Lunar Alternative: Brightness Keys That Just Work
Lunar goes deep on displays. If you installed it so F1 and F2 would reach your external monitor, Notchy already does that.
Why use Notchy instead of Lunar?
- The DDC part, built in
Brightness over DDC/CI via IOAVService, driven by the keys you already press, with the level shown in the notch instead of a floating panel.
- No licence tiers
Everything Notchy does comes with one $24.99 purchase — display control included. There is no Pro edition holding a feature back.
- It brought 50+ other tools with it
Clipboard history, AI usage tracking, timers, a file shelf, a terminal — display brightness is one item on the list rather than the whole app.
- Where Lunar still wins
Adaptive brightness that tracks ambient light, sub-zero dimming and per-app presets are Lunar's, and Notchy doesn't attempt them.
How Notchy stacks up
Honest, feature-by-feature comparison of every major macOS notch app — no affiliates.
Swipe the table sideways to see every app.
Everything Notchy does, in one app
- 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
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- 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
- Custom islands through the local developer API (off by default)
- iPhone-style call island — Answer/Decline FaceTime on the notch
- Notch Terminal — real VT100/xterm shell in a PTY, its own tab
- Camera Guard — alert (or block) when any app opens your camera
- 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
- 134 languages, fully localized
- Native SwiftUI, tuned for Apple silicon
Lunar alternative — FAQ
Is Notchy a good Lunar alternative?
For the common case — making your brightness keys work on an external monitor — yes. Lunar is a much deeper display tool, with adaptive brightness that follows ambient light, sub-zero dimming and per-app presets. If those are why you installed it, keep it.
What does Lunar do that Notchy doesn’t?
Ambient-light adaptive brightness, dimming below the monitor’s own minimum, per-app and per-display presets, and a lot of fine-grained control over how each screen behaves. Notchy drives DDC brightness and shows it in the notch — it isn’t trying to be a display engine.
Does Notchy control external monitors the same way?
Over DDC/CI through Apple silicon’s IOAVService, which is the same control channel. Your existing brightness keys reach the external display and the level appears in the notch HUD.
Can I run Lunar and Notchy together?
Only if one of them owns brightness. Two apps writing DDC on the same monitor tends to fight and produce jumpy levels, so disable external display control in whichever one you’re not using for it.
Compare Notchy vs 221 Mac Apps
See how one Notchy license replaces dozens of single-purpose Mac utilities.