alt.hn

4/12/2026 at 5:25:44 PM

Show HN: boringBar – a taskbar-style dock replacement for macOS

 https://boringbar.app/

by a-ve

4/12/2026 at 6:06:22 PM

I am the target audience for this, from a UX and tech perspective. It addresses a problem I have and for which I periodically audition solutions.

A subscription for a menu bar, though, kills it for me. I have apps on Macs that are over 20 years old. Some of those companies don’t exist anymore. I’m not going to risk paying $100 for a decade of your app and hope that your company, or your goodwill, stays around that long.

by sonofhans

4/12/2026 at 8:22:35 PM

Since this is the top comment as of now - hijacking this to introduce a change to pricing:

------

OP here - based on the feedback, I’ve switched boringBar to a perpetual license for personal use: https://boringbar.app

It’s now $40 for 2 devices and includes 2 years of updates. After that, you can keep using the version you have, or choose to pay for updates again later.

For businesses, I’m keeping the existing annual pricing.

A lot of the comments on pricing were fair, and I appreciate people being direct about it. I still care a lot about long-term maintenance for an app like this, but I think this is a better balance.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47743992

by a-ve

4/13/2026 at 5:14:00 AM

We went through the exact same dilemma with our product [1]. For desktop apps, one-off with a defined support window just feels right.

Users get certainty, and you still have a clear path to future revenue when that window expires.

Subscription makes a lot more sense once you’re in cloud/collaborative territory which we've just entered. Sounds like you landed in a good place with this split.

[1] https://dbpro.app/pricing

by upmostly

4/13/2026 at 9:49:10 AM

Hey! Nice to see you have updated the pricing. I really liked the idea behind your product when I first saw it but the pricing was just a non-starter. Getting work to pay for all of my little productivity tools is a PITA and I still have side projects so spending a few bucks on a license every 2-3 years personally is where I find the sweet spot.

Will be trying out DB Pro again in the near future!

by yurishimo

4/12/2026 at 10:01:52 PM

What was your justification for the monthly fee in the first place?

There is a model that worked for decades: If you spent a _significant_ amount of work enhancing an existing tool you'd release a new major version. The would be a discount for license holders of the old version. Why reinvent the world over and over again?

by harladsinsteden

4/12/2026 at 10:47:56 PM

Simple answer right? It makes more money.

Not saying that was OPs motivation but that's obviously why the shift happened.

by Griffinsauce

4/13/2026 at 2:18:03 AM

To me it seems like small businesses like this get squeezed by these demands to make everything cheaper while the big corporations ignore it and stick to their pricing.

I’m not sure OP should have capitulated. Someone who loves this tool will probably gladly pay more.

by dangus

4/13/2026 at 8:52:14 AM

I'm pretty sure people who give in to subscriptions are usually forced to use a tool (or adobe) for one reason or another. New tool, that does one small thing, would not force many people to go into that absurd payment model.

by twohaibei

4/13/2026 at 2:29:17 AM

The question is what is the proportion of people loving it vs liking it.

by cgio

4/13/2026 at 3:32:05 AM

The proportion gets a lot easier to deal with as the price goes up.

Is it easier to convince one person to pay $100 or 100 people to pay $1?

by dangus

4/13/2026 at 8:06:21 AM

Because what you end up with is a long tail of revenue that doesn't justify working on the app.

by ymolodtsov

4/13/2026 at 1:39:51 AM

Awesome that you were receptive to feedback. I hope most of the people who commented find out and don't just memory-hole the project.

by alsetmusic

4/12/2026 at 8:51:55 PM

Feedback from a potential customer: I despise 2-device limits. I used DEVONthink for a decade but dropped it because of that exact thing.

At home, I have a Mac Studio[0] set up in my office with my music stuff, and I'm writing this on my MacBoor Air[1] here on my lap in the living room. I also have a work laptop, although it's safely tucked away in my backback right now. My wife has an MBA, too, but that's hers and I don't mess with it. So I'm elbow-deep in Macs that are used solely by me, and I bounce between them regularly.

The 2-device limit is a dealbreaker for me. It's where I stop reading. I don't care if it cures cancer: I won't buy an app that makes me pick and choose which of the devices in my care I can use it on. I'm sympathetic to why vendors pick that limit. I get that you don't want me to buy a single license and spread it around my friends and work circles. That's completely reasonable and understandable. And yet, it completely breaks my use case. I bet I'm far from alone in this.

[0]A previous job let me keep it when I left.

[1]I bought to hack on personal projects instead of using [0], which was work-owned at the time.

by kstrauser

4/12/2026 at 9:37:10 PM

You can purchase multiple licenses. If you can afford a dozen computers, you can afford a couple more licenses.

by carlosjobim

4/12/2026 at 10:25:07 PM

Very true! Completely irrelant here, because I only purchased one of those computers as you correctly noted, but true!

by kstrauser

4/12/2026 at 11:04:30 PM

What's the alternative?

by satvikpendem

4/12/2026 at 11:41:34 PM

Trust and respect, which is a 2-way street. I've bought some relatively expensive apps (the pro version of nearly everything Omni Group makes, Things, etc. etc. etc.) and all of them let you install and use the apps on all of your computers. They're licensed per person, not per device. I despise technical controls on this for the same reason I despise DRM on physical media: it's an inconvenience to rightful owners and a temporary speed bump to pirates.

I'm not about to abuse my OmniFocus licenses, even though I could. They sold me a great product at a reasonable price, with permission to throw a copy on everything I own so I can use it no matter which chair I'm sitting at. They trust and respect me, and I trust and respect them.

by kstrauser

4/13/2026 at 1:32:27 AM

I personally prefer the monthly payments of a nominal amount where $2-8/month is my usual small app tolerance. It feels like I’m supporting the development of useful tools while having the option to discontinue my patronage when the tool is no longer relevant or useful to my workflow. This gives products a natural lifespan and aligns the developer incentives to keep the product functional and continue developing new features.

Old guard will say what they will about software licensing but at the end of the day it’s all the same.

by natpalmer1776

4/13/2026 at 1:45:26 AM

I get it now that folks absolutely loathe the idea of subscriptions - that too for a taskbar. In hindsight I too find it hideous but I wanted the pricing to reflect the effort that went into this - wrestling with the Window Server and Xcode for multiple weekends over the past months.

But hey, the masses have spoken - and a perpetual license it is. Vox populi, vox dei.

by a-ve

4/13/2026 at 4:57:34 AM

I don't think the notion of subscription is off-putting. It's just not a very natural fit for something that isn't a function of time or resources. This is just a better model for upgrades. If you make improvements later on, people will pay again.

For this particular situation, your risk probably isn't that people will stop paying. It's more likely that people like it enough that a free alternative pops up (it's not so different from rectangle and alttab.) You're probably better off taking the money up front.

by ibejoeb

4/12/2026 at 8:30:01 PM

Given how many developers here use LLMs daily, how do you think about defensibility? Tools like this seem relatively easy to reverse-engineer and replicate with enough time and LLM assistance. Did that influence your decision to charge a subscription or the change to a personal license?

by DrammBA

4/12/2026 at 8:37:31 PM

That's the reason why I added a subscription in the first place - you would pay a dirt-cheap price for a "boring" product with an added insurance that someone will be there to support it.

People will replicate it, sure, but supporting it regularly is another thing. I guess the majority wanted a perpetual license - so it's a win for the masses.

by a-ve

4/13/2026 at 2:28:02 AM

I cannot agree with you more.

Personally, I dare not replace the Dock with Windows-style task bar for fear that my OLED display might have burn-in on it. Yet, when I need an alternative, I would rather make an APP for my own.

by 8avo

4/12/2026 at 8:35:51 PM

>> how do you think about defensibility?

defensibility nowadays is app support and development. the more work you pour into it the more defensible it will be.

I personally would gladly pay to have app constantly polished and improved. What I would not use is some vibe-coded alternative that was slopped with AI in a day and pushed to github with a tweet "i made a free X alternative" and then abandoned.

by risyachka

4/12/2026 at 10:49:19 PM

I would not.

I'm not paying $40 for a taskbar replacement. And not for two years of updates and a two device limit on top.

Maybe if it was $10, I could consider it. Prices for macOS apps are insane in my opinion. Everyone wants to charge yearly or every two years now too.

by user34283

4/12/2026 at 11:44:19 PM

I second this! As a lite Mac user, $40 is a bit steep. I'll manage without boringBar no matter how great it is.

by madhacker

4/13/2026 at 12:55:57 AM

Honestly, I have tried to really cut down on my usage of 3rd-party dependencies when possible. In a way, it's kind of freeing. Whatever I still need, I write myself. If I cannot write it, then I try to find something FOSS. If I find nothing, then I consider purchasing something.

For example, I am rolling my own window manager (that needs some much needed TLC). I ditched Alfred for Spotlight. Though Alfred is better, I will survive just fine. And the list goes on.

I am not trying to take a dig at the OP. I am sure he or she put effort into this application. But I am genuinely curious -- does anybody actually need this software? Cmd+Tab, a decent window manager, and Spotlight would solve the same problems for free.

by hirvi74

4/13/2026 at 2:18:27 AM

They’re not insane.

It costs $99 a year just to be able to write Mac apps at all.

Any sort of buy-once app on macOS is unsustainable to the developer. They are paying Apple $99 a year forever.

If you want cheap/free apps get off of Apple’s ecosystem and switch to Linux.

by dangus

4/12/2026 at 9:31:59 PM

how much is there to improve and polish for a taskbar? at most it will be keeping up with macOS throwing breaking changes at you and maybe one or the other weird bug.

but isn't that it?

by mfru

4/12/2026 at 8:39:07 PM

[dead]

by sonofhans

4/13/2026 at 6:39:59 AM

C'mon, why not just open source it? Do you really expect to gain a sizeable following to get substantial cash flow? Most shareware went the way of oblivion.

If you'd open source it then there is at least the chance of gaining a community. And you'd be giving back to the community that you have benefitted from for decades.

by teiferer

4/12/2026 at 6:24:37 PM

I think that’s a fair question.

My thinking is pretty simple: most people will probably choose the basic 2-device plan, which works out to about $0.85 per month. For an app like this, I think that is a reasonable price.

Another reason is that a lot of Mac apps charge a one-time fee upfront, but then require paid upgrades later. In practice, that often ends up being similar to paying for a few years of ongoing support anyway.

I also think a low-cost subscription sets a clearer expectation that the app will continue to be maintained and kept working as macOS changes. For software like this, where OS updates can easily break things, that felt like the more honest model.

by a-ve

4/12/2026 at 6:27:46 PM

Adding on to this, apps that hook into window management and multi-monitor behavior can break in subtle ways over time. I ran into some of that with uBar on my setup, especially around multi-monitor use and waking from sleep, and I wanted boringBar’s pricing to match the expectation of continued support and fixes.

by a-ve

4/12/2026 at 6:55:14 PM

I 100% understand why you are using a subscription-based model. It makes sense, and I agree it's the most honest model given that you have to continually support it and you don't want to have to either over-promise on extended support, and offer refunds if you can't fulfill that promise.

I just hate managing subscriptions.

If you gave me the option to require manual subscription renewal, rather than auto-renewal, I would 100% buy this right now. Basically allow me to purchase for 1 year then click a button to confirm that I'm still getting value out of the product. If I don't click that button then you should assume I'm no longer interested and cancel my subscription.

(I don't like using my mac but sometimes I have to use it for work, and I wish I had this.)

by theowaway213456

4/12/2026 at 8:44:38 PM

I've added a perpetual license - $40 for 2 devices and 2 years of updates.

by a-ve

4/12/2026 at 6:57:58 PM

Fair point. The billing part of it is managed via Stripe - I'll put up the update/cancel subscription part on the Customer Billing panel soon.

by a-ve

4/12/2026 at 7:29:03 PM

Consider adding a lifetime option next to your sub options.

Consumer purchase behavior is highly impulsive and irrational. Businesses are very rational and like subs, but for many people, subscription fatigue is a real thing. Make the lifetime option 3-10x the annual rate; done. People will buy it. In my app I set it at 3x (but my annual sub is quite high; 6/mo, 30/y or 100 lifetime) but other apps, like Halide, have 12/y or 80 lifetime last I checked.

You get guaranteed revenue, and you get it upfront - better for cashflow. And you can always tell customers “if you don’t like subs buy the lifetime option”.

by earthnail

4/12/2026 at 7:44:32 PM

> Consumer purchase behavior is highly impulsive and irrational.

This is correct. It’s quite possible to both satisfy more customers and work within your constraints.

Eg $30 bucks lifetime would be nice. You could put it in small print below the main pricing to avoid decision fatigue and keep things streamlined for subs.

Often those early adopters appreciate and become advocates. Subs fatigue is a real thing

by wamatt

4/12/2026 at 8:02:34 PM

GoodSync's pricing is notable: $20/year for five devices, but stackable. I've signed up for 10+ years. GoodSync needs central infrastructure to work, so the ongoing pricing makes sense.

by ukuina

4/12/2026 at 7:41:20 PM

It is utterly bizarre that you portray consumers as irrational for not wanting subs and businesses as rational for wanting subs. Both are rational in their own interests: businesses want subs because it means more money and more control in the long run. Consumers don't want subs because it means paying more money in the long run and eventually having their software taken away from them if the company goes under, makes an anti-consumer update, etc. Consumers are not irrational just because they don't want to give you money every month forever.

by applfanboysbgon

4/13/2026 at 9:15:52 AM

I wasn't trying to trash-talk consumers, but I was trying to be as clear as possible on how consumers behave to give good business advice.

A lot of consumer spending comes from motivation. Purchase intents come in burts, an "alright I'm gonna commit, I'm gonna do this" moment. As a consumer app developer, you really need to understand that. Some of your users might use your annual sub for five years, some only for one, some for two. If your average lifetime is 2.5 years, a lifetime price that's 3x the sub price gives you more revenue - and revenue upfront - than a sub. Subs are fantastic because they give you predictable recurring revenue, which is worth a lot in the long run (which is why Wikipedia prefers monthly donations instead of larger one-time sums, for example), but if you're getting started, cash flow is everything.

Consider how much software and goods you bought that you thought you were gonna use but then never touched. The $1000 music software bundle from Native Instruments you bought because you thought it would finally bring you to make music? That guitar you bought because you really thought you'd play it? The home gym equipment so you'd finally do some sports? These purchases came from a commitment "I'm gonna do it", and statistically speaking, most people don't follow through with this commitment. A monthly payment for these things would've been much, much cheaper for them. "Oh, but if I own it I can always pick it up again", you say? Who's stopping you from resubscribing if you want to? It's purely emotional.

There are tons of books on purchase psychology; this applies all the way to owning vs renting a flat.

The mistake many developers make is not factoring in how highly people value perceived security of one-time purchases. Offer a lifetime option, and price it accordingly. It's much easier to upsell people while they already have a purchase intent than to resell them your app every year when the new subscription bill comes in. Even if, statistically speaking, it would be much cheaper for most of your users to choose the annual subscription, you will end up with happier users if you offer an expensive lifetime option, and you will end up with more cash in your company. Everyone wins.

by earthnail

4/12/2026 at 7:57:13 PM

That’s an economic concept, not a dig at consumers. It’s well known (hell, there’s a nobel laureate for it) that humans are irrational when it comes to economics.

by senorrib

4/12/2026 at 8:09:31 PM

Was the thesis of the fake Nobel recipient that consumers are irrational specifically because they prefer one-time purchases to subscriptions? Otherwise I'm not really sure what the relevance of bringing it up in this very specific context it.

by applfanboysbgon

4/12/2026 at 8:12:57 PM

Thank you for replying. I understand your perspective — the subscription is a signal that you will maintain the app long-term, and to provide the revenue for it. Also, it looks cheap. A few counter-points, while we’re talking:

> For an app like this, I think that’s a reasonable price.

Except that it’s not a price, it’s an access fee, and those are very different. If it were a price I’d have the thing I paid for — a binary to use as a like. Instead what I have is a token that you can revoke at any time for any reason, including you getting hit by a car or getting bored with the app.

> a low-cost subscription sets a clearer expectation that the app will continue to be maintained …

Forgive the bluntness, but it does no such thing. This app just launched. No one has reason to believe the little business behind it will still exist in 12 months. Death rate for products like this is very high. A subscription from me is a bet that you will still be around in a year, and you have zero track record.

by sonofhans

4/12/2026 at 8:20:08 PM

Alright - that's fair.

I've taken the feedback here and added a perpetual personal license for 2 devices at $40 - it includes 2 years of updates and the app will keep on working after that.

by a-ve

4/12/2026 at 8:00:10 PM

I don't think anyone is trying to have you get rid of the subscription option in order to have the non-subscription option. Same with defendending the good value - whether it's subscription or not is orthogonal with whether it's priced reasonably.

Low cost subscriptions as the only options can also give multiple vibes, not just one intended one, as well. The one you highighlight is somewhat optimistic takeaway "the publisher is fair with this price and I only need to pay for however much I actually use - what a great guarantee this will be good for the long run".

Another valid takeaway is basically the opposite "It's not clear if the publisher is committed to this software. The only payment option they think they can sell is for just $10 and are only showing commitment in being around for up to just 1 year - are they really confident in the product or value"? Even more doubtful are those suspicious of new dealings "It's fair enough now but do I really want to get used to it for a year and then the price is jacked up by renewal?" (this can be solved with more than a non-subscription option too. E.g. longer term subscriptions, only if you truly are trying to advertise "years of support to come" can help provide the feeling of commitment).

Even in the case one wants to start/stick with the subscription having a lifetime and/or versioned option only adds more to all of the things you listed as reasons for offering a subscription alone. E.g. seeing that "lifetime is equal to at least x years" or "y year term subscription" and then the user going with the 1 year subscription is strictly better signaling to them than just having a 1 year subscription.

The only thing suspicious from your comment is the current subscription option is 1 year, the ask was for longer/perpetual options, and the justification given was the price per month seems great. Other than the absolute value of the price per month is lower and sounds easier to defend, there doesn't seem to be anything about your product, the subscription for it, or the context made the cost per month the relevant interval for a user to consider the value.

by zamadatix

4/12/2026 at 7:50:44 PM

Price-wise it's reasonable but the general feeling I and others have is subscription fatigue. It's no one subscription's fault, but in aggregate a lot of us are done with it. App looks nice, good luck.

by gedy

4/12/2026 at 8:08:11 PM

The target audience for any product for sale are people who are willing to pay.

Not people who are outraged by that concept.

by carlosjobim

4/12/2026 at 6:13:01 PM

It's a tiny market. Why would they bother if only 10 people will give them $10?

by cactusplant7374

4/12/2026 at 6:47:39 PM

I have the same bias as the parent. I'd rather pay $50 one time than $9 a year even if I throw it away after 4 years.

But the main reason I wouldn't install it despite being happy customizing linux is that it's yet another black box I need to trust and that knows way too much. It's really insane how much you need to compromise your security on macos to have a decent developer experience.

by comboy

4/12/2026 at 8:38:27 PM

It's not economical. Lifetime sales for a lifetime unlock would probably be under $100. So not worth it for the developer.

by cactusplant7374

4/12/2026 at 6:17:37 PM

Apparently not that tiny, if a competitor has the same product priced at $30 and is currently on to version 4 after 12+ years in business!

by SyneRyder

4/12/2026 at 6:30:51 PM

They can set whatever price they want. And in business... for a micro saas? Is that just... waiting?

by cactusplant7374

4/12/2026 at 6:13:15 PM

While I don't use a Mac as my primary anymore, I'm surprised I like the look of this! It actually looks quite Mac-like as well.

Subscription is a big nope here, though. Especially for Mac software, I'd expect something where you pay for one major version, that is guaranteed to works on specific macOS versions, and gets minor bugfix updates too. But maybe the next macOS version requires a newer major version update to run, in which case you pay an upgrade fee to buy the next major version - or maybe the next major version has new features you might want to upgrade to as well.

My old Macs are stuck on 10.13, and I see Ubar mentioned elsewhere in this thread and that it's still compatible with 10.13. I might consider the $30 one off price to buy Ubar and keep it forever, but I wouldn't do a $10 subscription.

by SyneRyder

4/12/2026 at 7:07:45 PM

Agreed. The idea of having to pay for non-cloud based software in perpetuity forever, and having it stop working the very second I discontinue paying is a hard no for me.

OP, go with the JetBrains model. You can still offer a monthly subscription, but also provide an annual option where you pay up front for a year. After that year, it reverts to a fallback license for the specific version that was current during that period. It’s a good approach.

by vunderba

4/12/2026 at 6:34:38 PM

Please don't overindex on this comment OP, $10 a year is completely reasonable and the status quo they describe has killed so much software for so little benefit

It's a subscription with extra steps and worse retention.

by BoorishBears

4/12/2026 at 7:07:19 PM

Why not offer both?

I personally dislike subscriptions to the point where I’d gladly pay more to own, and as this thread shows, I’m not alone.

So why not offer both?

by einherjae

4/12/2026 at 7:49:21 PM

Why offer both?

Some people will take the subscription with extra steps and worse retention and I'm saying the product will be worse off for it. Why not just offer the thing with the simpler messaging*, better retention, and better outlook for actually being supported down the road even if it's not a massive success?

* 1 year = 365 days, not when a new major version is subjectively justified

Honestly anyone who'd over index on people claiming they'd pay except $10 a year is just too much for a major utility or subscriptions are just too exotic for them is doomed unless they learn about conversion rates: I don't get the vibe OP is unaware though based on their comments here.

by BoorishBears

4/12/2026 at 9:58:13 PM

Why not? Apple decides when a breaking change gets introduced, people on an older Intel Mac might get 5+ years of usage out of a Lifetime license for boringBar if they don't upgrade to macOS 27. It's the people that demand constant updates who should subsidize new versions being developed.

> Honestly anyone who'd over index [...] is doomed unless they learn about conversion rates

Converting those sales is OP's problem. People that don't buy SaaS products are principled and their stance won't change.

by bigyabai

4/12/2026 at 7:42:41 PM

I didn't downvote, but just to be clear - I'm not saying $10 for lifetime updates. Lifetime updates are a terrible idea and, yes, that does kill off software.

$10 is too low for a one-off purchase as well, I'm not saying to lowball the price. $29 for a small utility could be reasonable, and that gives you some room to offer discount pricing / sales if you want. As for major version upgrades, I'd be imagining a typical 50% off, $15 to buy an upgrade to v2 if the customer wants it. Of course, not every customer will want that.

You could offer both a subscription and a one-off purchase. It might put off some customers that you're even offering a subscription, but at least then you're offering everyone what they might want. And if you offer both, you'll have real data on what customers actually prefer, if you don't have that data already.

And as others have said - it's their business, they can choose their sales model! Offered only as a friendly suggestion and potential customer feedback.

by SyneRyder

4/12/2026 at 7:57:19 PM

> You could offer both a subscription and a one-off purchase.

Regardless of the presentation, $10 a year presumably represents what they want per user, per year, for this to be worth it for them. Don't rush to repackage that very conservative target into a 2nd format for people who won't pay $10 a year for a thing they'll use daily on a Mac in the first place.

> Offered only as a friendly suggestion and potential customer feedback.

And "please don't overindex on that comment OP" is offering an unreasonable response?

by BoorishBears

4/12/2026 at 8:07:59 PM

> And "please don't overindex on that comment OP" is offering an unreasonable response?

Not at all! Apologies if tone isn't coming through as I wanted. Good to have a contrarian view presented. Maybe a subscription really is what their particular market wants.

by SyneRyder

4/12/2026 at 7:01:31 PM

This reminds me of when I got my Vaxx subscription after the 5th booster.

by 18182939393939

4/13/2026 at 5:08:26 AM

When I got a Macbook many years ago, I was surprised how often little utility software like this cost money. I was just so used to the abundance of open source and freeware in the Windows/Linux world.

No judgement either way, I get that developers want to be compensated for their time. I just always found the difference in culture curious. I guess it's because if you're willing to spend the extra premium for Apple products, you're probably also willing to spend a little extra premium on the software too.

by nagonago

4/13/2026 at 6:52:08 AM

> I get that developers want to be compensated for their time.

Depends. If you build software for others then of course you should be paid. But if you build sth for youself, to scratch you own itch, isn't that already compensation? Why try to milk that cow to for such a mini tool that just took a few weekends to build? (The author said that.) If everybody had followed that philosophy then the whole OSS ecosystem wouldn't exist. Time to pay back to the community and open source such a project.

by teiferer

4/12/2026 at 6:25:03 PM

Subscription on something like this is goofy, and extra subscription per seat even for personal is goofier. For free, I can use Alfred/Raycast, Aerospace, and either sketchybar or zebar and have all this functionality executed even more skillfully and ergonomically. If you want to throw money into it, Alfred power pack is £34 and supports a great company with a lifetime purchase.

But I also understand I’m not the target audience for this, and some of my coworkers that wanted a Mac because “it’s a Mac” and now compare everything to Windows would probably use it. I’ll just have to feel bad for their wallets.

by fii

4/12/2026 at 8:16:05 PM

I always have an eerie felling when something like that has a dependency on 3rd party presence.

Q&A section doesn't explain what happens when the subscription is no longer active, but the app is still installed. What happens when the app manufacturer goes out of business? Does the app continue to work?

The subscription is a tell sign of an egoisticBar. A real boringBar wouldn't do that to its users.

by garganzol

4/13/2026 at 10:27:01 AM

This is great. Gonna give it a try couple of days. The first thing that I've noticed, on lighter bg the contrast between the buttons (minimised) and the bar's bg is quite low. It looks like a single bar when there's a light bg. Would have been fantastic if there was an option to high contrast option (Also my eyesight is quite crap, which doesn't help either)

by lapinovski

4/12/2026 at 8:16:47 PM

OP here - based on the feedback, I’ve switched boringBar to a perpetual license for personal use: https://boringbar.app

It’s now $40 for 2 devices and includes 2 years of updates. After that, you can keep using the version you have, or choose to pay for updates again later.

For businesses, I’m keeping the existing annual pricing.

A lot of the comments on pricing were fair, and I appreciate people being direct about it. I still care a lot about long-term maintenance for an app like this, but I think this is a better balance.

by a-ve

4/13/2026 at 2:07:41 AM

Put the $40 in the app store, I'll buy it just to support this move. (Though it should be $20.)

For business, I would also pay $20/seat in Apple Business's app store (no quantity discount needed), so it's part of our MDM software for Windows users unfamiliar with Mac. Note that subscriptions are not available to businesses using that channel, only flat purchases. All you have to do is have a flat purchase in the retail app store, and businesses can buy that in bulk to assign to users.

// Your other business licensing mechanisms, like, fixed number of users, different license per batch of users, etc., are too awkward for a real business with real employee turnover to keep track of, sorry.

by Terretta

4/13/2026 at 2:32:00 AM

Apps like these unfortunately cannot be put on the App Store as they use some Window Server shenanigans to make it work. boringBar is notarized by Apple and will work well with Gatekeeper if that makes it any better.

Regarding business licensing - I know I need to make changes to the fixed number of users limit. The change for it is there but I need some more testing before that gets pushed out.

Apart from that - why do you think the tiered pricing is bad? As you have more users the price per user goes down essentially to ~$1.5 per year at the highest tier.

by a-ve

4/13/2026 at 3:28:48 AM

Here's where this can be awful - I have a few pieces of software that are identical to this. After a few years I switch machines out and can't reactivate them and I'm SOL.

by hypercube33

4/13/2026 at 4:00:12 AM

OP here - for boringBar you can use the same license for your new machine. It would not be an issue. Keep in mind though boringBar on your previously activated device will stop working after 30 days if it exceeds the device limit on your license.

by a-ve

4/12/2026 at 9:47:20 PM

alright man i'm gonna buy it you seem p cool. lovely looking software here too

edit: yeah this is good stuff. see some other bug reports here im actually not running into any myself, running 4 workspaces plenty of apps. its so straight forward and simple, the design is fantastic. seems to play nicely with my rectangle app snapping, though it takes a moment for it to resize since less bottom space is available with the bar but as long as i can snap im happy.

edit2: just tried ubar then ended up back on this. #1 reason is because your app will resize my window after i snap with rectangle. i couldn't get ubar to do that, ubar also felt a little more sluggish at times. ubar is more feature filled but something about the simplicity here is kind of exactly what i needed to replace the macos dock, and yours is hitting the mark really well.

i think few buttons (don't even need to be text menu items) for logout/restart/shutdown would be pretty clutch, but outside of that i do be digging this a lot. nice. enjoy my moneys!

by trueno

4/13/2026 at 1:59:16 AM

Thanks for actually using the app. Appreciate it! I concur with the uBar issue - its jank was the main reason I built this app.

I didn't want to add the logout/restart/shutdown option initially, but I'll experiment with it to see how useful it is.

by a-ve

4/13/2026 at 12:35:29 AM

Doesn't this make Personal licences about 6x the cost of Business licences?

by danpalmer

4/13/2026 at 9:35:10 AM

I am running the trial and it seems great except for two crucial deviations from Dock behavior. Clicking on a button ("chip") does not bring the associated window to the foreground. It does work when I hover over a chip and then click the preview of a specific window. But nothing happens when I directly click the button in the bar. The issue occurs regardless of whether an app has 1 or >1 windows open. In the latter case, I would prefer if clicking the button brings the most recently used window to the top.

Another observation: many macOS apps (e.g. pages, mail, keynote, etc.) like to stay open even without having any active windows. This is completely hidden by boringBar, which leads to tons of apps being open without the user being aware of it (-> memory waste). Furthermore, actually using such an app then requires me to awkwardly type the name of the app even though it's already open.

I think it would be better if such passive apps without windows still have chips, perhaps smaller ones without a window title.

Regarding the foreground issue, in case it's relevant: The app has all the permissions it requested. This is on a macOS 26.2 on a M4 MBP.

by wjakob

4/13/2026 at 9:48:08 AM

Clicking on the chip and not having the window come to the foreground is a fairly weird issue. Do you have anything else installed that uses Accessibility permissions?

On the other observation, it works this way because apps on macOS do not usually quit when you close all of their windows. If you start an already open app again when it has no windows open, it will bring the app into focus, and you will see it in the menu bar.

Regarding your recommendation, I think I’ll need to experiment with it a bit, since it’ll be important to differentiate between pinned apps and apps with no windows in the bar.

by a-ve

4/13/2026 at 9:07:24 AM

I like it so far.

Some features I'd like:

- XL bar size - even large feels a bit small on a 6K display

- I have grouped windows off, but it would be nice if there was an option to still sort the chips by app, so all the app's windows are listed adjacent to eachother

- If not using the suggest idea above, it would also be nice to be able to drag and drop chips to sort them in the order I want

- Make the Applications menu open for clicks on the entire bottom left area of the screen so I can slam my cursor in the general direction, where it ends up at the bottom left pixel, and click like I could in Windows to open the Start menu

- Ability to give a desktop a name

- Ability to map a key or sequence (e.g. opt, opt) to open the Applications menu, again like how you could open Windows' Start menu with a key

Bugs:

- Clicking a chip to minimise a window, then clicking it again to restore it sometimes causes the window to change size.

- Quitting boringBar spawned three stacks of these: https://postimg.cc/WhmwHGNz even though it already has permissions granted. Clicking "Allow" just spawns another one so they never go away. boringBar is not running in Activity Monitor. Had no choice but to reboot.

by 00deadbeef

4/13/2026 at 9:23:52 AM

Hey! Thanks for checking it out. Regarding your feedback:

- This has been said by another user as well. I am on a 4K monitor - if possible could you share a screenshot of how it looks like currently?

- That's a fair ask. I will take a note of it.

- Drag and drop is something I am working on as well. It will be released in the next version of the app.

- Again, fair. I think I got used to it because I've been using it for a while. But this is being worked on as well and will be released in the next version.

- Ability to give a desktop a name is easy enough. I'll work on this.

- Ability to map a key or sequence for the app menu - you can already do this from the boringBar settings: Just right click on the empty space in the bar and select settings. You can then record a shortcut there.

Regarding the first bug: I do not have a fix for it yet, but I am trying to reproduce it as of now.

I'll try to reproduce the second one as well - this shows up if you are trying thumbnails for the first time - but only just one pop up and not this many.

by a-ve

4/12/2026 at 6:40:36 PM

Hi!

Over the years, I've tried several of these dock replacement apps. The one that stuck the longest was uBar (which I used with a setup similar to what you have here, emulating a "windows taskbar".

I've hit issues with most of them that forced me to move back to the normal Dock, but the number one issue has always been around notification badges: they always seemed to break in strange ways.

For example, can your dock show badges for iMessage if the app isn't open? Does it get the updated badge count without me opening it? Say I receive a SMS/iMessage, does it instantly show a counter next to the unopened pinned messages app? None of the other apps successfully did this when I tried them...

I don't know if there are other apps like this, but iMessage was by far the biggest offender. Perhaps system settings too?

P.S.: Congrats on the launch :)

P.P.S.: As others have said, I think a subscription for this will rub many people the wrong way (I am one of them). If I'm paying for a subscription, I expect this to be pretty bug-free and have at least monthly updates. I wouldn't ask this of other subscription-based apps, but for one that replaces a system-level component and wants me to keep paying, you bet I am holding it to a high standard! I've wasted too much money on other replacements and gotten very little value out of that.

by jorl17

4/12/2026 at 6:56:16 PM

Hi there - I ran into the same issue myself, but sadly I still haven't found a way to show the badge count without opening the app. I'm still experimenting with it.

I expected some pushback on subscriptions, but after trying uBar and running into quite a few issues with it I wanted to build something that feels reliable and polished. I’m pretty much all-in on the Apple ecosystem now, even though I only switched ~6 months ago. My intention is to keep supporting boringBar regularly, as I use it every day myself.

by a-ve

4/12/2026 at 8:08:36 PM

Surely the regular Dock uses some hidden API. Could you try to trace it?

Having failed that, I'd look into trying to inspect (if possible, even we have to disable SIP) the dock itself. Have it do the work for us and read out its badges.

(Throwing random ideas out there, I'm sure you've thought of this)

by jorl17

4/13/2026 at 1:27:02 AM

Just spitballing here, but I know notifications are stored in a sqlite3 database. You might be able to query the count based on application type and use that?

by hirvi74

4/13/2026 at 3:41:59 AM

Are they? I'm not so sure. If they are you could set a watcher on it to receive filesystem notifications when it changes.

I think you can get the info from LaunchServices using `lsappinfo` command.

by msephton

4/12/2026 at 6:14:06 PM

I love that you've made this, but in a world of never ending subscriptions, a subscription to a taskbar is just not something I (or many I imagine) can justify - no matter how low the price.

We really have entered the age of everything being a subscription.

by genbugenbu

4/13/2026 at 9:19:50 AM

Nice work! Always great to see independent macOS utilities. I'm building something similar in the Apple Music space, a library cleanup tool that detects duplicates, fixes metadata and checks lossless availability. The macOS dev ecosystem needs more of these focused, single-purpose tools.

by thevaultdj

4/12/2026 at 6:56:50 PM

There are MORE apps that have a better reputation like sidebar , dock fix , active dock (has been around for years and years) , and a subscription does not make sense since most can be done for free like window previews with dock door , group windows by app is free in desktop and dock settings for Mission Control , the native dock can also do many things like notification badges, click to show desktop or use a hot corner or trackpad gesture , pin apps in the dock , there are a billion app launchers , spotlight is built in . Most people will stay away from subscriptions as I have observed in the comment below (Pls be nice I’m new here and I don’t know how to comment properly )

by randomeel

4/12/2026 at 6:07:31 PM

I would pay $10 one time for this; a subscription seems excessive to me.

by oa335

4/12/2026 at 6:22:27 PM

100%. A subscription is instant death for this.

The good news is someone definitely will (or perhaps already has) done this without one.

by dd8601fn

4/12/2026 at 6:23:30 PM

Ah, good old Apple, where for only $9.99 a month, you can experience what Linux offered for free 15+ years ago.

by amarant

4/13/2026 at 5:22:49 AM

Ah, good old Linux, where for free, you cannot experience what macOS offers since 1984.

/s of course. Just pointing out that your comment is just to flame.

by trymas

4/12/2026 at 6:48:53 PM

Not really true if what you want is a full macOS-style desktop experience with a few choice features from elsewhere bolted on. Linux desktops are predominantly Windows-style or minimal tiling thing, with the exceptions (GNOME, Pantheon) bearing only surface-level Mac aesthetics and being more comparable to superpowered tablet OS experiences.

by cosmic_cheese

4/12/2026 at 7:03:05 PM

MacOS is neutered for any advanced or even power user compared to practically any Linux desktop experience. Trying to just resize or remove a window should convince you of that instantly.

by gunapologist99

4/12/2026 at 7:51:40 PM

That statement makes no sense. X11 works fine on macOS and running it in rootful mode with Gnome essentially works the same way it would work on an OS that uses the Linux kernel.

Granted, it will not integrate with anything hardware-wise by itself (unless there's a package for it - if not, macOS still handles it, and Aqua/Quartz will keep running in the background anyway), but if what you wanted was something that is KDE or GNOME running with its own WM on its own X11 server, doing the exact same thing you'd get if you're running a Linux distro, that's been natively possible for over 15 years.

If a power user loses their power based on what GUI happens to be in front of them, how much of a power user was the power user to begin with?

by oneplane

4/13/2026 at 7:07:51 AM

There is a major difference between losing your power and having to constantly fight the UI to keep your power. And, for example, window management on Mac is clunky as all hell.

by 71bw

4/12/2026 at 8:16:27 PM

It's just a matter of what one is used to. As someone who's used macOS since before OS X was released (alongside Windows and Linux), moving and resizing windows rarely poses issues.

by cosmic_cheese

4/12/2026 at 7:10:53 PM

Can you expand a bit on what you mean by "Superpowered tablet os"?

I'm tend to think of it as a server os with a DE, but as a backend developer I'm probably biased.

by amarant

4/12/2026 at 8:12:14 PM

I'm talking about the desktop environment explicitly, not the underlying OS.

To me, GNOME and Pantheon (elementaryOS DE) strongly resemble e.g. iPadOS or Android running on a tablet for a few reasons:

- Chunky heavily padded touch-optimized UI elements (even when no touch capability is present)

- By default, minimize button not present in titlebars

- Near total abandonment of menubars in favor of mobile-style "hamburger" menus

- By default, no desktop icons (not even an app grid!)

- Simplistic ecosystem apps with mobile-like philosophy of eschewing functionality that doesn't fit in toolbars and hamburger menus

- Little to no presence of progressive disclosure (enabling power user functions to be present without falling in the path of novices and tripping them up)

- Limited extensibility and scriptability (more so than macOS in some ways), with what exists (GNOME extensions) being fragile and breaking constantly due to needing to monkeypatch UI code

While it's not my cup of tea, KDE and even less trendy DEs like XFCE do a better job at acting like an actual desktop environment and surfacing the capabilities of the system.

by cosmic_cheese

4/12/2026 at 9:39:21 PM

Ah. Well then I'll argue my original statement holds. Op himself likened his product to gnome 2. Gnome 3 was released 15 years ago so if anything I was generous in my original comment.

by amarant

4/12/2026 at 7:16:59 PM

Gnome is a pretty big exception lol. Considering it's the dominant DE.

Also tablet OS? Gnome is keyboard driven with tiling features OOTB...

by dismalaf

4/12/2026 at 8:13:55 PM

See my answer to the other comment[0].

Being keyboard-driven is nice but doesn't make up for these things, and these days macOS comes with Aero-Snap-like tiling built in too.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47743939

by cosmic_cheese

4/12/2026 at 8:05:04 PM

as long as we're quipping, free software is free so long as you don't value your time

by jazzyjackson

4/12/2026 at 6:28:47 PM

One-time fee? I would be onboard instantly. Monthly fee? For what exactly? There is no recurring cost like server space or anything else. Nope, you lost me as a customer. For good.

by harladsinsteden

4/13/2026 at 7:57:45 AM

I am running Macs for over 20 years now and I wonder: why do we need Dock at all? I have hidden it over a decade ago and never ever used it. If anything, it gets in the way when I push the cursor to the edge of the screen.

(I exclusively use cmd-tab, which is a Docker feature)

by egorfine

4/13/2026 at 8:04:08 AM

I think that's fair.

My use case is fairly simple: I usually have multiple VS Code windows open at the same time and I have a habit of moving windows related to a certain task to a specific space. The default Dock mixes every window up and I just want to offload the which-window-is-where tracking to some other app - in this case boringBar.

by a-ve

4/13/2026 at 8:57:11 AM

I leave it there because I have a large screen and it looks pretty

by 00deadbeef

4/13/2026 at 7:20:53 AM

This is a great app but it highlights just how insane it is to use apple products where you have to pay a subscription fee for the 3rd party software that provides the basic OS functionality. With KDE Plasma I don't feel the need to install any additional plugins - everything is built-in, coherent and configurable to your liking.

by kombine

4/13/2026 at 9:45:37 AM

Small issue: Can't do cmd+a in the search bar and I'd like it more if the hitbox for the "start menu" extended fully to the edges.

by bschwarz

4/13/2026 at 9:58:55 AM

I'm able to reproduce the cmd+a issue. Will fix it in the next update. Thanks for letting me know.

The hitbox part is being requested a lot. It'll be a part of the next update too.

by a-ve

4/13/2026 at 5:48:20 AM

Would it be possible to potentially expand the size options? Large just isn't large enough for me on my MBP; I'd like it to be nearly 2x the size, or roughly equivalent to the 150% 4k scaling factor I have on Windows. (I like the icon-only mode!)

On the default XDR M2 Pro MBP display I'm on, I have it set to the default scaling for reasons, but I'd really like to be able to scale the BoringBar to be... quite a lot larger... maybe a scale bar, or maybe add an XL and XXL option?

by disillusioned

4/13/2026 at 6:45:24 AM

Wow okay - I thought the large option was already quite large. Will experiment with an extra large option in some time and push out an update if it appears stable.

by a-ve

4/13/2026 at 7:41:45 AM

Thanks! For context, this is how things look for me:

https://i.imgur.com/V5vXq6t.png

One other feature request: allow users to click and drag pinned (or any) icons on the taskbar. I very much arrange my pinned apps spatially so I know where to look/find/launch them. I know that I can effectively be deliberate in my pinning to try to get them in the right spot, but that's obviously quite limiting.

Just bought a license, though, and really enjoy this! Well done!

by disillusioned

4/12/2026 at 5:58:40 PM

I use uBar for this: https://ubarapp.com but this looks like a nice lightweight alternative!

by mynameisvlad

4/13/2026 at 4:35:24 AM

I have some existing issues with uBar that I have listed here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47746812.

All in all it does not seem like a polished app to me. I tried using it and I could not bring myself to buy it. The main reasons being its issues with multi-monitor support and waking up from sleep. boringBar does not have these issues.

by a-ve

4/12/2026 at 6:16:05 PM

https://lawand.io/taskbar/ as well

and https://noteifyapp.com/activedock/, which is less extreme but has a start menu-like launcher option

Both have one-time/lifetime purchase options. Taskbar is $25 one-time with a free but expiring older version. ActiveDock's one-time prices are $15 (1 year of updates, but usable forever) and $60 (lifetime updates).

by starkparker

4/13/2026 at 12:30:58 AM

Thank you for mentioning my app (https://lawand.io/taskbar/). It's been around for a couple of years and it's considered the best alternative to uBar according to the extremely positive reviews by my users

by Lawand

4/12/2026 at 6:10:53 PM

uBar looks amazing as well, and it’s not a subscription, I really like boringBar but can’t justify a subscription tho

by hmokiguess

4/12/2026 at 6:18:51 PM

Both are under 10MB, So I don't think there would be much difference.

by nguyenkien

4/12/2026 at 7:32:29 PM

I meant more in terms of featureset. uBar has a lot of features and it takes a while to get a setup that works well.

Once it's set up, though, it's pretty rock solid.

by mynameisvlad

4/12/2026 at 6:05:21 PM

Looks excellent but I can’t wrap my head around how this is a subscription. Pricing the app even at a higher range ($40-50), one—time payment makes way more sense.

You could even require paying for “upgrades” for major updates in the future. (Similar to that of Sketch or some apps made by Panic)

by bradley_taunt

4/13/2026 at 7:39:47 AM

It's expensive for me. Sidebar is half the price (lifetime license): https://sidebarapp.net

by lovegrenoble

4/13/2026 at 7:49:07 AM

I tried Sidebar, uBar - all of them. All of them have the same set of issues that they don't take care of windows that are being maximized (they end up behind the bar) and they have intermittent issues with waking up from sleep.

boringBar does not suffer from these issues. That's the reason why I built it. It works as expected from day 1.

by a-ve

4/12/2026 at 8:26:50 PM

Don't take it personally OP, but taskbar-as-a-service is objectively one of the funniest things I have ever seen posted on this site.

by fr4nkr

4/12/2026 at 6:23:12 PM

+1 to amplify the voice that hates a subscription to a taskbar. If it was €15 one time I would’ve instantly bought it.

by reacharavindh

4/13/2026 at 1:49:46 AM

IMO, this isn't priced competitively: * Mbar can be had for $15 on stacksocial * Sidebar is $21 w/ lifetime updates * DockDoor is free and OSS

by villedespommes

4/13/2026 at 4:31:25 AM

- I cannot seem to find Mbar on stacksocial. Do you have a link for that?

- Sidebar looks like a decent app but on a cursory look it does not seem to take care of window overlapping (atleast on Tahoe). You can expand windows behind Sidebar and they stay there. This problem does not exist on boringBar.

by a-ve

4/13/2026 at 2:26:33 AM

I think businesses like this should rarely listen to customers asking for cheaper prices.

If your price is higher that’s fewer people you need to convince to pay. Fewer customers also means lower support burden.

Obviously it’s a balance, but I think customers asking for lower prices may just be an indicator that people actually like what you’re doing and want to buy it. That probably means someone else is going to just buy it without worrying about the price.

The lowest priced option isn’t always the most popular, either. The F-150 sells a lot better than the Nissan Versa.

Psychologically people can also perceive a low price as an indicator of low value and quality.

by dangus

4/13/2026 at 6:15:51 AM

I went through a similar transition and ended up with yabai + skhd for tiling. The Dock pain is real.

One thing I'd love to see: integration with tiling WMs. Being able to see which windows are in the current yabai Space, and maybe even switch between stacked windows, would be amazing.

Does boringBar play nicely with yabai or similar tools?

by alykirk

4/13/2026 at 6:46:47 AM

Technically it should - I tried using Amethyst with it for a few weeks before launch and it seemed to work fine for me.

by a-ve

4/12/2026 at 6:10:46 PM

Of coarse its a subscription...

by APock

4/12/2026 at 6:02:45 PM

Cant see how this app would fit into a subscription.

by selfawareMammal

4/12/2026 at 7:15:55 PM

I'm with other people here. Make this a one-time purchase. If a major macOS update requires significant changes to keep the program working, make that a new version that people need to buy. A pretty standard way to keep people from feeling screwed if the break happens right after they bought your software is to give them the next version of your software for free if you release it within 1 year of their purchase.

I think you're actually likely to make more money that way because people will pass on adding yet another subscription to the pile they have already.

by ziml77

4/12/2026 at 6:40:09 PM

I'm not the target market for a subscription for this, but I found it quite buggy - I had multiple browser windows open and couldn't navigate to more than one. I couldn't navigate to other spaces either (clicking on them did nothing) and scrolling through the apps menu was laggy.

The screenshots on the website look nice though.

by cs02rm0

4/12/2026 at 7:13:32 PM

> I built boringBar so I would not have to use the Dock

Does anybody really use the dock as a an app switcher? MacOS is built around shortcuts, alt-tab, show spaces, etc. The dock is there for starting apps – which you can also do via spotlight, and as a “favorites” list after you remove all the built-ins.

by ricardobeat

4/12/2026 at 7:23:25 PM

I personally use Raycast, which has a Switch Windows global hotkey (Opt + W) that brings up a list of all active windows and apps. From there, you can start typing part of the window title and hit Enter to bring the corresponding window to the foreground.

Slightly related but AltTab is also a nice window switcher with built-in thumbnail previews if you prefer being able to tab by "window" and not by "process" (aka more like Windows).

https://github.com/lwouis/alt-tab-macos

by vunderba

4/12/2026 at 7:20:32 PM

I see a lot of people treat the dock like the Windows taskbar. They have it filled with as many apps as they can fit in it and leave it on-screen. I used to use the dock like that when I first started using macOS. Now it lives off the left edge of the screen and spends most of the time hidden. I can open any app I need with Spotlight and Mission Control, CMD+Tab, and moving between virtual desktops lets me move around my currently open apps.

by hecifato

4/12/2026 at 7:55:43 PM

I've always setup my macbooks with a custom json config using https://karabiner-elements.pqrs.org/ to avoid the dock, but couldnt convince any friends to give it a try since its high effort, i guess

so i hacked together https://dockshortcut.com really quick and that kinda made the difference in how some people use their macbooks these days, but tough market, nobody likes paying for something that should come out of the box

you should probably reconsider asking for a subscription, people barely wanna pay once, even if it would save them weeks a year

by mwit2023

4/12/2026 at 7:51:42 PM

I know you’ve received plenty of feedback about the subscription being a dealbreaker. There would be no point in me adding that but I would say that I could see myself paying $50 for one version of this without upgrades. Maybe half price for upgrades if you have an existing license. So I probably wouldn’t necessarily mind paying $25 per year per se if it’s not a subscription. Like many other others here, I’m just not gonna go there.

Good luck!

by theonemind

4/13/2026 at 3:31:25 AM

I'm not sure this is for me, but I wanted to say I Appreciate the little design touches and thought that is on display in this app. Great work!

by msephton

4/13/2026 at 3:54:28 AM

OP here - much appreciated. Is there something that you didn't like about boringBar? Is there any missing feature you would like to see implemented or is it that it doesn't fit well with your current muscle memory with the system Dock?

by a-ve

4/13/2026 at 6:55:04 AM

I don't really use the Dock or need an alternative. I do things using Alfred and Finder. Also, I run a portrait display with my Dock hidden down the right side.

by msephton

4/13/2026 at 4:26:45 AM

Downloaded to give it a try, but one feature is missing, I can't rearrange open windows. Is there a wayt to do that?

by atymic

4/13/2026 at 5:23:22 AM

That feature is under development. Right now the windows are arranged based on which app was launched first.

by a-ve

4/13/2026 at 7:02:36 AM

Neat! I would love to also be able to give desktops names

by Jean-Philipe

4/12/2026 at 6:07:50 PM

I am using BoringNotch, which is great. Is this somehow related?

by nxpnsv

4/12/2026 at 6:58:49 PM

No , boring notch is a Dynamic Island like utility and it also hasn’t been updated since November , I suggest you to try out atoll which is a fork of it and pretty great .

by randomeel

4/13/2026 at 10:04:58 AM

Thank you for the tip! I love boring notch but it does have a few bugs and indeed hasn't been updated in a long time. I will check out atoll!

by alejoar

4/12/2026 at 10:20:59 PM

I am trying it but the colors don't seem correct. I cannot read the title of any other tab except currently selected one: https://imgur.com/a/t0BDxuC

PS: How to contact developer? I cannot find email.

Neat idea!

by lmiller1990

4/13/2026 at 1:20:58 AM

Okay this is most definitely a bug. Have you enabled reduce transparency in macOS settings by any chance?

by a-ve

4/12/2026 at 8:55:52 PM

Already got indexed by Brave Search's AI: boringBar: A modern Dock replacement specifically for macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later that organizes windows by desktop, provides thumbnail previews, and includes unread notification badges. It requires a one-time $40 personal license after a 14-day free trial

by SpyCoder77

4/13/2026 at 12:44:03 AM

Glad to see the pricing was adjusted! Something that would make this perfect for me would be autohide on the bar. I'm trying to keep static UI lements to a minimum on an oled display.

by green-salt

4/13/2026 at 1:39:46 AM

Looks great but even $40 for a perpetual license with only two years of updates still seems excessive.

Taskbar, Uber, etc. cost less and have unlimited updates. How is this better?

by roger_

4/13/2026 at 2:19:52 AM

I've already used these apps and they did not serve my purpose well.

- I forced myself to use uBar but it has another level of jank that doesn't sit right with me - it is not reliable on a multi-monitor setup, there's no guarantee it'll work after waking up from sleep. If you maximize windows they will sit behind uBar sometimes - all of which boringBar does better and is more reliable at.

- Taskbar by Lawand is better than uBar but it has similar problems with multi-monitor support and wake from sleep. Apart from that their "start menu" app launcher is still in beta and you have to download a beta version from the developer's twitter page to actually use it. And obviously it's a subjective thing but the boringBar UI is a lot better - it integrates nicely with macOS.

by a-ve

4/12/2026 at 7:16:50 PM

Personally, I like the macOS dock so this wouldn't be for me. $10/year for a dock replacement is a bit much to ask for too, especially since this is a price per seat model. Maybe $15-20 as a one-time purchase per license? One of my favourite apps in the past few years is antinote and that is a one time fee of $5.

by hecifato

4/13/2026 at 3:39:02 AM

I appreciate a good UX improvement, and I respectfully appreciate you building this for your own use case.

But Dawg? Really!

by websap

4/12/2026 at 7:27:48 PM

I’m totally a target audience here. I’ve been trying so many different app switcher applications. My latest favorite one is “flashspace”. I would love that kind of functionality be part of this too if possible. Regardless I’ll give it a shot for a few weeks and see if it works for me. Thanks for sharing!

by heyitsaamir

4/12/2026 at 6:26:18 PM

Remember when we bought software, and owned the right to use it in perpetuity? Good times those were. Now fucking taskbars are SaaS. There is no end to rent-seeking behaviour. In a decade or two, I suppose we will not only be renting the right to use our computers, but also the mouse and keyboard will be time-gated rentals as well. Mousewheel and numpad only available on the Pro subscription, of course.

by applfanboysbgon

4/12/2026 at 6:57:08 PM

They're milking the final drops, before LLMs become so good that they'll write something like this in an hour

by thehamkercat

4/12/2026 at 7:06:47 PM

I'll be trying this! I used uBar for a long time, and more recently taskbar as uBar was too buggy to ignore. My main issue with Taskbar currently is that it sits over non windowed fullscreen apps (eg Steam games). Other than that I prefer the design on yours based on a quick look through the page.

by interstice

4/12/2026 at 6:55:33 PM

I‘d be happy to pay for an upgrade if future macOS changes break the functionality of this - cool - app, which would require the creator to update it. More work, which I would pay for. But not a subscription, sorry!

Plus, I‘d prefer to (but that’s impossible?) install via the App Store, to avoid a black box.

by vivid242

4/12/2026 at 7:32:34 PM

I'm not the target audience for this, but THANK YOU for putting a description in the title, instead of letting me eagerly click it thinking it might be a speeds/feeds/stickout calculator for a lathe boring bar or something.

by myself248

4/12/2026 at 9:50:51 PM

Anyone who has watched Ubar constantly break across macOS updates will understand the point of a subscription fee. It’s non trivial to maintain and I doubt vibe coding is gonna help.

by rhubarbtree

4/13/2026 at 6:40:55 AM

Nice attempt, but too slow for me

by jbverschoor

4/13/2026 at 6:48:37 AM

Hey. OP here - which part of boringBar did you find slow? Is it the time it takes to hover on a window to show its thumbnail? Or is it something else you think needs improvement?

by a-ve

4/13/2026 at 12:19:17 AM

Why is the personal licence $20/yr and the business licence $3.49/yr? Unless I'm misreading the pricing here.

by danpalmer

4/13/2026 at 12:32:44 AM

This would be perfect for me if it docked to the side in a vertical orientation, like Firefox tabs, or Windows XP.

by TehCorwiz

4/13/2026 at 12:22:16 AM

This looks really nice!

I really like this panel, do you have a linux version config or dot files that is similar looking?

by matthewhartmans

4/12/2026 at 6:41:35 PM

Take a look to Jotego's (mister FPGA) business model. I was the main maintainer of a distro so I can say that That's not going to work. Also I'm in love with your style.

by ike____________

4/13/2026 at 2:56:25 AM

Amazing! I've been testing for the last hours

by ofabioroma

4/13/2026 at 3:05:08 AM

Hey - thanks for testing it out. Have you found any issues as of yet that I need to look into?

by a-ve

4/12/2026 at 8:47:06 PM

I can’t find it now, but there was a Start Menu/Taskbar for Mac OS 9 era Mac’s as well. It was bizarre.

by jonhohle

4/12/2026 at 8:57:30 PM

Why does it need to talk to facebook.com, ntp.org, aws.com, cloudflare.com, google.com, and windows.com?

by fleeno

4/13/2026 at 1:23:47 AM

These are NTP servers for checking time via the app. I'll fix this in an update today - it shouldn't be required in the trial version.

by a-ve

4/12/2026 at 6:21:47 PM

it looks great, looks clean, seems like people want it.

nobody's paying a subscription for a taskbar. The business model here is a one time sale.

by ssenssei

4/12/2026 at 7:54:04 PM

Forced subscription = immediate uninstall; would have gladly paid a decent one-time fee for the app.

by naze

4/13/2026 at 6:31:03 AM

You want me to pay for your UI coding subscription?

by webprofusion

4/12/2026 at 7:44:32 PM

Fantastic work, but ubar is going to eat your lunch with that subscription

by bloqs

4/12/2026 at 7:15:27 PM

Just adding to the pile to say that the subscription kills it for me.

by superjared

4/12/2026 at 8:56:28 PM

It looks really good, what makes this different from uBar?

by SpyCoder77

4/12/2026 at 8:28:48 PM

having to click somewhere is not a shortcut, seriosly who the hell switches the desktops with mouse scrolling or clicking? there is a real shortcut for that

by gloosx

4/12/2026 at 7:04:44 PM

Subscription ? Big No

by vswaroop04

4/13/2026 at 4:00:12 AM

Would have loved it if this was free!

by saurabh-194

4/13/2026 at 4:22:40 AM

Love it!

by Barbing

4/13/2026 at 5:40:15 AM

subscription. bye.

by sbkg0002

4/12/2026 at 6:14:29 PM

Is there some more expensive tiers to change the color or do I need to pay a premium?

by blueaquilae

4/12/2026 at 6:05:41 PM

Wow, this looks very clean. I'm not the target audience, but if I was looking for a tool in this category, this would be highly attractive to me. Very subtle design that isn't distracting or busy. Well done!

Edit: Ok, feedback. Please know that I'm a junky for independent Mac apps that I find interesting. This is interesting to me.

This feedback is entirely meant to be constructive. I like the app so far and I want it to succeed. Also, as someone who is deeply familiar with the platform and the third-party software ecosystem, my hope is that I can help communicate the things that would make if feel intuitively correct to a majority of Mac users. What I mean is that I'm a nerd who thinks a lot about the platform and the choices devs make that are nuanced and subtle. I hope you find it useful.

1. Practically invisible on a background that's dark / black. The photo on my desktop background is black at the bottom and this thing is therefore invisible. I don't know the best way to address that. Maybe it should sample the colors behind it and default to a light mode at first launch?

2. Frosted glass only changed one tab / chip (the active focus one) and the rest remained black and invisible. Not sure if that's deliberate or not. I expected the whole thing to change. I do see that window thumbnails are now frosted (didn't try thumbnails before toggling).

3. Needs kbd nav. I hovered to get thumbnails and tried arrow keys. No effect.

4. Thumbnail selections would benefit from a border or other visual indicator. Having only traffic light window controls to show which is active isn't sufficient.

5. As I continue to poke around, disabling frosted glass to view thumbnails in dark mode didn't change the glass background for thumbnails. Again, I didn't check thumbnails before switching frosted glass on. I don't know if that's supposed to work that way or not. Seems wrong to me, but I don't know the intent.

6. Delay for hover to invoke tooltips or thumbnails is too long. It feels sluggish. However, the snappy responsive drawing of new content when sliding from one app's thumbnails to another is very nice and impressive. It'd be easy for that to suck, so well done.

7. Time opening / drawing the app menu after first click is too long. I have a bajillion (394) apps installed, might be why. Should be as fast as clicking the Apple Menu regardless of how many apps need to be listed. Wait, now I just clicked it again to check if it is faster after the first time. Looks like the app cached whatever info it had to pull the first time cause it's properly snappy. Maybe pre-fetch that info on first launch so it isn't slow on the first click.

8. The thumbnails for minimized browser windows are awesome! Much nicer than using the thumbnails from Dock windows / tiles. I like that so much that I would consider working this into my workflow despite not needing it otherwise. I probably wouldn't do so, but I like it a lot.

9. The desktop / spaces switcher should probably also have thumbnails showing the content of each space.

10. There should be a toggle that closes a window from the thumbnails. I see that right-click has an option to do so, but there should be a left-clickable toggle in one of the corners. I'm gonna go against typical MacOS idioms and recommend experimenting with putting that toggle at the bottom of the thumbnail because they're so tall relative to the taskbar height. It might be wrong when you test it out. It's one of those things that I think either it feels right or it doesn't. My first instinct, however, is that it ought to be in the upper-left corner.

At the end of the day, I like it. I'm not the target audience, as mentioned above. But I know there are a lots of people who are the intended audience and I want them to have nice tools. I hope this makes some people happy. I'd be happy to provide additional feedback on a future build if the above is considered useful. Email in profile. Fingers crossed this doesn't come off as critical of the app. I like honest and direct feedback and I hope I haven't bummed you out cause that's not at all the intent.

by alsetmusic

4/12/2026 at 7:12:40 PM

Wow - thank you so much for the feedback. Let me go through this.

1. That might be a good idea. Do you think adjusting the size of the bar from the settings makes it any better?

2. That seems like a bug. There's glass theme for Tahoe - but I think restarting boringBar might help here. I'll check it out.

3. Fair. I did not think of this use case.

4. Thumbnails have a blue hue for active windows as of now. Could you please let me know how this could work better?

5. Right now the Tahoe glass/frosted switch only works on the bar. A glass revamp is in the works for people who like the Liquid Glass design language.

6. I faced the opposite issue to this during my testing - the thumbnails opened up fairly quickly in my case. I'll take note of it and will fix it in later versions.

7. Correct - first time is slower because of the excessively large number of apps. I'll try to reproduce this.

9. Good idea. Will implement this as well.

10. If you hover on the thumbnail window the close and minimize buttons will show up. Are you talking about the ability to quit the app and all of its windows entirely?

by a-ve

4/12/2026 at 7:37:06 PM

1. It wouldn't in this specific case. The photo is of a sunset and the ground in the foreground is completely black for about 20% of the bottom due to contrast with the sun.

2. Still holds after multiple relaunches. Strange.

3. Cool. Looking forward to it!

4. I guess my system is causing multiple GUI bugs to present. I don't see a blue highlight when I mouse-over thumbnails.

10. Oh, I'm a dope. I even referenced the traffic light controls earlier in the comment. It somehow sailed over my head that the thing I was asking for was right there. Just tried it and it worked. However, I closed the only open window for an app and that thumbnail remained after the window was gone and the app had exited. That doesn't seem correct to me. But yes it's implemented and I got stupid for a moment while poking around.

One other thing that I noticed after exiting the app was that all the windows that had been minimized to the Dock were no longer minimized. That's a tiny papercut. Minimizing windows is a form of window management and everything got reset. Not the end of the world, but unexpected and mildly disrupting.

by alsetmusic

4/12/2026 at 10:16:15 PM

I can second the issue with the automatic color selection; with my background photo it cashes out to an illegible black on black, and there's no (obvious) option to change the theme or override the computed colors.

It seems like it would be relatively straightforward to honor the user's light mode/dark mode setting, and the WCAG accessibility guidelines [1] do a good job of both discussing the importance of luminance contrast to legibility, and providing resources and advice toward programmatically selecting text vs. background colors to ensure everything stays readable.

(I did go ahead and purchase a subscription, since I was one of the people who asked for the option. I'll keep an eye out over the coming weeks for updates! Considering the immediate and extensive interest in boringBar that's been very much evident today, I'm really looking forward to seeing where development goes on this. Congratulations on your successful Show HN!)

[1] https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/Understanding/contrast-minimum...

by throwanem

4/13/2026 at 1:35:16 AM

Hey. I'm seeing this issue with some other users as well and I'm trying to reproduce this - do you have the reduce transparency accessibility option enabled by any chance?

by a-ve

4/13/2026 at 1:49:33 AM

I do!

edit: Checking now I'm back in arm's reach of my laptop, I can further confirm disabling the option does resolve the issue on Sonoma. Nice catch!

by throwanem

4/12/2026 at 7:15:37 PM

Gnome 2 anyone?

by neuropacabra

4/12/2026 at 6:22:10 PM

Looks nice, I'm forced to use OSX at work, but it's a hard no for another subscription.

by aftergibson

4/12/2026 at 5:59:42 PM

Was looking for this exact solution.

by Contexting

4/12/2026 at 6:58:55 PM

Show me a side-dockable vertical taskbar, circa Win XP thru 7 style - and a lifetime license for 10 years' worth of the subscription, which you may no longer even support by then - and you will have closed a sale.

by throwanem

4/12/2026 at 5:50:05 PM

Wow this looks really neat. I am going to have to give it a try.

by johng

4/12/2026 at 6:30:26 PM

“$9.99/year”. <closes tab>

C’mon, man, there’s not even a backend to support. Want more revenue next year? Release a new version that’s a compelling upgrade.

by mikestew

4/12/2026 at 7:44:20 PM

Subscriptions for apps that require absolutely no infrastructure to run make absolutely no sense to me. Hard pass.

by overflowy

4/12/2026 at 10:04:26 PM

Amazing what a bunch of swine the commenters are towards OP here. Always complaining, never creating anything of value themselves.

OP: Congratulations on what seems to be a very nice taskbar!

I have two suggestions:

- I miss the ability to pin folders like on the MacOS Dock. For example for your Downloads folder.

- The applications menu should open when the cursor clicks in the corner, not only over the icon. Fitts's law.

- The active window background color is too bright in dark mode. It draws too much attention on the screen.

by carlosjobim

4/13/2026 at 1:27:25 AM

Thanks. Regarding your suggestions:

- I see, I can work on adding folders to the dock, sure.

- Fair. I think the clickable area is too small, right? I think I had the same issue as well but I got used to it. Nevertheless I'll push an update to fix this in some time.

- I'll experiment with a few toned down versions of the active window chip.

Thanks for your feedback!

by a-ve

4/12/2026 at 5:58:58 PM

Looks great. Subscription? Big ol nope.

by temp0826

4/12/2026 at 6:05:05 PM

Imagine paying a subscription for your task bar.

by eric-p7

4/12/2026 at 8:23:30 PM

"Exclusive access to the reset button of you computer, $0.99/month only!"

by garganzol

4/13/2026 at 4:56:15 AM

[flagged]

by xkbear89

4/13/2026 at 6:34:36 AM

[dead]

by gilhyun

4/13/2026 at 2:40:24 AM

[dead]

by eddie-wang

4/13/2026 at 4:34:54 AM

[flagged]

by joongix

4/13/2026 at 5:26:07 AM

It does! That's the USP here - it's present on all spaces and it only shows windows on that space.

If you have multiple displays and have the "Displays have separate spaces" option disabled in macOS settings even then you can have the bar displayed on all displays from the boringBar settings.

by a-ve

4/12/2026 at 7:10:43 PM

[dead]

by j0r0b0

4/13/2026 at 3:17:48 AM

[flagged]

by Rekindle8090

4/12/2026 at 7:56:14 PM

Not a mac user, looks cool... but a subscription for a simple boring and static task bar?

Fucking omega lol. April fools was 11 days ago my man. Charge me $50 if you want but absolutely fuck subscriptions.

by AbraKdabra