Gitify alternative: PR status where you already look
Gitify collects your git notifications into a menu bar inbox, free and open source. Notchy takes the other approach — review and CI state sitting ambiently on the notch, next to your AI usage and a terminal.
| Gitify | Notchy | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free — MIT, open source | Free — optional donations |
| Hosts supported | GitHub, Enterprise, Gitea, Forgejo, Codeberg, Bitbucket | GitHub |
| Platforms | macOS, Windows, Linux | macOS |
| Shape | Notification inbox in the menu bar | Ambient PR and CI status on the notch |
| AI usage & Claude Code | — | Included |
| Anything beyond git | No | 50+ tools in the same island |
From Gitify’s own site and repository, checked against Notchy’s shipping build.
Gitify covers more hosts
GitHub Enterprise, Gitea, Forgejo, Codeberg and Bitbucket, across multiple accounts. Notchy watches GitHub. If your day job is on a self-hosted Forgejo instance, that settles it and no feature count changes it.
Inbox versus glance
An inbox is something you open. A status readout on the notch is something you notice. If your problem is missing a red build, the second shape tends to work better.
The rest of the loop
AI usage and spend, Claude Code approvals, a shell in the island and an alert when the build finishes.
Running both is reasonable
They solve adjacent problems and do not fight over anything. Gitify for the full notification list, Notchy for ambient state — a perfectly sensible setup.
Everything Notchy does, for free
- Fluid Dynamic Island animations on the Mac notch
- Command palette (⌃⌥K) — every action one keystroke away
- Knock — double-tap a modifier key to open the notch
- AI usage tracker (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Copilot)
- Detach any tab into a menu-bar popover
- Now Playing music controls (Apple Music & Spotify)
- Time-synced karaoke lyrics under the notch
- Mac clipboard history shelf (password-manager safe)
- Searchable clipboard — filter by text, file name, or OCR'd words
- On-device OCR — copy a screenshot, get its text (Apple Vision)
- Window snapping — drag a window to the notch to tile it
- App Launcher — pin apps to the notch, open with one tap
- Text snippets — TextExpander-style pastes from the ⌘K palette
- One-tap screen capture to clipboard + shelf
- Color eyedropper — sample any pixel, hex auto-copied
- System-wide mic mute for every meeting app at once
- Keystroke HUD for demos & screencasts (secure-input safe)
- Keyboard cleaning lock with countdown island (⌘⎋ unlocks)
- Menu-bar icon hiding — Bartender-style separator & chevron
- Live CPU / memory / network stats flyout
- Open GitHub PR count in the notch (Keychain-stored token)
- iPhone-style call island — Answer/Decline FaceTime on the notch
- Notch Terminal — real VT100/xterm shell in a PTY, its own tab
- Privacy Indicator — pill when any app's camera or mic goes live
- Caps Lock HUD — brief island on every toggle
- Full Charge island with adjustable threshold + low-battery sound
- Alt HUD styles — edge-pinned bar or circular gauge off the notch
- Audio-reactive Now Playing visualizer (real FFT of system audio)
- Custom closed-notch idle animation — drop in your own Lottie JSON
- Drag-and-drop file drop shelf — persists across relaunches
- Zip & unzip files right from the shelf
- Image converter (HEIC, PNG, JPEG, TIFF, PDF) + video → GIF
- Run Apple Shortcuts with one tap
- Screenshots auto-staged on the shelf, ready to drag
- Download finished alerts with Reveal in Finder
- USB drive mount island with one-tap Eject
- Apple Reminders quick capture & due list
- macOS Pomodoro notch timer & stopwatch — streaks + 7-day chart
- Resizable expanded panel (width & height, live preview)
- System HUDs (volume, brightness, battery)
- Audio output switcher (speakers, AirPods, monitor)
- AirPods connection manager & battery
- Magic Mouse, Keyboard & Trackpad battery + low-battery alerts
- Quick notes & Calendar widgets
- Camera Mirror (check your appearance)
- Keep Awake (caffeine toggle)
- Teleprompter (Cuely) for Zoom calls
- Focus-aware alerts & native haptic feedback
- Lock screen widgets & hide-the-notch mode
- 133 languages, fully localized
- Native SwiftUI, tuned for Apple Silicon
Notchy vs Gitify — FAQ
Is Gitify free?
Yes — free and open source under the MIT licence, for macOS, Windows and Linux. Notchy is free too and macOS only, so the choice is about what you want watched and where it appears.
Does Gitify support GitHub Enterprise and Bitbucket?
Yes, and this is its real strength: GitHub Cloud, GitHub Enterprise, Gitea, Forgejo, Codeberg and Bitbucket Cloud, across multiple accounts. Notchy tracks GitHub. If your work lives on Enterprise or Bitbucket, Gitify is the one that covers it.
What does Notchy track?
Pull request status and CI results on the notch — whether review is waiting on you, and whether the build went green — without opening a tab or alt-tabbing to a browser.
What’s the difference in practice?
Gitify is a notification inbox: it surfaces everything GitHub would have emailed you, in a menu bar dropdown. Notchy is an ambient status readout: the state of the PR you care about, glanceable while you work. Different shapes of the same problem.
Can I run both?
Yes, and plenty of people would want to — Gitify for the full notification list, Notchy for at-a-glance CI and review state plus everything else in the notch. They do not conflict.
What else does Notchy do for developers?
AI usage and spend tracking across Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and Copilot, Claude Code approvals answered from the notch, a VT100 terminal in the island, and an alert when a long-running command finally finishes.
Compare Notchy vs 146 Mac Apps
See how Notchy replaces dozens of single-purpose paid Mac utilities for free.