a TomatoBar alternative

what TomatoBar is built for

the pomodoro method, natively and without ceremony: work and rest intervals, optional sounds, notifications you can act on from the banner, a global hotkey, and a countdown in the menu bar. no account, no telemetry, nothing to switch off.

the corner is crowded and well served, and TomatoBar earned its place in it by refusing to grow.

what TomatoBar costs, checked 10 september 2026

nothing, on every path. it is MIT-licensed, the source is public, and it installs with one line: «brew install --cask tomatobar». there is no paid tier to run into later and no upgrade prompt to dismiss.

the current build is v3.6.1, from february 2026, and the download is about five megabytes — the same order as hop's, so there is no size argument to make here.

everything above is from the project's own repository, including the licence and the Homebrew line: ivoronin/TomatoBar on GitHub

the timer module on this side, down to which cycles are built in and what happens when it ends, has a page of its own: a pomodoro timer in your Mac menu bar

where TomatoBar beats hop outright

four things, and a comparison that skips this part is not worth the minute it takes to read. two apps that are both free and both open source have to be separated on something that holds up, or not at all.

the source is public, and the app is only the timer

both projects are open, so this is not a difference in kind. it is a difference in how long the reading takes. TomatoBar is one timer, and a person who wants to know exactly what runs on their Mac can go through it in an evening. eighteen modules cannot be audited that fast, whatever the licence says.

the system monitor comparison says the same thing about the same trade, from the other end of the panel: Stats alternative

sounds and notifications built for the cycle

a pomodoro timer is a thing you hear, not a thing you watch, and TomatoBar is tuned for that: sounds per phase and notifications you can act on without opening anything. hop plays one sound at the end and pulses the digits until you reset them — enough for a timer, thinner than an app built around the ritual.

a log you can feed to something else

this is the one people underrate. TomatoBar writes every state transition to a JSON file in its own container and says out loud what it is for — analysing your productivity and enriching other data sources. point a script at it and you have every session you ever ran.

hop has no equivalent for the timer. finished pomodoros are not counted, charted or written anywhere you can read afterwards. if a streak is the thing that keeps you honest, that is a gap you will hit in week one.

hours do get recorded on this side, but by a different tool with a different question — tasks you started, not cycles you finished: the time tracker

one line to install, one line to remove

the cask matters more than it looks: the app arrives, updates and leaves through the same tool as everything else on the machine, with no download page in between.

what macOS does before either of them

read this part before installing anything: some of it is already on your Mac, and most pages about pomodoro timers are describing an older one.

the Clock app has a Timers tab, and a Clock timer does not lose time while the Mac sleeps — it is a scheduled event the system owns rather than an app counting seconds. since macOS 26 the menu bar countdown needs no install either: Timer is a Control Center module, switched on in System Settings under Control Center.

Apple's own wording in the Clock guide: «it continues even if you open another app or if your Mac goes to sleep» — Apple Support: set timers in Clock on Mac

where the built-in timer stops

at the rhythm, and only there. Clock has no cycle of any kind: nothing alternates, nothing repeats, and nothing knows that five minutes of rest follow twenty-five of work. its File menu offers to start a recent timer and nothing else. so every boundary in your day costs you a trip back to the app, which is exactly the trip a pomodoro timer exists to remove.

one more thing neither route does, so nobody promises it: no timer here turns a Focus on when the work phase starts. a Focus on a Mac is switched by a time of day, a place, or an app you opened — never by a phase of a countdown.

the three automation triggers, in Apple's own list: Apple Support: set up a Focus to stay on task

so: a one-off timer is Clock's, and in macOS 26 put it in the menu bar while you are there. the simple case ends when the timer stops being a one-off and becomes a rhythm you keep all day. from there you want a cycle, and the only question left is whose.

the menu bar changed in other ways that year, and some of it broke third-party utilities outright: what macOS 26 changed for menu bar apps

what a TomatoBar alternative looks like inside one icon

the argument for this side is narrow, and inflating it would be the fastest way to lose the reader. the timer is one of eighteen tools behind the same icon as the clipboard history, the converter and the system monitor. someone already keeping that icon for the other seventeen does not install a fourth app for the tomatoes.

that is a weak reason to switch. below is where the two actually differ.

the honest border

nothing above is a verdict on TomatoBar's internals: what the middle column lists comes from its own repository, and what we have not measured is not claimed either way.

and the case against this page is short enough to state plainly: if the menu bar icon you keep is not already ours, installing eighteen tools to get one timer is the wrong trade, and the tomato in the corner is the right one.

if the real question turned out to be where the day went rather than how long you work in one stretch, the tracker beside the timer has a comparison of its own: Timing alternative

and if the count of icons is the actual problem, that has been measured. there is a hard limit, and it is closer than people expect: menu bar icons behind the notch

frequently asked questions

is TomatoBar free?

yes, on every path — MIT-licensed, source public, installed with «brew install --cask tomatobar». there is no paid tier. checked 10 september 2026.

does macOS have a built-in pomodoro timer?

it has a timer, not a pomodoro timer. Clock counts down without losing time to sleep, and macOS 26 puts a countdown in the menu bar through Control Center — but there is no cycle, so you restart it at every boundary yourself.

can i set my own work-rest cycle?

yes, in both. 25/5, 52/17 and 90/15 are built into hop, and your own takes two numbers. TomatoBar's intervals are configurable too.

does hop keep statistics of my pomodoros?

no. finished cycles are not counted, charted or logged. TomatoBar writes its state transitions to a JSON file you can script against, and if that matters to you it is the better answer.

is there a stopwatch?

in hop, yes — one tap switches the countdown into one, and a running timer can be parked while you start another.

can a timer turn on a Focus while i work?

not on either of them. macOS switches a Focus by time of day, location or the app you opened, and none of those is a phase of a countdown.

both are free — why switch?

mostly you should not. the one reason that holds is the icon: if hop is already on your menu bar for the other seventeen tools, the timer is a tab you have rather than an app you install.

the hop side of this

timer — work-rest cycles that survive a sleeping Mac.