Notchy Alternatives for Mac (2026): When Free Isn't the Whole Question

Short answer: Notchy is a good free notch app, and most people who search for an alternative aren’t unhappy with the notch part. They want one of four things Notchy doesn’t offer: open source, a lifetime purchase with support behind it, tools that live outside the notch, or notifications that carry meaning instead of a HUD. This post sorts the alternatives by those four reasons.

Written by the maker of FavTray, which appears in the last section. Prices and features are as published on each site on 10 September 2026.

Notchy in one paragraph

Notchy is a native SwiftUI Dynamic Island for the Mac that runs back to macOS 13 Ventura. It’s free, closed source, and supported by donations. It lists 71 features — now playing, synced lyrics, a file shelf, clipboard history, a Pomodoro timer, HUDs, a command palette, an AI usage tracker, window snapping, and a long tail of utilities like Zip/Unzip, drive eject and a keystroke HUD. It states 0.1 % idle CPU. As a free island it is the most complete one available.

Reason 1: you want open source

Boring Notch and Atoll are the two. Boring Notch is minimal — media, a simple shelf, a camera mirror. Atoll (GPL-3.0) adds stats, timers, a clipboard and lock-screen widgets. Both are free, both are readable, neither is trying to be a 70-feature app. If auditability is why you’re moving, these are the only honest answers; FavTray is closed source too.

Reason 2: you want to pay once and have someone to email

Donations don’t come with a roadmap or a support address. If you’d rather pay for a product than tip for one:

• NotchNook — a design-first island (media, file tray, calendar peek, weather) for a one-time price.
• Alcove — a music HUD with lock-screen support, one-time.
• FavTray — $49 once for everything, or $4.99/month; email support, a public changelog, and a 30-day trial that unlocks all of it without a card.

Reason 3: you want tools that aren’t in the notch

This is the big one, and it’s where the comparison stops being notch-vs-notch. Notchy’s list is long, but it’s a list of things you do in the island. If your day also involves a break timer, a water bottle you forget, a chair you don’t leave, meetings you join late, ports you kill from the terminal, and a Claude bill you check in a browser tab — no notch app covers it, and you end up with eight icons.

FavTray’s answer is 18 tools behind one icon, and the island is one of them:

• Eye Rest — 20-20-20 with six presets, Pomodoro, 36 body-break exercises, and it pauses when you’re on a call or typing.
• Hydrate — a water tank on a thin side dock. Drag the water to pour. A pace line for the hour. A 12-week grid.
• Move — a shrimp that curls the longer you sit and asks you to unshrimp at the hour. No camera; it reads keyboard and mouse idle time.
• AI Usage — Claude, Codex and 21 other providers with session and weekly limits, the signed-in account shown, and 90 days of cost history.
• Agent Sessions — watch Claude Code and Codex, approve or deny from the island.
• Meetings, Reminders, Port Kill, Cloud Costs (AWS + GCP), GitHub, Window Manager, System Info, Keep Alive, Menu Bar Manager, AI Writer, Screenshot.

Reason 4: you want the notch to say something

A HUD tells you the volume changed. A moment tells you something you’d act on. FavTray’s notch shows one card shape for everything the app has to say — and for the cheers, the island becomes the thing:

• Claude at 95 % — a line, “back at 6:15 PM”, and a thin bar. Red at the limit. No buttons; nothing to decide.
• Time for water — orange, a drop, today’s bar, +250 ml or 15 min.
• 2,000 ml. Done. — the island floods; glasses clink; bubbles rise.
• Unshrimped. — the shrimp hops; confetti. A record turns the island into sea.
• 7 days running — a row of candles lights along the floor.
• 26° Mumbai, thunderstorm — dark clouds drift, rain slants, lightning forks.

You can click through every one on the FavShelf page — it’s a live recreation, not a video.

The honest table

	Notchy	Boring Notch	Atoll	NotchNook	Alcove	FavTray
Price	Free (donations)	Free	Free	One-time	One-time	Free tier · $4.99/mo · $49 once
Open source	No	Yes	Yes (GPL-3.0)	No	No	No
macOS	13+	14+	14+	14+	14+	14+
Notch scope	Very wide	Minimal	Medium	Polished, medium	Music	Media, calendar lens, clipboard, shelf + AirDrop, weather, camera, Oracle
Beyond the notch	Some utilities	—	—	—	—	16 more tools
Meaningful notifications	HUDs, call/message islands	—	—	—	—	Moments (limits, asks, cheers, weather)
Support	Community	Community	Community	Paid	Paid	Paid, changelog, 30-day trial

Which one

• Staying free and in the notch → keep Notchy, honestly.
• Open source → Boring Notch or Atoll.
• Paid once, island only, beautiful → NotchNook.
• One icon for the whole desk, notifications that mean something, a lifetime price → FavTray. Full comparison: FavTray vs Notchy.