a Rectangle alternative
updated · by Anton Shakirov
Rectangle is free, open source and has been the standard answer for window management on macOS for years. hop is free and open source too, and window layouts are one of eighteen tools behind a single menu bar icon. price is not what separates them, and this page does not pretend otherwise.
if window management is the one thing you need, stay on Rectangle — it does that job better than we do, and it costs nothing. this page is for the person who counted the small single-purpose apps in their menu bar and found half a dozen of them.
what a Rectangle alternative has to admit first
most comparison pages in this section have an easy argument: the other app costs money and this one does not. that argument does not exist here. Rectangle is free and MIT licensed, checked on 10 September 2026, with its source in the open and years of work behind it. there is a separate paid Rectangle Pro for people who want more, but the app itself asks for nothing.
and it is not even the only free option on your Mac. since Sequoia, macOS tiles windows on its own, and that costs nothing either. so by the time you read this you already have two free ways to put a window on half the screen, one of which is built in.
what follows is what is left after admitting that.
the long version of what window layouts do and where they stop is on the feature page: window manager for Mac
what macOS tiles before you look for a Rectangle alternative
the zones you already have
drag a window to an edge of the screen and it snaps. hold the pointer over the green button in the corner of any window, or open Window → Move & Resize, and you get the same set from the menu: left, right, top, bottom, the four corners, centre, and fill.
that is halves, quarters, centring and full screen — free, installed, nothing to set up. try it for a week before you add any app at all: for a lot of people that ends the question.
the layouts and their icons are listed in Apple's own help: tile windows on Mac
what the Option key actually adds
holding Option while you drag makes tiling faster, and holding it over the green button reveals more layouts. those extra layouts are the paired ones — left and quarters, top and quarters, and the rest of that family. they are not thirds.
thirds are the thing built-in tiling still does not have. neither does the keyboard, past a point: halves are on ⌃-Fn and the arrow keys, centring is ⌃-Fn-C, fill is ⌃-Fn-F, and the four quarters have no shortcut at all. checked on macOS 26.6.2 in September 2026.
the full shortcut list, including the ones that do not exist: Mac window tiling icons and keyboard shortcuts
the same ground, argued against a paid window manager rather than a free one: a Magnet alternative
so which Rectangle alternative do you actually need
if halves and quarters cover your work, you need nothing — the system already does it. if you want thirds, custom keybindings, drag-to-edge and per-display rules, Rectangle is the better answer and it is free.
the case for hop starts somewhere else entirely: not at what window layouts can do, but at how many apps you are running to get them.
how hop works as a Rectangle alternative
eighteen zones, a click or a hotkey
eighteen zones — halves, thirds, quarters, centre — picked from the panel with one click, or put on global ⌃⌥ hotkeys so the mouse never comes into it. the window lands where you meant it on the first try, including the thirds the system has no zone for.
there is no drag-to-edge. you pick a zone; you do not throw the window at the side of the screen.
the part that is not about windows at all
the difference is not the snapping. it is that the same icon also holds clipboard history, text recognition, a colour picker, archives, a system monitor and eleven others. if you were about to install a window manager, a clipboard manager and a colour picker, this is one download instead of three, one set of permissions instead of three, and one thing to update.
that is the entire argument. if it does not describe you, Rectangle is the right app and you can stop reading here.
the clipboard part of the same panel, if that is one of the icons you were counting: clipboard history for Mac
and the colour picker, which is usually the next one: a colour picker on the menu bar
| Rectangle | hop | |
|---|---|---|
| windows are the only thing you want managed | this is what it is built for — keep it | not the reason to install it |
| price | free, open source, MIT | free, open source, MIT |
| what it is | a dedicated window manager | one of eighteen tools in one icon |
| drag to screen edge | yes | no — you pick a zone |
| zones | many, configurable | eighteen: halves, thirds, quarters, centre |
| keyboard shortcuts | yes, fully custom | yes, global ⌃⌥ |
| per-display rules | yes | zones apply to the active window's display |
| what else is in the app | none — that is the point | seventeen other tools |
where Rectangle is better than hop
the gesture, and the settings behind it
drag-to-edge is missing here, and if that gesture is how you think about windows, nothing in this panel replaces it — Rectangle and macOS itself are both built around it.
custom keybindings per layout, per-display rules and the extras in the paid Pro version are not here either. our hotkeys are a fixed set on ⌃⌥, and that is a real limit, not a simplification.
open source, and the years behind it
Rectangle has been maintained in the open since 2019, on an enormous number of Macs, with the arguments about edge cases already had and settled. window management is full of edge cases — full-screen apps, apps that refuse to resize, displays that come and go — and time is the only thing that finds them.
this page does not enumerate Rectangle's limits: we have not examined it closely enough to. the table above covers our side of it; check theirs against your own list.
the honest way to decide
- try the built-in tiling for a week — halves and quarters, no install
- count the small single-purpose apps left in your menu bar
- if the answer is one or two, keep Rectangle — there is nothing to gain here
- if it is six, download hop (about 6 mb, no account) and see how many of them it covers
- keep whichever leaves you with fewer icons and the same capability
one of the six is usually a system monitor: a system monitor in the menu bar
and the comparison for the clipboard one, which is the same argument in a different module: a Maccy alternative
frequently asked questions
- both are free — what is the point of switching?
- not the feature. having one menu bar icon instead of several, if you were also running a clipboard manager, a colour picker and a system monitor. if window layouts are all you use, there is no point, and Rectangle does them better.
- does macOS do thirds on its own yet?
- no. built-in tiling covers halves, quarters, centring and fill. holding Option adds the paired layouts with quarters, not thirds. checked on macOS 26.6.2 in September 2026.
- can i drag a window to the edge to snap it?
- no. you pick a zone from the panel or press a hotkey. Rectangle and macOS since Sequoia both do drag-to-edge.
- how many layouts are there?
- eighteen: halves, thirds, quarters and centre.
- can i set my own shortcuts?
- layouts can go on global ⌃⌥ hotkeys. Rectangle's keybinding system is more configurable than that.
- is hop open source too?
- yes, MIT licensed, source on GitHub, and there is no paid tier. nothing is held back for a Pro version.
the hop side of this
window layouts — eighteen zones, one click or one hotkey.
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.