Notchly alternative: same price, wider reach
Notchly is a tidy, genuinely free open-source notch app — and it wants macOS 14.6 and a notch to attach to. Notchy costs $24.99 one-time, runs back to macOS 13 Ventura, and puts the same island on Macs with no cutout at all.
| Fact | Notchly | Notchy |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free — MIT, open source | $24.99 one-time, with a 7-day free trial |
| macOS | 14.6 or newer | 13 Ventura or later |
| Macs with no notch | Built around the notch | Yes — floating island, external displays too |
| Install | DMG from GitHub releases | Signed DMG or brew install --cask vishvavariya/notchy/notchy |
| AI agents | Codex approval and completion alerts | Claude Code and Codex approvals, plus usage across 4 tools |
| Languages | English | 133, natively localised |
From Notchly’s own GitHub repository and releases, checked against Notchy’s shipping build.
Notchly and Notchy are different apps
One letter apart, which trips people up constantly. Notchly is the MIT-licensed project on GitHub. Notchy is this app — paid, and a much broader toolkit, with a signed and notarised installer rather than a build step.
Both watch your coding agent
Notchly is one of the few notch apps that noticed developers wanted this, and it handles Codex alerts. Notchy answers Claude Code and Codex approvals from the notch and tracks usage and spend across Claude, Codex, Cursor and Copilot.
Older Macs aren’t left out
macOS 14.6 is a narrow window — it rules out anything Apple stopped updating before Sonoma. Notchy runs on macOS 13 Ventura and later, on Intel and Apple silicon alike.
Beyond music and battery
Notchly keeps a deliberately small surface. If you want the notch doing more — clipboard history, a file drop shelf, OCR, timers, window snapping — that is where the two part company.
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
Notchy vs Notchly — FAQ
Is Notchly free?
Yes. Notchly is MIT-licensed and open source, so it costs nothing and you can read the source. Notchy is a one-time $24.99 purchase with a 7-day free trial and no subscription, so Notchly wins on price.
Notchly vs Notchy — are these the same app?
No, and the names are close enough to be genuinely confusing. Notchly is an MIT-licensed open-source project. Notchy is a separate, paid app built by Vishva Variya, with a much wider feature set and a signed, notarised installer.
What macOS does Notchly need?
Notchly asks for macOS 14.6 or newer. Notchy runs from macOS 13 Ventura onwards, which covers Macs Apple has stopped shipping major updates to.
Does Notchly work on a Mac without a notch?
Notchly is built around the notch itself. Notchy also runs as a floating island on Macs with no cutout — a Mac mini or Mac Studio on an external display, a pre-notch MacBook Air, or any second monitor — and follows you between screens.
Both do AI coding agent notifications — what’s the difference?
Notchly surfaces Codex approval and task-completion alerts. Notchy covers Claude Code and Codex approvals you can answer from the notch without switching windows, plus usage and spend tracking across Claude, Codex, Cursor and Copilot, and GitHub PR and CI status.
What else does Notchy add?
Beyond media and battery, Notchy brings clipboard history, a file drop shelf, OCR, Pomodoro and countdown timers, system stats, window snapping, an app launcher, text snippets, a terminal in the island and 133 languages.
Compare Notchy vs 263 Mac Apps
See how one Notchy license replaces dozens of single-purpose Mac utilities.