Comparison

Fwozen vs MergeFreeze

Q: Is Fwozen a drop-in replacement for MergeFreeze?

For the API, nearly: existing scripts work against the /api/compat/mergefreeze/* namespace. On the GitHub side you install a new app, because Fwozen freezes with check runs rather than commit statuses.

Q: What does MergeFreeze do better?

MergeFreeze has four more years of production history, a verified publisher badge, over 1,500 Marketplace installs, and a Mac menu bar app that Fwozen does not have.

Q: Does MergeFreeze have scheduled freezes?

Yes. MergeFreeze has recurring and one-off scheduled freezes, behind its $40/month plan. Its documented conflict handling skips a freeze when the branch is already in that state.

Q: Can MergeFreeze block deployments?

Their API exposes an allow_deployments field, so a pipeline that polls it can act on a freeze. There is no native deployment gating; deploy control is a boolean your CI has to remember to check.

Q: How much cheaper is Fwozen?

Fwozen Team is $29/month against MergeFreeze $40, with unlimited private repositories instead of 50. Scheduling, the REST API, and Slack are in the Fwozen free tier.

An honest comparison, with dates on every claim.

Every factual statement about MergeFreeze on this page comes from their own public documentation, status page, or pricing page, and carries the date we checked it. We re-check quarterly. Where a competitor page in this category is wrong about them, we say so rather than repeating it.

What MergeFreeze does well

MergeFreeze has scheduled freezes — recurring and one-off. A competitor comparison page in this category claims it does not. That is false, and we are not going to repeat it to sell you something.

Checked 29 July 2026docs.mergefreeze.com/recurring-freezes

MergeFreeze has a Web API, including a freeze_logs endpoint, and its API exposes an allow_deployments field that a pipeline can act on.

Checked 29 July 2026docs.mergefreeze.com/web-api

Their GitHub Marketplace listing shows 1,531 installations, and they have a verified publisher badge. That is four years of production history against our nothing. It counts, and no feature table cancels it out.

Checked 29 July 2026github.com/marketplace/merge-freeze

They ship a Mac menu bar plugin. We do not, and it is not on our roadmap.

Checked 29 July 2026github.com/Merge-Freeze/mac-menu-plugin

The short version

If you’re happy on MergeFreeze, this page probably won’t change your mind.

The people who should keep reading are the ones who hit a repo cap, wanted scheduling without a $40 plan, got surprised by a merge that landed during a freeze, or were asked by an auditor who froze main on 23 December.

Five differences, each one a mechanism rather than a checkmark.

Difference 1

Enforcement you can prove

Fwozen reads GitHub’s effective rules per branch, shows a traffic light with a plain sentence, offers one-click ruleset setup, and runs a reconciler that re-asserts state and reports “verified 12s ago”. The point is not the badge; it is that a freeze which was never actually required on the branch gets caught by us instead of by your incident.

MergeFreeze’s enforcement step is a manual, per-repository, admin-only branch-protection change that it does not automate and does not verify. Until it is done, a “freeze” is a failing check that a user with merge rights can proceed past.

Checked 29 July 2026docs.mergefreeze.com/connecting-to-github

In February 2023 their scheduler dropped scheduled freezes for roughly a week; the interim guidance was to move schedules to :05 or :55. Their status page also records two major “freeze and unfreeze services down” incidents in April and July 2024, and a January 2026 major incident affecting login and the dashboard.

Checked 29 July 2026mergefreeze.statuspage.io

Difference 2

Check runs, not legacy commit statuses

Fwozen writes updatable check runs. There is no per-commit ceiling to hit, the check can carry a reason and an in-PR Request exception button, and we never need administration: write to make it work.

Their default method posts a commit status to every open pull request at roughly one second per pull request, serially. GitHub caps status updates at 1,000 per commit per context, and their docs note that long-lived pull requests hit this and stop updating until a new commit lands.

Checked 29 July 2026docs.mergefreeze.com/implementing-a-merge-freeze

Their alternative “toggle a protected branch” method requires the app to hold Administration: read & write on your repositories, and with that method their per-PR unfreeze is unavailable.

Checked 29 July 2026docs.mergefreeze.com/frequently-asked-questions

Difference 3

Freezes that hold with merge queues

When a freeze starts, Fwozen re-evaluates and fails every live merge-group head SHA. A pull request that entered the queue thirty seconds before the freeze does not merge thirty seconds after it.

Their merge-queue documentation states that the final status can be sent “several minutes before the automatic merge is to occur, which can lead to false positives,” and recommends that the customer add their own check at the end of the build.

Checked 29 July 2026docs.mergefreeze.com/github-merge-queue

Difference 4

The features that matter are in every plan

Scheduling, the REST API, and Slack are in our free tier, and private repos are unlimited on every paid plan. We do not think “should we enable Fwozen on this repository” should ever be a budget conversation, because the answer people give under budget pressure is “no”, and then the repo is unprotected.

MergeFreeze gates scheduled freezes and the Web API behind its $40/month Proactive plan and Slack behind its $25/month Reactive plan. Its free plan covers public repositories only — zero private repos — and paid plans cap private repositories at 20 and 50. Above 50 the published path is Enterprise “Contact Us”, so a 60-repo organisation has no self-serve option.

Checked 29 July 2026mergefreeze.com/pricing

Difference 5

An audit log with an actor in it

Every freeze, thaw, and exception in Fwozen has a real actor — GitHub user, Slack user, API key, or the scheduler — a source, a reason, and a timestamp. It is append-only, it is filterable into a shareable URL, and Business exports it as CSV.

Their GET /api/freeze_logs payload contains a context string (web, slack) but no actor or user field. We could not find an audit log export UI, a documented retention period, or a published SOC 2 or ISO attestation on their public site as of 29 July 2026.

Checked 29 July 2026docs.mergefreeze.com/web-api

Permissions, side by side

The one-line summary: we ask for less access than they do, and you can check that in both apps’ own install screens.

Fwozen requests

checkswrite
statuseswrite
pull_requestsread
contentsread
metadataread
merge_queuesread
Organization membersread
No administration, no contents: write.

MergeFreeze requests

Administrationread & write
Metadataread
Pull requestsread
Commit statusesread & write
Organization membersread
Administration: read & write is required for their branch-protection freeze method.

Every permission, justified line by line →

Price, side by side

	MergeFreeze	Fwozen
Free plan	Public repos only	5 private repos, unlimited public
Entry paid plan	$25/mo — 20 private repos	$29/mo — unlimited
Next plan up	$40/mo — 50 private repos	$99/mo — unlimited orgs
Above that	Contact Us	$299/mo, self-serve checkout
Scheduled freezes	$40/mo plan	Free
REST API	$40/mo plan	Free
Slack	$25/mo plan	Free
Cancel without emailing anyone	Not included	Included

The repo cliff is the part worth staring at. A 60-repository organisation — an ordinary 100-engineer company — has no self-serve plan to buy from them at all.

Moving over is three steps

Step 1
Install Fwozen
Alongside MergeFreeze. Nothing breaks while both are installed; two required checks simply both have to pass.
Step 2
Click Import
Paste your MergeFreeze token. We read your repository list and schedules through their documented public API — never by scraping.
Step 3
Change one base URL
Point existing scripts at /api/compat/mergefreeze/*. Your automation keeps working.

Price match

On MergeFreeze today? Show us your invoice and we’ll match it for twelve months. [email protected]

What we don’t have yet

Publishing our own gaps is the only thing that makes the section above worth reading.

GitHub Cloud only — no GitHub Enterprise Server, GitLab, Bitbucket, or Azure DevOps.
No Microsoft Teams app. Slack only.
No Mac menu bar app. They have one.
No Terraform provider yet, which we know some of you want first.
Deploy gating is a required check plus an Action, not GitHub’s native deployment protection rules — those need Enterprise for private repos.
SOC 2 is not complete. Type I is targeted for Q4 2026 and we will not claim otherwise.

What people ask before switching

Is Fwozen a drop-in replacement for MergeFreeze?

For the API, close to it: point your scripts at /api/compat/mergefreeze/* and they keep working. For the GitHub side you install a new app, because the freeze mechanism is different — check runs rather than commit statuses.

What does MergeFreeze do better?

Four years more production history, a verified publisher badge, over 1,500 Marketplace installs, and a Mac menu bar indicator we do not have. If you are happy on MergeFreeze, this page probably will not change your mind.

Does MergeFreeze have scheduled freezes?

Yes — recurring and one-off. Anyone telling you otherwise has not read their docs. Scheduling is behind their $40/month plan, and their documented conflict handling skips a freeze when the branch is already in that state.

Can MergeFreeze block deployments?

Their API exposes an allow_deployments field, so a pipeline that polls it can act on a freeze. What they do not have is native deployment gating — deploy control is a boolean your CI has to remember to check.

How much cheaper is Fwozen?

Team is $29/month against their $40, with unlimited private repos instead of 50. And the three things they charge for — scheduling, the REST API, and Slack — are in our free tier. If you are paying them today, show us the invoice and we will match it for twelve months.

Try it against one branch before you decide anything.

Install on GitHub See pricing

Competitor facts last verified: 29 July 2026. We re-check every claim on this page quarterly. Found something out of date? Tell us and we will correct it and say so in the changelog.