Software Alternatives & Reviews

Spectacle App VS yabai

Compare Spectacle App VS yabai and see what are their differences

Spectacle App logo Spectacle App

Move and resize windows with ease.

yabai logo yabai

A tiling window manager for macOS based on binary space partitioning
  • Spectacle App Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-09-18

Important note: Spectacle is no longer being actively maintained

  • yabai Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-26

Spectacle App videos

Demo of Spectacle App for Mac

More videos:

  • Review - Spectacle App Showcase: Window Management, Manipulation, & Organization for Mac (2017)

yabai videos

Yabai Demonstration

More videos:

  • Demo - yabai macOS Tiling Window Manager Demonstration

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Spectacle App and yabai)
Window Manager
36 36%
64% 64
OSX Tools
41 41%
59% 59
Screenshot Annotation
100 100%
0% 0
Mac Tools
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Spectacle App and yabai

Spectacle App Reviews

Moom vs Magnet vs Spectacle
While custom sizes can only be done with Moom, the predefined window sizes are provided by Magnet and Spectacle out of the box, but can also be configured manually with Moom. It’s also possible to assign keyboard shortcuts. So, in this case, if you want all the features, Moom can do them all.
Source: medium.com

yabai Reviews

We have no reviews of yabai yet.
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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, yabai seems to be a lot more popular than Spectacle App. While we know about 132 links to yabai, we've tracked only 4 mentions of Spectacle App. 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.

Spectacle App mentions (4)

yabai mentions (132)

  • Ask HN: Best Hacks for a Ultrawide Monitor?
    I have a 49 inch CRG9 and the best recommendation for window management is Yabai (https://github.com/koekeishiya/yabai). Yabai is a greedy window management solution that tries to fit opened applications in given space and skhd let's you easily jump between those using keyboard shortcuts. This has massively improved my ultrawide experience. Only disclaimer is, configuring yabai has a slight learning curve. - Source: Hacker News / 3 months ago
  • Is there an app that does this Windows feature?
    Want something free that's better than tiling on Windows? Yabai. Source: 5 months ago
  • macOS Containers v0.0.1
    SIP is a feature that protects you from malicious actors with root (admin) access on your device. After they've encrypted your photos and drives and changed your passwords, it prevents them from making your machine unbootable by deleting or altering system binaries. As a side effect of this protection, you give up certain freedoms to customize your system. - Source: Hacker News / 8 months ago
  • Ask HN: Why does Apple refuse to add window snapping to macOS?
    This is disproven by the fact that Yabai [1] can instantly swap spaces with SIP disabled. [1] https://github.com/koekeishiya/yabai. - Source: Hacker News / 11 months ago
  • Ask HN: Why does Apple refuse to add window snapping to macOS?
    I feel the same way. I would much prefer no animation at all, and an instant transition to another space. Apparently this is possible with [yabai](https://github.com/koekeishiya/yabai), but it requires disabling system integrity protection which I am personally uncomfortable with. - Source: Hacker News / 11 months ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Spectacle App and yabai, you can also consider the following products

Greenshot - Greenshot is a free and open source screenshot tool that allows annotation and highlighting using the built-in image editor.

Rectangle - Window management app based on Spectacle, written in Swift.

Magnet Window Manager - Magnet Developers

ShareX - ShareX is a free and open source program that lets you capture or record any area of your screen...

Moom - Move your mouse over the green zoom button in any window, and Moom's mouse control overlay will appear (as seen in the above animation).

LightShot - The fastest way to take a customizable screenshot.