Alternatives to PureMac
Other tools in this directory that do similar work, with a verified install command for each. PureMac itself: install PureMac.
Retroactive
Run Aperture, iPhoto, and iTunes on macOS Golden Gate, macOS Tahoe, macOS Sequoia, macOS Sonoma, macOS Ventura, macOS Monterey, macOS Big Sur, and mac
Mac Sai
Mac Sai: the open-source Mac cleaner, optimizer, and malware scanner. A free, Apple-notarized alternative to CleanMyMac, built with Swift 6 and SwiftU
macshot Offline
Feature-packed native macOS screenshot & recording tool: annotate, auto-redact PII, record GIFs, OCR + translate, scroll capture, beautify, and more.
folderify
:file_folder: Generate pixel-perfect macOS folder icons in the native style. (Now with support for macOS 26 Tahoe!)
Reactotron
A desktop app for inspecting your React JS and React Native projects. macOS, Linux, and Windows
React Native Debugger
The standalone app based on official debugger of React Native, and includes React Inspector / Redux DevTools
FineTune
FineTune, a macOS menu bar app for per-app volume control, multi-device output, audio routing, and 10-band EQ. Free and open-source alternative to Sou
arxiv_latex_cleaner
arXiv LaTeX Cleaner: Easily clean the LaTeX code of your paper to submit to arXiv
Reminders MenuBar
Simple macOS menu bar application to view and interact with reminders. Developed with SwiftUI and using Apple Reminders as a source
dwarfs
A fast high-compression read-only file system for Linux, FreeBSD, macOS and Windows
Razer macOS
Color effects manager for Razer devices for macOS. Supports High Sierra (10.13) to Monterey (12.0). Made by the community, based on openrazer
Swimat
[ARCHIVED] An Xcode formatter plug-in for Swift. Superseded by swift-format, now built into Xcode
LocalizationEditor
Simple macOS editor app to help you manage iOS and macOS app localizations by allowing you to edit all the translations side by side
nelm
Nelm is a Helm 4 alternative. It is a Kubernetes deployment tool that manages Helm Charts and deploys them to Kubernetes. The Nelm goal is to provide
licensed
A Ruby gem to cache and verify the licenses of dependencies
MarkText
📝A simple and elegant markdown editor, available for Linux, macOS and Windows
mkcert
A simple zero-config tool to make locally trusted development certificates with any names you'd like
fd
A simple, fast and user-friendly alternative to 'find'
VSCodium
binary releases of VS Code without MS branding/telemetry/licensing
fastfetch
A maintained, feature-rich and performance oriented, neofetch like system information tool
eza
A modern alternative to ls
Vorssaint
Free and open-source macOS menu bar toolkit
sonic
🦔 Fast, lightweight & schema-less search backend. An alternative to Elasticsearch that runs on a few MBs of RAM
BitBar
Put the output from any script or program into your macOS Menu Bar (the BitBar reboot)
How we picked these
We match on what the tool does and how it installs, then order by how widely each project is used. We're not saying these are better or worse than PureMac — that depends on what you're building. We're saying they're the projects people reach for in the same situations, and each one has an install command we checked against its documentation.
PureMac is developed by its own authors and this page is an independent reference; we are not affiliated with or sponsored by any project listed, and nothing here is a paid placement.