you are not looking, which is not a question a session-based blocker is built to answer

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  You want one decision that survives a reboot, with nothing to switch back on in the morning

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  You want per-app network control in the same app: one program cut off entirely, or routed differently from everything else

Set It Up

What You Give Up

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  No schedules and no sessions. A rule is on until you take it off, and nothing switches itself on at nine and off at five

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  No lockout. Every rule has an Unblock next to it, and nothing stops you clicking it. If a block you cannot reverse is the requirement, this is the wrong tool

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  The Mac only. Rules here cover this machine, not a phone or a tablet on the same network

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  No per-app exceptions for a domain rule. Rules are machine-wide, so blocked in one app and allowed in another is not a combination on offer

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  Software on encrypted DNS can bypass DNS-layer blocking. Turn on Block Encrypted DNS in the Strict Mode section of Settings and it falls back to the system resolver, where rules apply. It works from a curated list of resolvers, so software that pins its own resolver by IP address stays out of reach

That last one is not specific to SplitTunnel. Every DNS-layer blocker shares it, Pi-hole and AdGuard Home included, and saying so up front is the difference between a tool you can trust and a tool that surprises you in month two.

Which One Fits

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  Timed sessions, schedules, and a locked mode across your phone and your laptop: Freedom

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  Sites gone by default on the Mac, in every browser and every app, with nothing to start: SplitTunnel

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  A hard lockout you cannot lift at all: a dedicated lockout tool, which is a category of its own

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  Focus plus knowing what your Mac talks to, plus per-app control of the network: SplitTunnel

Plenty of desks run one of each, and there is no conflict in doing so. A standing rule handles the names you never want reachable, and a scheduled session handles the hours you promised yourself you would protect. The mistake is buying one and expecting the other's behavior.