Alcove vs Boring Notch: Which Mac Notch App? (2026)
Alcove costs $14.99. Boring Notch costs nothing. Yet “alcove vs boring notch” put this site in front of Google searchers 311 times in the last 90 days. People aren’t just grabbing the free one.
The free one does more and feels worse. That’s the whole trade, and the rest of this page is the detail.
TL;DR: Pick Alcove if you want a notch that looks and moves like the iPhone’s Dynamic Island and you’re on macOS 15 Sequoia. Pick Boring Notch if you want more features for $0 and can live with a Gatekeeper warning and the odd crash. If you want neither trade, there’s a third option at the end.
Frequently asked questions
Is Boring Notch better than Alcove?
Boring Notch has more features, and it’s free. Alcove is more polished and more stable. If features per dollar decide it, Boring Notch wins. If how it feels every day decides it, Alcove wins.
Is Alcove worth $14.99?
Yes, if you’re on macOS 15 and care how it looks. It’s a one-time price with a 72-hour trial, so you’ll know within 3 days.
Is Boring Notch safe?
The code is public under GPL-3.0 with about 10,800 GitHub stars, so anyone can read it. But the app isn’t signed with an Apple Developer account, so macOS warns you on install and you have to allow it by hand.
Which one uses less battery?
Alcove is a lean native Swift app. Boring Notch’s audio visualizer runs the whole time music plays, and most drain reports mention it. Turn the visualizer off and the gap shrinks.
Do they run on macOS Sonoma?
Boring Notch does, on macOS 14 and later. Alcove needs macOS 15 Sequoia or later.
Alcove vs Boring Notch at a glance
| Alcove | Boring Notch | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $14.99 one-time | Free |
| Trial | 72 hours | n/a |
| Open source | No | GPL-3.0 |
| Signed by Apple | Yes | No |
| macOS | 15 Sequoia+ | 14 Sonoma+ |
| Now Playing | Yes | Yes, with visualizer |
| HUD replacement | Yes | Yes |
| File shelf and AirDrop | No | Yes |
| Calendar | Yes | Yes |
| Lock screen widgets | Yes | Yes |
| Swipe gestures | Yes | Hover to expand |
| Live Activities | Yes | Playback |
| Install | Download | Download or Homebrew |
Alcove wins on polish, trust and gestures
Polish. Alcove is built in native Swift by Henrik Ruscon, who built it to match Apple’s Dynamic Island design. The island grows and shrinks the way the iPhone’s does. Next to it, Boring Notch feels rough.
Trust. Alcove is signed, so it opens like any other Mac app. No trip to System Settings, no Terminal command.
Gestures. Swipe on the notch to move between activities or dismiss one. Boring Notch expands on hover instead.
Boring Notch wins on price, features and Sonoma
Price. Free, forever, with the source on GitHub. You can install it in one line: brew install --cask TheBoredTeam/boring-notch/boring-notch.
Features. A file shelf with AirDrop, weather and an audio visualizer. That last one is what people fall for, because it pulses with whatever you’re playing.
Sonoma. It runs on macOS 14. Alcove doesn’t.
Put Your Notch To Work
That black bar already takes up space. Give it music, timers, and voice typing.
Download for free
The problems with each
Alcove’s problem is scope. It’s a beautiful island that mostly shows you things: music, HUDs, notifications. It doesn’t do work. No file tray, no timer, no dictation.
Boring Notch’s problem is reliability. People report crashes after sleep and wake, and the always-on visualizer costs battery. Being unsigned also means a Gatekeeper prompt before it will open. We cover the fixes people try in Boring Notch alternatives.
Atoll, the other free option
Atoll is a free fork of Boring Notch with a clipboard manager, a terminal tab and CPU and GPU stats added. It’s worth a look if Boring Notch is your pick and you own a 14 or 16 inch MacBook Pro, the only Macs its README supports. More in Atoll alternative.
The third option
Seam is our app, so read this part with that in mind. It sits between the two on price at $29 once, for 2 Macs, with a 48-hour trial.
It takes the half of each you’d want. It’s signed and stable like Alcove, and it runs on Sonoma like Boring Notch. It has the audio visualizer, a file stash with AirDrop, weather, calendar, HUDs and AirPods battery per earbud. Then it adds on-device voice dictation and Flow, a 25/5 Pomodoro timer, which neither of them has.
It doesn’t have Alcove’s swipe gestures or lock screen widgets. If those are why you want Alcove, get Alcove.
The verdict
On macOS 15 and you mostly want it to look right: Alcove. $14.99 is fair, and it’s the nicer app to live with.
On a budget, on Sonoma, or you want a file shelf and a visualizer: Boring Notch. Allow it in System Settings once and move on.
Want the notch to do real work, like dictation and focus sessions: try Seam free for 48 hours.
Related Reading
Put Your Notch To Work
That black bar already takes up space. Give it music, timers, and voice typing.
Download for free