an Amphetamine alternative
updated · by Anton Shakirov
Amphetamine is free, and on the narrow job of keeping a Mac awake it goes deeper than hop does. so this page is not an argument that you are using the wrong app. it is an answer to one question: when is it worth trading that depth for a switch that lives next to seventeen other tools.
if you have triggers set up in Amphetamine, stay. nothing here replaces them. this page is for the person who clicks the same switch by hand every time anyway, and who counted four icons in their menu bar doing one small thing each.
what Amphetamine is built for
depth in one job. it has been on the Mac App Store since 2014, it is free, and it stays free: no in-app purchases, no pro tier, nothing to unlock later. that is worth saying plainly, because most «alternative» pages exist to sell you out of something free.
the triggers, and what they actually watch
the switch is the part everyone sees. the part people stay for is the trigger system, which turns the session on by itself when a condition is true:
- a particular app is running — quit it and the session ends
- a display is connected, or a specific one is
- the Mac is on a named Wi-Fi network, or at a given IP
- a USB or Bluetooth device is attached
- the battery is above or below a level you choose
- the clock says it is a weekday between nine and six
set once, forgotten forever. that is a lot to give up, and the rest of this page assumes you know it.
price, age and the absence of in-app purchases are checked on the store listing, not taken from a directory site — verified 10 september 2026. Amphetamine on the Mac App Store
one practical difference before anything else: Amphetamine comes from the App Store and only from there, while hop is downloaded from its own site. that changes updates, sandboxing and what an app is allowed to touch. the App Store version versus the one from the site
where Amphetamine beats hop
this is the section most comparison pages skip, and skipping it is why they read as advertising. so, in order of how much it matters.
automation you would be doing by hand
hop has no triggers. none. if Amphetamine currently starts a session the moment your external display is plugged in, or holds the Mac awake for as long as Final Cut is open, then moving to hop means pressing a switch yourself every one of those times.
for someone who plugs in a display twice a day, that is twenty-odd clicks a fortnight you did not used to make. for someone who renders overnight three times a year, it is three clicks. only you know which of those you are, and the honest answer decides this page for you.
the settings go far deeper than ours
session behaviour, what happens on wake, what happens when a trigger stops matching, notifications, a whole preferences window of it. hop has a duration and an on switch.
that depth is not clutter — it is what an app looks like when one job is the entire product. we cannot match it and we are not going to pretend the trade runs the other way.
the edge cases have been chased down
a single-purpose app that has been maintained for over a decade has met problems an eighteen-module app has not. the developer publishes a separate fix for closed-display behaviour on Apple silicon laptops after a power source is connected or removed — a failure specific enough that most apps in this category have never heard of it.
the closed-display workaround and its install steps are published by Amphetamine's own developer. the developer's repository on GitHub
what hop does in this module is a much smaller claim, written out in full on its own page. keep your Mac awake
what a keep-awake switch looks like inside hop
a switch with a duration on it: fifteen minutes through to indefinitely. it ends when the time runs out or when you quit hop, and there is nothing left behind afterwards — no setting changed in System Settings, no state that outlives the app.
it sits in a panel with seventeen other tools: clipboard history, window layouts, a colour picker, archives, a file converter, a system monitor. modules you do not want get switched off and stop existing for you.
| what you are doing | with Amphetamine | with hop |
|---|---|---|
| it should switch on by itself when the display is plugged in | a trigger does it — set once, then never thought about | not possible. press the switch yourself, or stay where you are |
| an export runs for forty minutes and you want sleep back after | a trigger tied to the app, or a timed session | pick a duration; it ends by itself |
| one long download, once or twice a week | open the menu, click, click again later | the same two clicks, in a panel already open for other things |
| you also wanted clipboard history and a colour picker | two more apps, two more icons | already there, same panel, same icon |
| you are counting what lives in your menu bar | one icon doing one thing well | one icon doing eighteen things adequately |
the icon count is not a joke reason to move, especially since the notch started eating the middle of the menu bar on laptops. menu bar icons behind the notch
macOS ships a keep-awake command already
before choosing between apps at all: caffeinate is in every macOS install. -i holds off idle sleep, -d keeps the display on, -t takes a timeout in seconds, and -w waits on a process id and releases the moment that process exits.
it costs a Terminal window and knowing the flags, which is exactly the price this whole category of app exists to remove.
the command, its limits and what a menu bar switch adds on top are worked through in detail on a neighbouring page. a Caffeine alternative
when moving off Amphetamine is worth it
worth it if the honest description of your usage is: you click the switch by hand, you have never built a trigger, and there are two or three other single-purpose icons up there you would also happily fold into one.
not worth it if any trigger you rely on is doing real work. there is no partial credit here — you would be trading automation for manual clicks, and no number of other modules pays that back. it is free and it is not going anywhere.
the middle case, which is most people: install hop, switch every module off except keep-awake, and leave Amphetamine exactly where it is for a week. nothing forces a decision. if you never opened Amphetamine that week, you have your answer, and if you did, you also have it.
clamshell use is its own question and is handled separately. keep a MacBook awake with the lid closed
the failure mode both apps share
an app that keeps a Mac awake is dangerous in exactly one way: you forget it is on. a machine that never sleeps burns battery, runs warm, and surprises you at the worst possible moment.
both apps answer this the same way — a visible menu bar state, and an end condition. hop's ends on timeout or on quit, with no state left behind. set a duration rather than indefinitely and the failure mode mostly stops existing.
macOS keeps its own safeguards underneath either app: a keep-awake asks the system not to idle-sleep, it does not override low-battery behaviour or a lid-based sleep policy. that is a limit, and a sensible one.
what the sleep settings themselves control, underneath any app holding an assertion. Apple Support — battery and energy settings on Mac
the opposite complaint — a Mac that wakes when nothing asked it to — has a different cause and is worth ruling out before blaming either app. why your Mac wakes up at night
what people keep a Mac awake for
- a download or an upload that has to finish unattended
- a render, a build or a long export you are not sitting over
- a presentation, where a dimming screen in front of a room is its own kind of pain
- a long read or a recipe on screen with nothing touching the trackpad
- anything running over ssh that dies the moment the machine dozes off
if the actual goal is fewer icons rather than this particular switch, the same trade shows up against a different single-purpose app. an OnlySwitch alternative
frequently asked questions
- is Amphetamine free?
- yes. free on the Mac App Store since 2014, with no in-app purchases and no paid tier. cost is not a reason to look for an alternative to it.
- can hop do Amphetamine's triggers?
- no. hop offers a switch with a duration, and nothing that starts a session by itself. triggers on apps, networks, displays and battery level are what Amphetamine is built around, and that is the thing you would be giving up.
- why is the app called Amphetamine?
- it is a joke about the whole keep-awake category, which has been naming itself after stimulants since the beginning. the name is also the reason some people go looking for a replacement — corporate filters and shared screens do not read the joke.
- what happens if i forget it is on?
- set a duration and it ends by itself. quitting hop returns normal sleep straight away, and the menu bar icon shows the state the whole time.
- does it change my energy saver settings?
- no. nothing in System Settings is touched by either app — they hold a temporary assertion while running and release it when they stop.
- do i have to uninstall Amphetamine to try hop?
- no, and you should not. run both for a week with hop's other modules switched off. two keep-awake apps do not conflict — each holds its own assertion.
- both are free — so why move at all?
- not for the feature; on the feature Amphetamine wins. you would move to stop keeping four single-purpose apps in the menu bar, and only if the triggers are not doing anything for you.
the hop side of this
keep awake — downloads, renders and calls run to the end. even with the lid closed.
about the author
Anton Shakirovmakes hop
makes hop and every page on this site. eighteen tools under a single menu bar icon, MIT licensed and open source. reads and answers issues and email himself.