DEV Community: Mohsen Karimi

Where to Promote Your Mac App for Free: 5 Places Worth Considering

Mohsen Karimi — Sat, 03 Oct 2026 21:53:44 +0000

Your Mac app is ready. The download works, the screenshots look decent, and someone other than you has tested it.

Now you need people to find it.

If you’re wondering where to submit a Mac app, I’d start with a small mix: a Mac app directory, a relevant community, and a platform where people already look for software like yours.

Each needs a slightly different pitch. Someone browsing for a clipboard manager has different questions from a developer reading about how you built one.

Disclosure: I run MacNative, one of the directories below. Its standard listing is free, and I’ve included other options because the right choice depends on your app.

Here’s how I’d choose.

Platform	When I’d consider it	What to prepare	Main limitation
MacNative	You want a listing in a Mac-focused directory	Screenshots, a clear description, pricing	Submissions go through review
r/macapps	You want feedback from Mac users	A demo, pricing, a useful comparison	Strict promotion rules
AlternativeTo	Your app replaces an existing tool	Accurate features and relevant alternatives	Free review can take months
Product Hunt	You can explain the app through a short demo	A focused launch page and time for questions	A launch needs preparation
Show HN	You built something a technical audience would want to try	A working app and an explanation of your decisions	A signup page alone doesn’t qualify

1. MacNative: give your Mac app a discovery page

MacNative is a curated macOS app directory covering categories such as developer tools, productivity apps, and utilities.

You can submit your Mac app for a free listing. The standard plan includes a listing page with screenshots and basic analytics, subject to review. Optional paid promotion is separate; you don’t need it to submit. You can check the details on the pricing page.

Spend a little time on the description before submitting.

For example, a hypothetical window manager could introduce itself like this:

Save a window layout for each project and restore it when you reconnect your monitor.

That gives someone a task they can recognise. “A powerful productivity app for modern professionals” leaves them guessing.

Use screenshots that show that task, and make the price and system requirements easy to find. A directory listing should help someone decide whether to try your app.

2. r/macapps: prepare for questions, comparisons, and criticism

r/macapps is worth considering when you want to discuss your app with people who care about Mac software.

Read the current rules before writing a post. Some promotions belong in a megathread, and eligibility, format, and frequency restrictions matter. The October 2026 promotion thread asks developers to explain the problem, name comparable apps, and state pricing.

That’s a useful structure even outside Reddit:

What does the app help someone do?
What would they otherwise use?
Why might they choose yours?
What does it cost?

Be open about being the developer. Include limitations people will discover anyway, such as needing a recent macOS version or lacking a feature competitors offer.

Then stay around to answer questions. Budget time for the conversation after posting.

3. AlternativeTo: help people understand what they could switch from

AlternativeTo lets you submit software and suggest it as an alternative to existing products.

I’d consider it when your app has a clear comparison. Maybe it handles the same core task with a different pricing model, works offline, or suits a particular workflow better.

Choose those comparisons carefully. A lightweight notes app and a collaborative knowledge base might both store text, but someone switching between them could have very different needs.

There’s also a timing issue: AlternativeTo currently says free submissions can wait months for review. It offers optional paid priority review, which doesn’t guarantee approval.

Submit early if the fit is good. Don’t make approval part of your launch-day plan.

4. Product Hunt: useful when the benefit is easy to demonstrate

Product Hunt allows makers to submit their own products.

I’d consider it for an app whose value is visible quickly: a screen recorder, a design utility, or a tool that removes a repetitive step.

Build the demo around one complete task. Show the starting problem, the action, and the result. You can explain secondary features further down the page.

Product Hunt’s launch guidance also emphasises preparation and responding to the community. Set aside time to answer questions on launch day.

Decide beforehand what you want from the launch: trial downloads, useful feedback, or purchases. An upvote count alone won’t tell you whether people found the app useful.

5. Show HN: explain what you built and let people try it

Show HN is a possible fit for developer tools and Mac apps with an interesting technical approach.

Its guidelines require something people can try. A landing page collecting email addresses isn’t enough. They also encourage making the project easy to access, ideally without signup barriers.

Give readers something concrete to discuss:

Why did you build it?
What was difficult?
What tradeoff did you make?
What can someone test right now?

If your app processes files locally, explain what stays on the device. If you built a fast search tool, explain how you measured it.

Post when you’re available for the discussion, and don’t ask friends to upvote. The guidelines explicitly prohibit that.

Prepare one small submission kit

Before opening five submission forms, collect:

A one-sentence description of the problem your app solves.
Two or three screenshots showing actual use.
A short demonstration.
Pricing and trial details.
Supported macOS versions and hardware.
A working website and support contact.

Reuse the facts, then adapt the introduction to each audience.

For a directory, help someone compare options. For Reddit, give people enough context to respond. For Show HN, explain the implementation choices worth discussing.

How I’d start with limited time

Choose one directory and one community where your app fits.

Submit the directory listing first. Then prepare a useful community post and leave time to answer questions. Add a broader launch when your explanation and demo feel ready.

Track what happens after each submission: website visits, downloads, purchases, and the questions people ask. Use campaign links where permitted; some platforms require a clean website URL.

If visitors repeatedly ask whether your app works offline or supports Intel Macs, add that answer to the page. Promotion can reveal missing information as well as bring attention.

Which platform brought your Mac app its first users? I’d be interested in the type of app, where you shared it, and what happened after people clicked.

20 Native macOS Apps That Replaced My Electron Bloat for Good

Mohsen Karimi — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 17:10:52 +0000

I opened Activity Monitor last year on a Thursday afternoon, just to check something quick. Slack was sitting at 780MB. Discord was at 410MB. Notion was at 490MB. Spotify was lurking at 280MB. I had four apps open — and they'd already consumed nearly 2GB of RAM before I'd written a single line of code.

My MacBook Pro fan was humming like it was rendering a film. The battery had dropped 18% in under an hour of light use. I hadn't even opened Xcode yet.

That was the moment I started paying attention to what these apps were actually built with — and more importantly, what I could replace them with.

What's Electron, and Why Should You Care?

Electron is a framework that lets developers build desktop apps using web technologies — HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. It bundles a full copy of Chromium and Node.js inside every app. That's the same engine powering Google Chrome, packaged and shipped as part of your "desktop" app.

The appeal is obvious: write once, ship everywhere. One codebase for macOS, Windows, and Linux. Faster time to market. Larger hiring pool. No need to learn Swift or AppKit.

But the user pays for that convenience every single day.

When you open Slack, you're not launching a Mac app. You're launching a browser. When you open Discord, you're launching another browser. Notion? Another browser. Each one is a separate Chromium instance, each one managing its own memory heap, its own JavaScript runtime, its own rendering pipeline.

Open five of these and you've got five browsers running simultaneously — whether you're using them or not.

The 1Password Moment

If you want a single story that captures how Mac users feel about Electron, look no further than 1Password 8.

1Password 7 was native macOS. It was fast, lightweight, integrated beautifully with the system. It respected your Mac. When version 8 launched in 2021, the team had rewritten it in Rust for the backend — which sounds good — but the UI was now built with Electron.

The response was volcanic.

The App Store reviews tanked. Reddit threads ran for hundreds of comments. Long-time users who'd paid for the app for years called it a betrayal. "It feels like a web app," was the most common complaint. "It's slow to open. It's slow to fill passwords. It doesn't feel like my Mac anymore."

Some users refused to upgrade and stayed on version 7 indefinitely. Others switched to Strongbox or migrated to Bitwarden entirely.

1Password didn't do anything malicious. Their engineering reasons were sound. But the community reaction revealed something important: Mac users notice. They feel the difference between something built for their platform and something that merely runs on it.

The Real Cost — By the Numbers

Let me be concrete about what Electron costs you.

Memory

A typical Electron app carries at minimum ~100MB of overhead just for Chromium, before your app does anything. In practice:

Slack routinely sits between 400–800MB, depending on how many workspaces you have open
Discord runs 300–500MB with GPU processes that stay active even when the window is hidden
Notion starts around 250MB and climbs as you open more pages
VS Code runs 200–400MB — better than most, but still heavy for a text editor
Spotify uses CEF (Chromium Embedded Framework — Electron's cousin) and hovers around 200–350MB

Compare that to native apps. Reeder — a full-featured RSS reader — uses around 40MB. Tot — a scratchpad utility — runs at under 20MB. Mimestream — a Gmail client rebuilt natively for Mac — sits around 80MB.

Battery

This is the one people feel most viscerally but track least often. Electron apps use more CPU because JavaScript is constantly being executed — event loops, garbage collection, re-renders. Native apps written in Swift compile down to machine code and can use Apple's energy-efficient frameworks properly.

On Apple Silicon Macs, the gap is even more visible. Apps that are properly optimized for M-series chips via native frameworks can use the efficiency cores intelligently. Electron can't do that. It runs on Chrome's rendering engine, which wasn't designed with Apple's power management in mind.

Disk Space

Every Electron app ships with its own copy of Chromium. That's roughly 100–200MB of duplicated engine, per app. If you have Slack, Discord, Notion, VS Code, and Figma installed, you have five copies of essentially the same browser sitting on your drive.

Slack's installer is over 200MB. Discord is around 100MB. Meanwhile, IINA — a full-featured video player that handles every format — is under 50MB.

App by App: What I Replaced and What I Used Instead

Here's where I'll stop being theoretical and get practical.

Slack → Mimestream (for email) + the actual Slack app, used ruthlessly

There's no great native Slack client. That's the honest answer. The best thing you can do is limit Slack to one workspace, disable it from auto-launching at startup, and quit it when you're in focus mode. But if your team uses email heavily, Mimestream is what a native Gmail client looks like when it's done right — built in Swift, fast, integrates with macOS like it belongs there.

VS Code → Zed

This one is the most impactful switch I've made.

Zed is a code editor built from scratch in Rust, with a GPU-rendered UI. It opens instantly. It handles large files without choking. It feels like what VS Code would be if it had been built natively for modern hardware. The extensions ecosystem is still catching up, but for most day-to-day work, Zed is faster in every measurable way.

Startup time: VS Code takes 3–6 seconds cold. Zed opens in under a second. That gap is entirely the cost of loading Electron and the Node.js runtime before your editor even starts.

If you're on a project that truly requires a specific VS Code extension that doesn't exist in Zed, keep VS Code for that context. But try Zed for a week and you'll notice the difference in your wrists and your attention span.

Notion → Craft

Craft is the native Notion. Built in Swift, it loads in a blink, supports offline mode properly, integrates with Spotlight, Quick Look, and the Share Sheet. It feels like a macOS app instead of a web app that forgot to remove the browser chrome.

If you're a heavy Notion user with complex databases and integrations, switching fully isn't realistic. But for personal notes, documents, and writing — Craft is in a different class.

Spotify → it's complicated

There's no perfect native Spotify client for Mac. Vinyls is a menu bar app that controls Spotify playback natively and stays out of your way. It's not a full replacement, but it means you don't need Spotify's Electron app open and visible — just Vinyls sitting in your menu bar.

If you're willing to step off Spotify entirely, the Music app on macOS is genuinely good for local libraries, and Apple Music's native client is... well, native.

Discord → Native clients exist, with caveats

Discordo is a terminal-based Discord client. Ripcord was a promising native client but has been in slow development. The honest reality here is that Discord's API is locked down enough that third-party clients are difficult to build and maintain.

The pragmatic fix: keep Discord but configure it to quit completely when closed (not just minimize to the menu bar), and only open it when you actually need it. The damage Discord does is mostly from running continuously in the background.

1Password 8 → Strongbox or stay on 1Password 7

If you're still on 1Password 7 and it's working, stay there. The app is still functional and perfectly secure.

If you need to move, Strongbox is a native password manager that uses the KeePass format, supports Face ID/Touch ID, and is genuinely pleasant to use. It feels like it was made for your Mac — because it was.

Apps That Prove Native Still Wins

Beyond replacements for Electron apps, there are apps that never touched Electron in the first place and are better for it. These are the apps I point people to when they ask what good Mac software looks like.

Rectangle — Window management via keyboard shortcuts. Free, open source, 40MB, works every time.

IINA — Video player. Handles MKV, AVI, HEVC, everything. Beautiful native UI. Under 50MB.

Maccy — Clipboard manager. Menu bar. Open source. Uses almost no memory. Does exactly one thing and does it perfectly.

Proxyman — If you do web development, Proxyman is a native HTTP debugging proxy that makes Charles Proxy look ancient. It's fast, it's beautiful, and it's genuinely useful.

Reeder — RSS reader that respects your eyes and your RAM. One of the best-designed Mac apps available.

Tot — A scratchpad that lives in your menu bar. Seven slots, each a different color. It's tiny, instant, and I use it every day.

When Electron Is Actually Fine

I want to be fair here, because the "Electron bad" take can become its own kind of dogma.

VS Code is Electron and it's transformed how millions of people write code. The extension ecosystem is unmatched. For many developers, no native alternative comes close in breadth of features.

Figma is Electron (and now web-first), and it changed the design industry. Nothing native competes with it at scale.

Linear — the project management tool — is Electron, and it's one of the best-designed apps I've ever used, native or otherwise. The team has clearly worked hard to make it feel fast despite the underlying framework.

The problem isn't Electron itself. The problem is teams that use Electron as a shortcut to avoid caring about performance. The best Electron apps are built by teams that fight against the framework's defaults. The worst ones just ship whatever Chrome renders and call it done.

Why This Matters More Now

On Apple Silicon Macs, native apps have never been better or more differentiated. The frameworks — SwiftUI, AppKit, Metal — are mature and powerful. Apps that are built natively can use the efficiency cores, integrate with Continuity features, respond to system-level events, and generally behave like they belong on the platform.

Electron apps run through Rosetta or via x86 compatibility layers, or they get compiled to Apple Silicon but still carry all the overhead of Chromium's rendering engine. The gap in battery life and responsiveness between a well-built native app and its Electron equivalent is larger on Apple Silicon than it was on Intel. The bar has moved, and Electron apps haven't kept up.

The Full List

If you want to explore more native macOS apps — across every category, with new additions regularly — I maintain an open list on GitHub:

awesome-native-macosx-apps

It covers everything from developer tools to video players to window managers, with a focus on apps that feel like they belong on macOS.

670+ developers have starred it. Pull requests welcome.

8 Native Mac Apps for New Users: What to Install and What to Skip

Mohsen Karimi — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 19:37:02 +0000

New to Mac? Compare 8 useful native macOS apps, their free options, and when Apple's built-in tools are enough. Build a setup without unnecessary extras.

Suggested DEV tags

macos, productivity, opensource, beginners

Article body

You just got a Mac. Before you turn it into a museum of apps you opened once, start with the tools already installed.

Then add what you're missing.

These eight native Mac apps cover common needs: arranging windows, finding something you copied, playing videos, taking better screenshots, and keeping notes. Some are free and open source; others have free versions with paid extras.

You don't need all eight. The useful part is knowing which problem each one solves—and when you can skip it.

I run MacNative.io, a directory of native Mac apps. This is a starter shortlist, not a benchmark ranking. I've included official download links and the built-in alternatives so you can choose what belongs on your Mac.

The shortlist: which Mac apps do you actually need?

App	Use it for	Cost model	Skip it if…
Rectangle	Window layouts and shortcuts	Free, open source; separate Pro app	macOS window tiling does enough
Maccy	Searchable clipboard history	Free GitHub download; paid App Store option	Spotlight or Raycast covers your clipboard needs
IINA	Local video playback and subtitles	Free, open source	QuickTime plays your files without trouble
AppCleaner	Finding files associated with an app you're removing	Free	You rarely uninstall apps or use the developer's uninstaller
The Unarchiver	RAR, 7z, and other archives	Free	Your archives already open in macOS
Raycast	A keyboard launcher with extensions and utilities	Free core features; paid plans	Spotlight and your existing shortcuts are enough
Bear	Markdown notes organized with tags	Free local notes; paid Pro features	Apple Notes fits your workflow
Shottr	Annotated and scrolling screenshots	Free use with upgrade prompts; commercial use requires a license	Built-in screenshot tools do what you need

Check the linked developer pages for current pricing and macOS requirements, especially if you're setting up an older Mac.

What is a native Mac app?

Here, “native” means an app designed around macOS and its interface frameworks, such as AppKit and SwiftUI. Swift is a programming language; SwiftUI is a framework. Older native apps can also be written in Objective-C.

The appeal is everyday usability: familiar menus, keyboard shortcuts, window behavior, and integration with Mac features.

Electron takes a different approach: it lets developers build desktop apps with web technologies by embedding Chromium and Node.js. That can add overhead, but the framework alone doesn't tell you how much memory an app will use or how long your battery will last.

A native interface isn't a guarantee of good performance, either. Choose the app that does the job well on your machine.

1. Rectangle: window management with shortcuts

Free and open source · Official download

If you're switching from Windows, try macOS's own window tiling first. macOS Sequoia introduced edge-based tiling, and Apple's window management tools let you arrange windows by dragging them or using menu options and shortcuts.

Rectangle is useful when you want its layout choices, configurable shortcuts, and snapping behavior—or you're using an older macOS version without the newer tiling features.

For example, you can keep documentation beside your editor without resizing both windows by hand every morning.

Install it if: arranging windows is a daily annoyance.

Skip it if: Apple's tiling already puts everything where you want it. If you use Raycast, try its window management before adding another utility.

2. Maccy: find something you copied earlier

Free and open source via GitHub; paid App Store option · Official site

Copy a link. Copy something else. Need the first link again. That's the problem Maccy solves.

It keeps a searchable clipboard history in a small, keyboard-friendly interface. Open it, type part of the text you're looking for, and reuse the result. The current release requires macOS Sonoma 14 or later.

There is now a built-in alternative: recent macOS versions offer clipboard history in Spotlight. Open Spotlight with Command–Space, then press Command–4 to access it where supported.

Install it if: you want a dedicated clipboard app with its own interface and settings. You can also see Maccy's listing on MacNative.

Skip it if: Spotlight or Raycast already handles this for you. Running several clipboard managers usually adds more duplication than value.

Clipboard history can retain sensitive text. Review the app's exclusions and clearing options before using it for work credentials or private information.

3. IINA: a video player for files QuickTime struggles with

Free and open source · Official download

QuickTime is a reasonable starting point. When you encounter a video it won't play, or need more control over subtitles, try IINA.

IINA uses the mpv playback engine behind a Mac-focused interface. It supports a broad range of media formats, picture-in-picture, and customizable playback controls.

That makes it useful for downloaded videos, recordings, and files with separate subtitles. You don't need to change your default player for every file type on day one.

Install it if: you regularly watch local video files or run into playback problems.

Skip it if: you mostly stream in your browser and QuickTime handles the occasional file you open.

4. AppCleaner: review an app's leftover files before deleting it

Free · Official download

Removing an app can leave behind preferences, caches, and support files. AppCleaner looks for related files when you drop an application into its window.

The useful part is the review step: you can see what it found before deciding what to delete.

Don't treat the results as a promise that every associated component has been identified. If an app provides its own uninstaller, especially for background services or system components, follow the developer's removal instructions.

Install it if: you're trying different apps and regularly removing the ones you don't keep.

Skip it if: you rarely uninstall anything. You don't need a scheduled cleanup ritual to have a healthy Mac.

5. The Unarchiver: open RAR and other archive formats

Free · Official download

Try double-clicking the archive first. If macOS opens it successfully, you're done.

The Unarchiver is handy when it doesn't. Its supported formats include RAR, 7z, and a long list of older or less common archive types.

This is an extraction tool: its job is to get files out of an archive. It isn't a reason to replace every file-handling tool on your Mac.

Install it if: clients, colleagues, or downloads regularly send you archives macOS won't open.

Skip it if: you only encounter files your Mac already extracts.

6. Raycast: several keyboard utilities in one place

Free core features; paid plans · Official site and plan comparison

Start with Spotlight. If you want more commands and integrations from the keyboard, try Raycast.

Its free core includes clipboard history, window management, snippets, a calculator, and extensions. That combination can be useful if you'd prefer one place for several everyday actions.

For developers, the appeal is often the extension workflow: finding a command or accessing a service without manually opening another app and navigating through it.

Install it if: you enjoy keyboard workflows and have specific extensions or commands you want to use.

Skip it if: you only need app launching and basic search. And if you do install it, test its clipboard and window tools before installing Maccy and Rectangle too.

7. Bear: Markdown notes without much ceremony

Free local notes; paid Pro features · Official site

Bear is worth trying if you like writing in Markdown and organizing notes with tags.

You can keep meeting notes, project ideas, and reference material in the same app without building an elaborate workspace first. The free version supports local notes; iCloud sync and additional features require Bear Pro.

That distinction matters if you expect your Mac notes to appear on your iPhone immediately. Check the plan before moving your existing collection.

Install it if: Markdown and tags suit the way you write and retrieve notes.

Skip it if: Apple Notes already works for you, or your main need is a shared team workspace with databases and collaboration features.

8. Shottr: screenshots you can explain things with

Free use with upgrade prompts; paid license required for commercial use · Official site · License details

A screenshot is often only half the job. The other half is showing someone exactly where to look.

Shottr adds annotation tools, scrolling captures, text recognition, and measurement tools. Those features are useful for bug reports, tutorials, design feedback, and support conversations.

The developer currently allows free use with upgrade reminders after 30 days, while requiring a license for commercial use. “Free” alone doesn't tell the whole story.

Install it if: you frequently explain problems with screenshots or need to capture content beyond one screen.

Skip it if: macOS's built-in capture and markup tools already cover your needs.

Keep your setup small

Choose one of these starting points:

Built-in first: use macOS window tiling, Spotlight, and Apple Notes. Add IINA or The Unarchiver only when a file gives you trouble.
Separate utilities: choose Rectangle for windows and Maccy for clipboard history if you prefer focused tools.
Keyboard-heavy workflow: try Raycast's overlapping features first, then add only what it doesn't cover for you.

Don't replace software your work depends on just because of its framework. A native notes app won't replace a team's shared database, and a smaller chat client isn't useful if your colleagues can't use it.

If your Mac feels slow, use Activity Monitor to investigate. Look at CPU activity, the Memory Pressure graph, and energy use during your normal workload. A single RAM figure doesn't tell the whole story.

Also review System Settings → General → Login Items & Extensions; the label can vary by macOS version. Remove apps you don't want opening at login, and review background permissions individually. Keep the services you rely on, such as backups and syncing.

Where to find more native Mac apps

Once you know what you're missing, browse the open-source Mac apps collection on MacNative. It's a useful next stop if you prefer projects with public source code and want to explore beyond this shortlist.

If you'd rather browse on GitHub, I also maintain awesome-native-macosx-apps.

The goal isn't to install the most apps. It's to stop thinking about the small problems they solve.

Which Mac app would you install first—and which popular one did you realize you didn't need? If you're building a native Mac app, share it with the problem it solves.