Bartender vs xbar

Bartender manages macOS menu bar items, controlling which ones appear and when. It can reveal items quickly, search them, and use custom hotkeys and triggers. Users can hide, rearrange, and group items, create custom items from built-in data sources or scripts without coding, and switch profiles by hotkey, trigger, or display setup. Bartender 7’s Command Bar searches for and triggers menu bar items; clipboard history is included for Pro users. Automation options include built-in triggers, Shortcuts, AppleScript, hotkeys, and Siri. The app works without Screen Recording permission, showing app icons rather than snapshots when permission is disabled. The maker says captures remain cached locally on the device and app data is not transmitted to its servers. Bartender 7 is built for macOS 27 Golden Gate; users on macOS 26 Tahoe are directed to Bartender 6 while Bartender 7 support is pending. Bartender 7 costs 24.99 USD as a one-time purchase, and Pro costs $19.99 a year. A license covers all Macs owned and personally used by its holder.

xbar puts output from scripts and programs in the macOS menu bar, where selected information can be checked at a glance. Its library offers hundreds of ready-made plugins across areas such as AWS, finance, email, music, network, system, and weather. Examples include network status, YubiKey OATH TOTP codes, an OKX price ticker, Bluetooth trackpad battery status, miner statistics, and an RSS reader. Users can also write plugins in any language. The app's Preferences > Plugins view is where users can discover and manage plugins; the plugin directory is ~/Library/Application Support/xbar/plugins. xbar is free at free and open source under the MIT License. The project says Mat Ryer and Leah Anthony rewrote it in Go using Wails. The latest release requires macOS Catalina or newer (10.15 or later). Grouped and custom menu items and keyboard shortcuts are supported, but hiding or rearranging menu items is not. The v2.1.7-beta notes say the plugin timeout increased from one minute to two minutes.