[Update] I posted BetterStage here 3 months ago, here's how it looks like 45 updates later.
About 3 months ago I posted BetterStage here. The honest feedback was: "looks interested, but it needed more work", and I made the comparisons sound like BetterStage was the only way. Fair on all counts. There are a lot of window managers / workspace managers that are great for a lot of people, at the end of the day it's down to personal taste and preference. I'm not here to pretend otherwise.
edit: sorry for reposting, no spam intended, original post was removed by readtherules bot, didn't know i had to click the readtherules menu and submit acknowledgement before posting.
Problem:
I needed a better way to manage LOTS of windows that belong to different projects (and I start working on even more projects at the same time since the introduction of AI, yup, vibe coding), spread across multiple monitors.
My setup is a 42-inch OLED in the middle, two portrait screens on the sides, plus the MacBook Pro display. Four screens total. On a normal day I might have code, design references, docs, Terminal logs, Finder windows, Slack, dashboards, and browser tabs open at the same time. They do not all belong together.
When I switch from one project to another, I want the whole desk to switch with me. I do not want to close windows, rebuild layouts, wait through the macOS Spaces animation, or manually move twenty windows again.
I tried quite a few window managers, but none of them matched the full workflow I desired:
- no complicated config files
- mouse and keyboard both first-class, because I browse with the mouse and code with shortcuts (i'm not the vim type of guy)
- no context-switch animation
- each monitor can auto-manage itself with a different layout, I would usually have my chats (discord, slack, telegram) vertically split accross my right screen, and that screen never changes when i switch context. And on my left monitor, I would want the AIs (gemini, claude, chatgpt) be on the top half, and my coding reference docs at the bottom half, and that's my "reference" screen. And my macbook pro's screen would be free formed, it's like a scratchpad, where i randomly throw temporary stuff there and it doesn't really need to be "managed". So it needs more flexibility how I set up each screen.
- auto-management when I want it, but still freedom to drag windows around when I feel like it
BetterStage is my attempt at that.
Here's the rough overview of how it works:
- named stages like Project 1, Project 2, Project 3, Notes, or Entertainment (some times it would be Frontend, Backend, Admin Portal, if I'm working full stack on one project)
- stages are separate from macOS Spaces: BetterStage keeps its own workspaces inside your current desktop setup
- each stage spans every monitor
- switch the whole desk with Opt+1-9 (or Opt+mouse scroll up and down)
- each monitor can use a different mode: macOS native mode (normal floating, with window snapping), Bento Box BSP tiling, or Tabbed Layout Mode when there are too many window to tile. And each monitor can be individually pinned so it doesn't change when switching stages.
- AI Staging leverages the power of LLMs, you can customize your own "recipe" how how each project/stage, each monitor, each app window be setup with natural language, and let AI do the work for you instead of mannually moving windows around, either with your own key or optional hosted BetterStage AI, and if privacy is your biggest concern, you can always use a locally hosted AI model (ollama or lmstudio).
- SnapWheel, this is my favorite, a GTA style wheel menu that's always at your finger tip when you need to do something with mouse, so you don't need to reach to the tiny top menu to find an action to perform in the long dropdown menu.
Comparison:
On the tiling side, the closest comparisons are AeroSpace and yabai. Both are excellent. BetterStage's Bento Box mode is inspired by that style of automatic tiling.
yabai takes the SIP-disable approach for more control. BetterStage chose not to do that, because I wanted it to be friendlier for users who do not want to go through SIP setup.
AeroSpace is a great keyboard-first tiling window manager. If you live in config files and remember all your shortcuts, it may fit you better. I am more of a VS Code person than a Vim person: I use both mouse and keyboard, and I forget complicated shortcut maps.
Workspace+ or similar setups are also strong if what you want is launch/restore/context automation. BetterStage is more about live stages: your windows are already open, each stage spans every monitor, each monitor can use a different mode, and you switch the whole desk from a native UI. I would say the biggest difference in philosophy than most "save/restore workspace" apps is that my workflow doesn't involve multiple single window apps, as a developer, having many stateless terminal windows running various scripts is the norm, and which scripts to run or not run , which terminal window is for me to just look up stuff or do configurations is ever changing, so the workspace-management-on-the-fly is what BetterStage is about.
Rectangle and Magnet were two of my favorites before my desktop got too messy for snap-left/snap-right to be enough. If that is all you need, they are still great. Note that the free version of BetterStage also covers all your standard window snapping needs.
Trust note:
BetterStage only asks for Accessibility permission. No Screen Recording, no Input Monitoring, no telemetry or usage analytics inside the Mac app (The only phone-home that it does is license verification, and that's it.). AI Staging never goes to BetterStage's server unless you choose to use BetterStage's managed AI subscription.
Pricing:
Free:
- 3 stages forever
- Snap Wheel, snap zones, shortcuts, and multi-monitor support
- 10-day Pro trial on first download, no card
Pro lifetime:
- $19.99 for 1 Mac
- $39.99 for 3 Macs
- $49.99 for 5 Macs
- all 9 stages, Bento Box Mode, Tabbed Layout Mode, App Routing, AI Staging with your own key/local model, Pinned Displays, and future updates
Optional BetterStage AI subscription:
- $4.99/month or $39/year if you want hosted AI Staging with no API key setup hassle, includes all Pro features.
Links:
https://betterstage.app/changelog
Shout out
A lot have been added / improved since I first launched since 3 months ago, I received many feedbacks and feature requests through Discord from some of you who started using BetterStage since first reading about it here on r/macapps . And it was super helpful for making BetterStage much better than I originally intended. Special shout out to u/Latter_Pen2421 for being exceptionally helpful with ideas and feedbacks!
Transparency
The app is not on AppStore yet (due to various limitations), as required by subreddit rules, I dug up my two decade old linkedin profile, or reach me on x https://x.com/terrytz , our Discord Server is the best way to report bugs, request features or just chat.
Happy to answer anything.