Why Cactus exists
I'm Maxi, and I build Cactus on my own. I could stay with a hard programming problem. What kept getting me was the small pause after I handed work to a coding agent.
A tool call took 20 seconds, so I opened YouTube. The test suite took a minute, so I checked X. The agent finished and I didn't come back. Those apps have whole teams working to hold your attention, so losing to them is not a character flaw. It is a bad default.
The usual fixes have an easy way out. A browser extension switches off in two clicks, and a Screen Time passcode you set yourself is one you also know. What I needed was boring: during the hours I chose, the sites do not open, every week, without me deciding again.
So I built a blocker that does exactly that and nothing else.
How Cactus is built
- Recurring by default. You choose the websites and the weekly hours once. The block starts on its own and comes back next week.
- Local-first. Your schedule and blocking state live on your Mac. There is no account, no cloud dashboard, and no browser history collection.
- Honest about limits. An active block has no off switch inside Cactus, but a Mac administrator can still remove the app and its helper. No local app can truthfully promise more, so Cactus doesn't.
- Obvious behavior. A scheduled block should start without opening the app and keep working after you quit Cactus, sleep the Mac, or restart it. While Cactus is open, the menu bar shows whether blocking is on and when access returns.
- Not a productivity suite. No tasks, timers, streaks, or analytics. Other apps do those well.
- Paid once. $19.99 USD, one time, after a seven-day trial with no card. No subscription.
Contact
Questions, bugs, and feature requests go straight to me at support@usecactus.app. You can also send feedback from inside the app.
To understand the details before you install, read how Cactus blocks websites, the FAQ, or the changelog.
