Catch the Ghost vs. Forest
Switching from Forest? Keep the habit. Change the prize.
Forest made the phone-down timer famous: plant a tree, leave your phone alone, watch it grow. Catch the Ghost keeps the phone-down part and changes what waits at the end: a chapter from history. There are 800+ ghosts to catch.
The short version
Both apps reward you for staying off your phone. In Forest a tree grows while you focus, and it withers if you leave the app. In Catch the Ghost a chapter from history paints itself in, and it gets away if you quit. The difference is what you keep: a forest of trees, or a library of lives told in order.
Side by side
Here is how the two compare on reward, session length, group focus, price model and platforms. Catch the Ghost also pays for consistency: hold a streak and every session's coins climb, from 1.25x at 7 days to 3x at 360 days.
| Dimension | Forest | Catch the Ghost |
|---|---|---|
| What grows during a session | A virtual tree. | A chapter from history, painting itself in dot by dot. |
| If you leave the app | The tree withers. | Three one-minute passes, then the chapter gets away (with any coins you staked). |
| What you keep | Your trees, in a forest that grows with every session. Coins buy new tree species and can fund real trees planted with Trees for the Future. | 800+ ghosts and 7,800+ chapters, plus coins that buy ghost packs. |
| Session length | You set the length before you start. | Deep Focus 25 to 120 minutes. Shallow Focus from 10. |
| Group focus | Plant Together rooms, joined by code. If anyone gives up, every tree in the room withers. | Rooms of up to 8. When two or more finish, every finisher earns double. |
| Price model | Free, with a Forest Plus subscription. Forest dropped its one-time Pro purchase for a subscription in December 2025. | Free, no card. Pro $34.99 a year or $4.99 a month. Lifetime $99.99 on iPhone. |
| Platforms | iPhone, iPad, Android, and Chrome and Firefox browser extensions. | iPhone and Android. |
If you loved Forest, here's what will feel familiar
The phone-down rule, a timer that starts in a tap, and a collection that grows as you focus. If Forest's loop worked for you, this one will make sense in your first session.
And what will feel different
The prize. Your sessions end with a chapter of someone's life, and the chapters run in order, so an unfinished story keeps pulling you back. Legendary ghosts, the rarest in the library, come with Pro. Intervals bend to your energy, from 10 to 120 minutes. The Ghost Universe shows how the people you caught connect to each other.
In a Focus Together room, a friend's bad afternoon costs you nothing: the room shows who is still in, live, as 2 of 2 focusing.
Sources
Where the Forest details come from.
Checked in October 2026 against Forest's own pages and public reporting.
- Trees wither when you leave the app. Forest's help article Reasons why trees wither. faq.seekrtech.com/Forest/articles/146
- Plant Together, platforms, Forest Plus and Trees for the Future. Forest's own site. forestapp.cc
- The December 2025 move from a one-time Pro purchase to a subscription. Forest's Wikipedia entry and its sources. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest_(application)
Give focus a reason to stay.
Free, no card. Your first chapter is a 25-minute session away.
