John’s Background Switcher vs Lively Wallpaper

John’s Background Switcher changes a Windows or Mac desktop background on a schedule, using individual photos or assembled montages and collages. Its image sources include local photos and services such as Flickr, SmugMug, Unsplash, Pixabay, Dropbox, OneDrive, Vladstudio, Immich, and Media RSS feeds, though availability varies by platform. Windows also lists Pexels, Last.fm, and Wallhaven. On Mac, it can manage multiple monitors, showing the same or different images on each, or using a single monitor. Mac switching intervals range from every 10 seconds to 7 days, with grayscale, sepia, and desaturation effects. Windows support starts at Windows 10 and requires Microsoft.NET 4.8; the setup wizard can install that dependency. The maker says settings and authentication tokens are stored locally, photo services are contacted directly, and cached photo results are kept for no more than two days. Windows is free at free. Mac direct costs 7.99 USD once, and Mac App Store costs 8.99 USD once.

Lively Wallpaper is a free, open-source animated wallpaper application for Windows. It supports video and GIF wallpapers through mpv or VLC, with filters and hardware acceleration, and can load HTML files or web addresses running WebGL and JavaScript. Other wallpaper sources include GLSL shaders, Shadertoy URLs, video streams, and Unity or Godot games; GUI application support is limited. Wallpapers can span or duplicate across any number of monitors, including HiDPI and ultrawide displays, and any wallpaper can be used as a Windows screensaver. Command-line arguments and third-party scripting software such as AutoHotkey provide control options. Playback pauses when fullscreen applications or games run, reaching approximately 0% CPU and GPU usage. Lively says it does not collect, store or share personal information, while operational window and process data remains local. The listed plan is free and requires Windows 10 version 1903 or above with a 64-bit installer. Only the latest release receives security patches, and vulnerabilities can be reported by email.