Magnet owners look elsewhere when they want custom snap areas, saved layouts, gestures or automatic tiling, or when they would like to know who sells the app and what it costs. The alternatives range from free open source snappers to scripting tools and tiling managers.
Short answer: Looking for a replacement for Magnet? Rectangle, BetterSnapTool and Moom come first in our window manager apps ranking. Our rule for order: vendors outside the big brands go first, and the largest names are not placed in the top three. Start with Rectangle if you want the same snapping for nothing and an open source codebase. Each of the 10 alternatives sits in Best Window Manager Apps in 2026 and is described against Magnet.
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Pricing: Mac App Store purchase; page lists neither price nor trial
Established in: Not stated by the vendor
Built for: Mac users with several or vertical monitors who want preset layouts
Not for: Buyers who need a named vendor or an upfront price
01
Why buyers look past Magnet
01
The product page leaves the price to the store
Magnet's site sends buyers to the Mac App Store and says the download includes free updates. It shows no price and describes no free plan or trial, so a team that budgets per seat has to open the store listing to learn what it pays.
02
The publisher is not named
The page names no company and states no country, and the /faq and /contact addresses we tried returned HTTP 404. Organisations that need a legal entity for procurement or support cannot take it from the pages we read.
03
Presets, not scripts or saved layouts
The page describes snapping into fullscreen, halves, quarters and thirds by drag, shortcut or menu bar. People who want custom areas, remembered arrangements, gesture control or windows that tile themselves find those features in the tools below.
you want to script layouts alongside other desktop automation
#11
03
What each one does differently
1
Rectangle
Not stated by the vendor · Published
Rectangle is written by Ryan Hanson, a named developer, and the base app is open source under the MIT licence. Dragging to edges and repeating a shortcut to cycle sizes cover the Magnet basics, and it can adopt Spectacle's shortcuts. Rectangle Pro has a 10-day trial and runs on three devices per licence, but its price was cut off in the page we read. It needs macOS 14 or later.
Switch from Magnet if you want the same snapping for nothing and an open source codebase.
BetterSnapTool comes from folivora.AI GmbH, whose imprint in Unterhaching, Germany, names a managing director. Dragging to corners or edges snaps a window, and you can draw custom areas anywhere on the display. The product page shows no price, trial or licence tiers, so the Buy page has to be opened to see the cost.
Switch from Magnet if you want a snapper from a company with a German imprint.
Moom, from Many Tricks, is bought once and its page says the licence is valid forever, with cheaper upgrades for owners of earlier versions. A pop-up palette, chained custom actions and saved layouts serve people who rebuild the same desktop every morning. Updates are promised for at least a year; the page gives no trial length.
Switch from Magnet if you rearrange the same set of windows daily and want to save the result.
Swish drops the drag-and-shortcut routine for 30 gestures across trackpad, mouse and menu bar, and snaps onto 2x2, 3x2 and 3x3 grids. A one-time licence covers two machines, comes with a 14-day trial and a student discount, and is also included in Setapp. One named developer stands behind it, with no country stated, and macOS 12 is required.
Switch from Magnet if you work on a trackpad and prefer gestures to shortcuts.
Divvy lets you carve the screen into exact portions and attach as many custom shortcuts as you like to window sizes. A separate Windows version is linked from the site, which helps an office that mixes platforms. The billing model is unclear on the page, checkout is through a storefront, and the publisher appears only as Mizage, LLC.
Switch from Magnet if you need precise grid portions and a counterpart on Windows.
Loop calls itself window management made elegant and lists a price of nothing in its comparison table. It is GPL-3.0 software installed with Homebrew or a zip from GitHub releases, needs macOS 13 or later, and lives under one personal GitHub account. The page does not mention the Mac App Store or any company.
Switch from Magnet if you want a free snapper whose code you can read.
Amethyst arranges windows by itself in the manner of xmonad, offering Tall, Wide, Two Pane, column, row, floating, fullscreen and BSP layouts. The page says it is free and always will be, and asks for charity donations. It needs Accessibility permission and macOS 10.15; no licence, company or country is named, only the author as ianyh.
Switch from Magnet if you want windows to tile on their own without writing a script.
AeroSpace brings i3-style tree tiling to macOS using its own emulated workspaces, so System Integrity Protection stays untouched. Setup is a plain text file plus a command line, and the project says it will never offer a GUI. It carries a beta label, expects breaking changes until 1.0, and rests on one maintainer in his free time.
Switch from Magnet if you want keyboard-driven tiling without weakening macOS protections.
yabai is a binary-space-partitioning tiler driven only from a command line, under the MIT licence, with 29.8k GitHub stars. Full control needs System Integrity Protection partly disabled, which the author calls optional without recommending it. The page lists limits around tabs and empty spaces, so plan on scripting before it feels settled.
Switch from Magnet if you are at ease in a terminal and want the deepest tiling control.
Hammerspoon exposes macOS to Lua and does nothing until you write an init.lua. Windows are one job among many, next to audio, Wi-Fi and the clipboard, and ready-made Spoons shorten the work. It is a toolkit for building your own layout rules, not a window manager that works on first launch.
Switch from Magnet if you want to script layouts alongside other desktop automation.
Rectangle: The base app is open source under MIT, with a Pro add-on on a 10-day trial; its price was not visible to us.
02
You want a vendor with a German imprint
BetterSnapTool: folivora.AI GmbH names a managing director in Unterhaching, though the product page shows no price.
03
You want to save and restore arrangements
Moom: It offers a pop-up palette, chained actions and saved layouts, sold as a one-time purchase.
04
You prefer gestures to shortcuts
Swish: It offers 30 trackpad, mouse and menu bar gestures, a 14-day trial and a one-time licence for two machines.
05
You want automatic tiling without touching System Integrity Protection
AeroSpace: It emulates its own workspaces, is configured by text file and carries a beta label.
04
When Magnet is still the right choice
Magnet stays a good fit for a desk with several screens. The page says it handles up to six external displays and vertical monitors, with corners making quarters, side edges halves, the top edge maximising and the bottom edge making thirds. Dragging, custom shortcuts and the menu bar all work, and updates arrive through the App Store at no extra charge. If snapping is all you need, there is little reason to switch.
05
What moving off Magnet involves
01
Your shortcuts will not carry over
Magnet's custom keyboard shortcuts live inside the app. Write down the ones you rely on, then compare them with the defaults of the new tool. Rectangle can adopt Spectacle's defaults on first run, and repeating a shortcut there cycles sizes, which differs from fixed snap positions.
02
Run the old and new app apart
Two snappers listening for the same drag or key combination will fight over a window. Quit Magnet and remove it from login items before testing a replacement. Tiling tools such as AeroSpace, Amethyst and yabai need Accessibility permission, and yabai may ask for System Integrity Protection changes for full control.
06
Questions about replacing Magnet
6 answers
How much does Magnet cost?
The Magnet page we read shows no price and says the download goes through the Mac App Store, with free updates included. It describes no free plan or trial, so the store listing is the place to see the amount.
Who makes Magnet?
The page does not name a company or country, and its /faq and /contact addresses returned HTTP 404 when we tried them. If you need a legal entity, ask through the App Store listing.
How many monitors does Magnet support?
The page states support for up to six external displays and for vertical screens, where thirds run along the sides.
Is there a free replacement for Magnet?
Rectangle's base app is free and open source under MIT, Loop is free under GPL-3.0, and Amethyst says it is free and always will be. AeroSpace and yabai are MIT-licensed tiling tools.
Which options tile windows automatically?
Amethyst, AeroSpace and yabai tile on their own with layouts or trees. Hammerspoon can do it only after you write the Lua code.
Can I use the same tool on Windows?
Divvy links a separate Windows version. The other Mac apps listed here are macOS-only as far as the pages we read say, so mixed offices should check each page.
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Sources
Checked 7 November 2026
Magnet home page: snapping by drag, shortcut and menu bar, six external displays, Mac App Store, free updates, no price shown.
Founder of The Knowledge Engineers and of 2 Steps Ahead, an AI search visibility agency. Editorially responsible for every page on this site; research and drafting are AI-assisted.
Written, edited and fact-checked by Sebastiaan Smits. Last reviewed 7 November 2026. How we review.
