FavTray vs Notchy
Notchy is a free, donation-supported notch app that lists 71 features and runs back to macOS 13. FavTray is 18 tools — a Dynamic Island plus eye rest, water and stand-up reminders, AI cost tracking, meetings, ports, and coding-agent approvals — paid once, or $4.99 a month. Here's the honest side-by-side, including why the feature counts don't mean what they look like.
What FavTray's notch does that a media island doesn't
Feature comparison
| Feature | FavTray | Notchy |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free tier; Personal $4.99/mo; Lifetime $49 once | Free, donation-supported |
| How it's funded | Paid plans — one person, full time | Optional coffee donations |
| Feature count (as marketed) | 18 tools (179+ functions counted the same way) | “71 features” |
| macOS support | macOS 14 Sonoma and later | macOS 13 Ventura and later |
| Notch / Dynamic Island | FavShelf: media, TimeLens calendar, clipboard, file shelf + AirDrop, weather, camera check, Island Oracle (AI) | Media, lyrics, shelf, HUDs, clipboard, timers, widgets, and more |
| Notch notifications | Moments: Claude/Codex limits, water and stand-up asks, goal floods, streak candles, weather with live sky | HUDs, call/message islands, download alerts |
| Body & desk health | Eye Rest (20-20-20, Pomodoro, 37 body breaks), Hydrate (tank on a side dock), Move (stand-up shrimp) | Pomodoro timer, keep awake |
| AI usage tracking | 23 providers, session/weekly limits, 30/60/90-day cost history, signed-in account shown, budget alerts | AI usage tracker (60+ providers listed) |
| Coding-agent control | Agent Sessions: watch Claude Code & Codex, approve/deny from the notch over a local socket | Agent approvals, agent activity |
| Window management | 15 layouts, shortcuts, drag-to-edge, restore | Window snapping |
| Meetings & calendar | Meetings (join takeover, one-click join), Reminders (takeovers), TimeLens fisheye calendar in the island | Calendar widget, Apple Reminders |
| Cloud & infra | AWS + GCP billing, Port Kill (free), GitHub notifications, System Info | Ports management, system stats |
| Writing | AI Writer: floating toolbar in any app, AI included, no key | Text snippets, OCR |
| Privacy | 100 % local; no account, no telemetry; credentials in Keychain | No account, no telemetry (as stated) |
| Open source | No | No |
| Support & roadmap | Paid support, public changelog, 30-day full trial | Community / donations |
Notchy details are as published on notchy.dev on 2026-09-10; we'll correct anything they tell us is out of date. FavTray details reflect version 1.11.0.
The verdict
Pick Notchy if you want a free Dynamic Island on a Ventura Mac and your wish list is media, HUDs, a shelf, a clipboard and timers. It does that well for $0, and asking for coffee instead of a subscription is a fair deal.
Pick FavTray if the notch is where you want your whole desk to report in: an eye-rest timer that knows you're in a meeting, a water tank and a stand-up shrimp on the edge of the screen that cheer in the notch, Claude and Codex limits as one line and a bar, coding-agent approvals from the island, and meetings, ports, cloud costs and GitHub in the same icon. That breadth is why it's a paid product, and why there's a lifetime price — one person builds it full time, and you can pay once and stop thinking about it.
On the count: 71 vs 17 is a counting convention, not a gap. We show our work in how notch apps count tools.
Frequently asked questions
Is Notchy a good FavTray alternative?
For the notch itself, yes — Notchy is a capable, free Dynamic Island for the Mac with media, a shelf, HUDs, a clipboard, and timers, and it runs back to macOS 13. It is a strong pick if your whole wish list lives in the notch and you're on Ventura. FavTray is a different shape: the island is one of 18 tools, next to eye rest, water and stand-up reminders, AI cost tracking, meetings, window management, port kill, and coding-agent approvals — and it's a paid product with a lifetime option.
Notchy says FavTray costs ₹49/month. Is that right?
Not anymore. FavTray is priced in USD worldwide: a free tier, Personal at $4.99/month, or Lifetime at $49 once — with a 30-day full trial that needs no card or account. Notchy's comparison page also lists FavTray at fifteen tools; it's 18 as of September 2026 (Hydrate, Move, and a desk buddy were added).
Notchy has 71 features and FavTray has 18. Is Notchy bigger?
They're counted differently. Notchy counts each function — Caps Lock HUD, Zip & Unzip, Drive Eject — as a feature. FavTray counts tools; one tool like Eye Rest contains a dozen functions (20-20-20 timer, six presets, Pomodoro, 37 body-break exercises, meeting and typing detection, office hours, stats). Counted Notchy's way, FavTray lands at 179, and every one is listed in our full feature list so you can check.
Which one is free?
Notchy is free and asks for donations. FavTray has a free tier — Eye Rest, Port Kill, Menu Bar Manager in full; AI Usage, Window Manager, System Info in core form; the island glance with media, weather and AI bars; and Hydrate and Move reminders — plus a 30-day trial of everything. The full 18-tool set is $4.99/month or $49 once.
Which is lighter on the Mac?
Both are native Swift apps. Notchy states 0.1 % idle CPU. We measured FavTray 1.11.0 on an M5 Max with all 17 tools enabled and the island collapsed: 0.3–0.5 % CPU sampled over 30 seconds and 179 MB resident memory, on a debug build. The island itself follows a no-perpetual-animation rule — when it's closed it costs nothing. Numbers and method are in our performance post.
Does either work on a Mac without a notch?
Yes. Both render a floating pill or bar at the top of the screen on external displays and non-notch Macs. FavTray's side-dock tools (Hydrate, Move) live on the screen edge and don't depend on the notch at all.
More: FavTray alternatives compared · Notchy alternatives · FavTray's idle CPU and memory, measured