Alternatives
Nano vs Boring Notch
Updated October 23, 2026 ยท By valenxi, who makes Nano
Boring Notch and Nano are both free, open source notch apps for Mac. Boring Notch has been around longer and has a big community. Nano adds coding agent tools and a few add-ons, and it's signed and notarized by Apple.
Side by side
| Nano | Boring Notch | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| macOS | 14.6+ | 14+ |
| Signed and notarized by Apple | Yes | No, macOS warns on first launch |
| Music controls | Yes | Yes, with a visualizer |
| Calendar | Yes | Yes |
| File shelf with AirDrop | Yes | Yes |
| Volume and brightness popups | Yes | Yes |
| Weather and focus timer | Yes | |
| Coding agent approvals and usage limits | Yes, 13 agents | No |
| Voice dictation | Yes, runs on your Mac | No |
| Per-app volume | Yes, up to 200% | No |
| Homebrew | valenxi0/tap/nano | TheBoredTeam/boring-notch/boring-notch |
Blank cells are things we couldn't confirm.
Pick Boring Notch if
- You want the app with the longest track record and about 11,000 GitHub stars
- You like its music visualizer
- You don't use coding agents
Pick Nano if
- You run Claude Code, Codex, Cursor or other agents and want to approve them from the notch
- You want an app that opens without a security warning
- You'd use local dictation, per-app volume or a per-project to-do list
Nano is free and open source under the MIT license. It needs macOS 14.6 or later on an Apple silicon Mac, works around the notch or floating below the menu bar on Macs without one, and is signed with a Developer ID and notarized by Apple.
Try Nano
- Download the latest .dmg from GitHub Releases, or run
brew install --cask valenxi0/tap/nanowith Homebrew. - Open it and drag Nano to Applications.
- Open Nano. Setup asks only for the permissions the features you pick need.
The source is on GitHub.