The Best Mac Apps in 2026, Chosen by a Senior Software Engineer
Eleven tools that earned a permanent place on my Mac this year, and the one I built myself
I’ve been writing software for a living for a long time, and I’m picky about the tools I use. I want an app to feel fast, look good, and stay out of my way. Most apps I try get deleted within a week.
This is what’s left on my Mac in 2026. It isn’t a list of everything good on the platform. It’s the set I actually open every day, at work and on my own projects.
A note before we start: I’ve written about Raycast, Rectangle and a few others before, so I’m leaving them out. Raycast is still the first thing I install on a new Mac, and nothing here replaces it.
Moving around the Mac
Homerow
What it fixes: reaching for the trackpad to click a button.
Homerow puts keyboard labels on every clickable element on screen. You press a shortcut, type two letters, and the button is clicked. It works in most native apps and in a growing number of web-based ones. After a week with it, the trackpad felt slow to me.
I mostly use it in System Settings, Finder dialogs and the dozens of small panels that never got proper keyboard shortcuts.
Price: $49.99 one-time, for all your personal Macs, with future updates included. It’s free to try, with a reminder every 50 activations.
AltTab
What it fixes: ⌘Tab switches between apps, not windows.
If you keep three browser windows and four editor windows open, the built-in switcher doesn’t help much. AltTab shows every window with a live thumbnail, including minimized ones and windows on other Spaces. It’s open source, has no telemetry, and has been improved almost every month since 2018. You can see that care in how it works.
Price: free and open source. AltTab Pro adds search and extra styles for $9.99 one-time, or $24.99 for lifetime updates.
Writing, thinking and numbers
Ratio (I built this one)
What it fixes: opening a spreadsheet to add up five numbers.
I’m biased, so I’ll keep this short. Ratio is a plain-text notepad where every line calculates as you type. I built it because I kept doing small sums in a calculator, then losing them, then doing them again.
Here’s what a note looks like:
(The times assume the Bucharest time zone. The currency result uses live rates, so your number will be different.)
Under the hood it handles 160+ currencies with live rates, crypto, 150+ units, dates and time zones, named variables and references to other lines, and splitting a bill by @name. It also ships an MCP server, so Claude, Cursor or VS Code can use it as a real calculator instead of guessing at arithmetic.
It works offline, your notes stay on your machine, and it runs on Mac, Windows and Linux.
Price: a 7-day free trial with no account and no card, then $14.99 one-time, no subscription. For all of November 2026, the code BLACKFRIDAY26 takes 30% off. useratio.app
Things 3
What it fixes: to-do apps that turn into a second job.
Things is still the best-designed task manager on the Mac, and it has two Apple Design Awards to prove it. Quick Entry captures a task from anywhere, and the Today and Upcoming views are calm enough that I actually look at them. I use it for everything outside my work tracker.
Price: $49.99 one-time on the Mac App Store, with a 15-day free trial on the Things website. The iPhone and iPad apps are sold separately, and sync is free.
Granola
What it fixes: taking notes while trying to listen.
Granola listens to your meetings through your device’s audio, so there’s no bot joining the call, and turns your rough notes into clean ones afterwards. It now also does voice typing in any app, which I didn’t expect to use as much as I do.
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Price: the free Basic plan includes AI notes and voice typing, with 30 days of history. Business is $14 per user per month.
Development
Ghostty
What it fixes: terminals that feel like ports.
Ghostty is GPU-accelerated, and its Mac interface is written in Swift and AppKit. Tabs, splits and settings behave like they belong on a Mac. It’s also become a foundation for other tools. Several of the new terminals I’ve seen this year are built on libghostty.
Price: free and open source.
Zed
What it fixes: editors that take longer to open than to use.
Zed starts instantly and stays responsive on big files. I open it when I want to edit, not configure. Its extension catalogue is smaller than VS Code’s, so check that yours exist before you switch.
Price: the editor is free and open source. AI features have a free tier, with a paid Pro plan for heavier use.
OrbStack
What it fixes: Docker Desktop eating your battery.
OrbStack runs containers, Kubernetes and Linux machines in a native app that starts in seconds and stays quiet in the background. It’s the first dev tool I install after Homebrew.
Price: free for personal, non-commercial use. Pro is $8 per user per month for commercial use.
TablePlus
What it fixes: database GUIs that look like 2009.
TablePlus is a native client for Postgres, MySQL, SQLite, Redis and more. It’s fast and clean, and it doesn’t fight you.
Price: a limited free trial, then a one-time licence.
Homebrew
What it fixes: installing everything else.
Homebrew hardly needs an introduction. I keep a Brewfile in my dotfiles, so a new Mac is one command away from feeling like mine.
Price: free and open source.
The browser
Helium
What it fixes: browsers that keep getting heavier.
I tried a lot of browsers this year. Helium is the one I kept. It’s Chromium-based, so my extensions work, it blocks ads and trackers out of the box, and it doesn’t push anything at me. It feels like Chrome did years ago, before all the clutter.
Price: free. It’s available on macOS, Windows and Linux.
What these have in common
Looking at this list, the pattern is clear. Most of these apps do one thing, do it quickly, and respect the machine they run on. Several are paid once and owned for good. I’ll happily pay for software that’s this carefully made, and I think more people should.
What’s the one app you’d add to this list? I read every comment, and I’m always looking for the next one that earns a place on my Mac.
Senior software engineer. I build small, carefully made tools for the Mac.
