herbstluftwm vs Rectangle

herbstluftwm is a manual tiling window manager for the X window system. Each virtual desktop, called a tag, has a tiling layer and a floating layer, allowing windows to occupy split frames or be placed freely. Frames can be divided into further subframes or filled with windows, and keyboard controls move, resize, and focus tiled and floating windows. Configuration runs through herbstclient and can be changed while the manager is running without a restart. Screen space can be divided into virtual monitors that need not match physical displays; monitors share a common pool of tags. The project is licensed under the Simplified BSD License and is listed as free at free. The download page lists packages for Linux distributions and Mac OS X via MacPorts, and confirms operation on Cygwin. The project also offers released source tarballs and links to its current development version. Community help is available through IRC, Reddit, GitHub issues, and a mailing list.

Rectangle is a macOS utility for moving and resizing windows with keyboard shortcuts or snap areas. Repeating a shortcut cycles through window sizes, while dragging a window to a screen edge or corner snaps it into place; portrait display layouts are supported. The free Rectangle plan is open source under the MIT License and supports macOS 10.15 or later on Intel and Apple Silicon. Rectangle Pro adds a one-combination control that can move a window to any of 16 sizes and positions, even when it is not focused. Users can create custom snap targets with a chosen size, position, and repeated-command behavior. Pro can arrange app workspaces with one shortcut and activate them when displays connect or disconnect. It can sync configuration over iCloud and load shortcuts from Rectangle. Pro supports macOS 13.5 or later on Intel and Apple Silicon, with older versions listed separately; one license can be active on up to three devices at once. Rectangle’s privacy policy says it gathers no user data.