Five apps block your phone until you pray: FivePrayer, 5Locks, Niyat, Just Pray and Noor Focus. FivePrayer is the one to start with because its core lock costs nothing, and Niyat is the one to pick if you want the lock inside a full companion app.
Short answer: Start with FivePrayer, because the core lock costs nothing and 14,151 people have rated it. Pick 5Locks if you want to choose exactly which apps get blocked on a cheap yearly plan. Pick Niyat if you want the lock inside an app that also holds the Qur'an, duas and prayer times. Pick Just Pray if the problem is that you are not praying at all, not that your phone is in the way.
We build Niyat, which ships Prayer Lock. We have put the verified App Store numbers for all five apps side by side and we say clearly which one to use if cost is your deciding factor. It is not ours.
On iPhone, an app cannot switch your phone off. What it can do is use Apple's Screen Time and Family Controls frameworks to put a shield in front of apps you chose in advance. You tap Instagram, you get a screen telling you to pray. The block lifts when you confirm the prayer or when the window ends.
You can turn any of this off. That is not a flaw in the apps, it is how iOS works, and it means every app here is selling friction rather than force. Friction is enough for most people. If you need more than friction, a lock app is not the answer and a person who will ask you every day is.
| App | What it blocks | Beyond the block | Listed price | Ratings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FivePrayer | Locks the phone at adhan time until you confirm | Streaks, prayer tracker, article library | Core free; Pro from $0.99 weekly, $2.99 monthly or $19.99 yearly | 4.7 from 14,151 |
| 5Locks | Blocks the apps you pick until you mark salah complete | Prayer times, a dua after each prayer | $17.99/yr, or a $4.99 one-off unlock | 4.6 from 54 |
| Niyat | Prayer Lock blocks your chosen apps in the prayer window | Qur'an with khatm tracking, cited answers, duas, qibla | $4.99–$5.99/mo or $34.99/yr after a trial | 4.8 from 473 |
| Just Pray | No hard block; accountability and a scan-to-dismiss alarm | Learn to Pray guides, Garden of Deeds tracker | Free tier; Pro from $5.99/mo or $29.99/yr | 4.9 from 4,346 |
| Noor Focus | Focus sessions, not a prayer-time lock | Templates, reminders, light gamification | $2.99/mo or $19.99/yr | 3.0 from 2 |
All figures are from each app's US App Store listing on 14 September 2026.
FivePrayer launched in February 2026 and now holds 4.7 stars from 14,151 US ratings, which is more than every other app in this article put together. At adhan time it locks your phone until you confirm you have prayed. Around the lock sit streaks, a prayer tracker with charts, and a library of articles. The core lock is marketed as free forever. The listing also shows a Pro tier with a long price list, starting at $0.99 weekly, $2.99 monthly or $19.99 annually and running up to a $99.99 lifetime unlock.
Where it stops: there is no Qur'an reader, no dua library and no question-answering. Its listing is English only.
5Locks launched in February 2026 and holds 4.6 stars from 54 ratings. Its approach is the most literal answer to the question in this article's title: when it is time to pray, it blocks the apps that distract you, and marking your salah complete unlocks them again. After each prayer it shows a dua to read before you move on. It lists a yearly plan at $17.99 and a one-off unlock at $4.99, and ships in Arabic and English.
Where it stops: 54 ratings is a small sample. The app is young and the feature set is narrow by design.
Niyat's Prayer Lock blocks the apps you choose during your prayer windows, using Apple's Screen Time technology, until you log the prayer. What surrounds it is the reason to pick it: a full Qur'an reader with khatm goal tracking, a Listen mode that highlights each word as it is recited, Q&A that cites the ayah or narration it drew on, a dua library, prayer times with notifications, a qibla compass and a tasbih counter. It ships in English, Arabic, Bengali, Urdu and French.
Where it stops: it costs money. There is a free trial, then $5.99 a month on iPhone, $4.99 on Android, or $34.99 a year on either. If the block is the only thing you want, FivePrayer gives you that for nothing and we would rather say so than sell you something you do not need.
Just Pray holds 4.9 stars from 4,346 ratings, the highest score in this group. It does not lock your phone at every adhan. It builds the habit instead: step-by-step illustrated guides to wudu, ghusl and all five prayers with audio, a Garden of Deeds tracker, and a Fajr alarm you dismiss by physically scanning an object. It lists a free tier plus Pro tiers from $5.99 monthly or $29.99 yearly, and ships in ten languages including Urdu, French, Arabic and Indonesian.
Pick this instead of a lock if the honest answer is that you are not praying, rather than that you are praying late because you were scrolling.
Noor Focus comes up in answers to this question, so it is worth being precise about what it is. Its listing describes a time-management and digital-wellbeing app built around niyyah and amanah, with guided templates, reminders and light gamification. That is a focus timer with Islamic framing, and it is a reasonable one at $2.99 a month or $19.99 a year in eleven languages. It is not an app that blocks your phone at adhan time until you confirm you prayed.
If that is what you came for, the four apps above do it and this one does something adjacent. Its App Store rating is 3.0 from two ratings, which is too small to read anything into in either direction.
For a wider field including Jibreel and the learning apps, see Best Prayer Lock Apps in 2026. For the two single-purpose apps head to head with no third option in the way, read FivePrayer vs Just Pray. For the feature-by-feature version of the comparison in this article, see Niyat vs FivePrayer.
Yes, several. FivePrayer locks the phone at adhan time until you confirm you have prayed, and its core lock is free. 5Locks blocks the apps you pick until you mark the prayer complete, and lists a yearly plan at $17.99 plus a $4.99 one-off unlock. Niyat's Prayer Lock blocks your chosen apps during the prayer window using Apple's Screen Time framework. Just Pray works through accountability rather than a hard block. Noor Focus is a focus timer built on Islamic ideas rather than a prayer lock.
It can make using your phone deliberately awkward, which is usually enough. On iPhone these apps use Apple's Screen Time and Family Controls frameworks, so blocked apps show a shield screen instead of opening. You can always turn the setting off, so the lock works as friction, not as a cage. That is the honest description and every app in this category should give it.
FivePrayer. Its core lock, prayer times and tracker are marketed as free forever, and its listing also shows an optional Pro tier starting at $0.99 weekly, $2.99 monthly or $19.99 annually. It holds 4.7 stars from 14,151 US App Store ratings, which is the largest tested base in this category. If cost is your deciding factor, start there.
Yes. Niyat ships Prayer Lock, which blocks the apps you choose during your prayer windows until you log the prayer, using Apple's Screen Time technology. It is part of the paid subscription, listed at $5.99 a month on iPhone, $4.99 on Android, or $34.99 a year on either after a free trial. The difference from a single-purpose blocker is what surrounds it: a full Qur'an reader with khatm tracking, a dua library, prayer times and cited answers.
It removes one specific excuse, which is the phone in your hand when the adhan goes. It does nothing about the other reasons people miss prayers, such as meetings, commutes or sleep. People who report the best results pair a lock with a prayer tracker so they can see the pattern of which prayer they actually miss, then fix that one.
Prayer Lock blocks the apps you choose during your prayer windows, inside an app that also holds the Qur'an, duas, prayer times and cited answers.
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