Dozer vs xbar

Dozer is a free, open-source macOS utility for hiding menu bar icons and keeping the status area less crowded. A left click toggles one icon group, while option-left-click controls an optional second group. Dozer can hide status bar icons automatically, including when it launches. Its documented No Icon mode uses a keyboard shortcut to hide and show icons without clicking the menu bar. Users can set the delay before icons disappear and adjust icon size and padding. Right-clicking opens settings. The README provides Homebrew Cask and manual installation instructions, and lists macOS 10.13 or later as the requirement. The repository uses the Mozilla Public License 2.0. Dozer supports hiding, rearranging and grouping menu items, plus keyboard shortcuts, but does not provide custom menu items. Bug reports and feature requests go through GitHub issues, with the app version requested in bug reports.

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.