Appetizer vs Winstep Nexus Dock

Appetizer is a free, open-source application launcher dock for Windows that organizes shortcuts and folders. A wizard imports shortcuts from different locations, after which icons can be arranged by drag and drop or grouped in menus. The dock can resize and display horizontally or vertically, with small, large, and extra-large icons, custom icons, and skins; two skins are included. It supports launching several items together, a hotkey to hide or show the dock, and minimizing it to the tray. Special items provide controls for the desktop, Recycle Bin, and Control Panel. With the standard PortableApps.com folder structure, Appetizer should detect applications and documents automatically. Version 1.4 is offered as a Windows installer or portable ZIP; the ZIP can run from a hard drive or USB stick and saves settings in the application directory. The download page lists Windows 2000, XP, and Vista. Plugins add functions such as USB document encryption, shortcut grouping, and closing the dock after launch, but require a restart after installation. Multilingual help and an API reference are provided.

Winstep Nexus Dock is a customizable Windows dock for opening frequently used applications, folders, documents and commands. It can show running applications, replace the taskbar and display system tray icons. Built-in modules include a clock, Recycle Bin, email checker, weather and CPU, RAM and network meters. Nexus Ultimate adds multiple docks, sub-docks, shelves, drawers, Grid Stacks, Launch Pads and additional modules. Customization options include themes, configurable behavior, animated icons, visual effects and skins from major third-party docks. Nexus supports Windows UWP apps and Progressive Web Apps from Chrome, Brave and Microsoft Edge. Listed system requirements include Windows 7, 8, 10 or 11, 120 MB of free disk space and a minimum 800×600 screen resolution; ARM Windows devices are supported. The free Nexus plan is for personal use and allows one alarm. A commercial license costs $12.95 as a one-time purchase, and Nexus Ultimate costs $29.95, paid once. The Ultimate purchase page lists a fully functional 30-day trial.