Software Alternatives & Reviews

Open Shell VS StartAllBack

Compare Open Shell VS StartAllBack and see what are their differences

Open Shell logo Open Shell

Open Shell is a fork of the Classic Shell project for Windows that getting back the classic start...

StartAllBack logo StartAllBack

StartAllBack is software that helps to customize the start menu to Windows 7 & 8.
  • Open Shell Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-02-07
  • StartAllBack Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-09-11

Open Shell videos

Classic Menu for Windows 10 with Open Shell

StartAllBack videos

StartAllBack for Windows 11

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Open Shell and StartAllBack)
Note Taking
65 65%
35% 35
OS & Utilities
61 61%
39% 39
LMS
64 64%
36% 36
Bookmarks
66 66%
34% 34

User comments

Share your experience with using Open Shell and StartAllBack. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
Log in or Post with

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, StartAllBack seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 10 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Open Shell mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of Open Shell yet. Tracking of Open Shell recommendations started around Mar 2021.

StartAllBack mentions (10)

  • Is there any way at all to reduce the size of the taskbar (and thereby gain additional space icon/open application space)?
    I did a bunch of searching and am using startallback.com. Source: about 1 year ago
  • PSA: If anyone wants a better start menu experience on Windows, install Open Shell
    For a paid option that is awesome(which I personally use) is StartAllBack: https://startallback.com/. Source: over 1 year ago
  • Think the upgrade to windows 11 will always be free for windows 10 users?
    Assuming you're talking about the Taskbar, yeaahhhhh that's a thing with Windows 11 unfortunately. You can use something like StartAllBack or Start11 (both of which are paid) to restore that functionality. Either that, or you can use ExplorerPatcher (free) to restore the Windows 10 Taskbar and thus its functionality. Source: over 1 year ago
  • Aero tadkbar in Windows 10 using a new tool I wrote
    Pretty cool, but tools like that already exist (TranslucentTB, StartAllBack). Source: over 1 year ago
  • Available today: The Windows 11 2022 Update
    Yup, it is sadly still unusable without https://startallback.com/ :(. - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Open Shell and StartAllBack, you can also consider the following products

Classic Shell - Classic Shell was developed for Windows 8 since that was the first version of the popular operating system to forgo the iconic Start menu.

StartIsBack - StartIsBack returns Windows 10 and Windows 8 a real fully featured start menu and start button, behaving exactly like the ones in Windows 7. It's totally awesome and easy solution for your new Windows woes.

Start Menu X - Start Menu X with Start Button. Power users know how inconvenient and time-consuming it is to launch programs from the system menu.

Start11 - Start11 is a program that gives you the flexibility to customize your PC’s start menu and Windows taskbar with a tile-based interface that scrolls between large display images.

Start8 - Start8 returns the familiar Start menu to Microsoft's latest Windows 8 operating system.

Start Menu Reviver - Free Download! Recover and update your computer with Driver Reviver and Registry Reviver. Easily update software, unlock new functionality and remove hardware device errors and clean, repair and optimize your registry in a few simple mouse clicks!