Magnet Alternative for Mac: Same $4.99, Saved Layouts

September 19, 2026

You want windows to snap into place. macOS has tiled windows since Sequoia, Rectangle does it for free, Magnet costs $4.99 and Moom costs $15. These are not the same tool, and most comparisons write them up as though they were.

This page is written by the developer of Paneway, so read it accordingly. Prices and requirements below were checked in September 2026, and where another app is the better buy, it says so plainly.

The short version

If all you want is drag-to-edge snapping and keyboard shortcuts for halves and quarters, install Rectangle. It is free, it is open source, and it does that job well. Paying anything at all only makes sense if you want something Rectangle does not do.

First, what macOS already does

Since macOS 15 Sequoia, dragging a window to the edge of the screen tiles it, and there are menu commands and keyboard shortcuts for halves and quarters built in. For a good number of people that is the entire requirement and the correct answer is to install nothing. Try it for a week before you spend money.

Rectangle — free, and the default recommendation

Rectangle is free and open source, and runs on macOS 10.15 or later. Halves, thirds, quarters, sixths, drag-to-edge snapping, a full keyboard shortcut set, and cycling so that repeating a shortcut steps through sizes. It also moves windows between displays and can import and export its configuration.

One honest note: the last tagged release is v1.100 from August 2025. The repository is still busy with open issues and pull requests, so the project is not dead, but there has not been a numbered release in about a year.

Magnet — $4.99, and quiet since April 2025

Magnet is $4.99 on the Mac App Store and needs macOS 13 or later. It snaps to six screen areas plus thirds and sixths, has a full shortcut set, and supports up to six displays. Being sandboxed and App Store distributed is a real reassurance for some buyers.

The thing worth knowing before you buy: the App Store version history shows 3.0.7 dated April 2025, which is around seventeen months ago, and the developer has published nothing about macOS 26 or macOS 27. It still works for most people today. But if you are paying $4.99 for snapping, it is reasonable to ask what that buys over Rectangle, which is free.

Moom — $15, and the best maintained of the group

Moom is $15 one time, runs on macOS 10.13 or later, and is by a distance the most actively maintained app here: 4.6 in August 2026, and 4.5.1 in June 2026 which explicitly prepared it for macOS 27 before that release shipped. Nothing else in this comparison did that.

Its pop-up palette on the green zoom button, saved window layouts, chained actions and drop zones are genuinely more than snapping. If $15 is not a problem and you want the app most likely to still be maintained in two years, buy Moom and stop reading.

Where Paneway fits

Paneway is $4.99 — the same price as Magnet — and does the snapping, plus three things a pure snapper does not.

It saves and restores whole workspace arrangements. Get your editor, browser and terminal placed the way you like them across your displays, save it, and put it back with one click after you have undocked and redocked.

It puts a gap between windows. Adjustable from 0 to 20 points, plus an edge margin. Small thing; it is the difference between a tiled screen that reads as separate windows and one that reads as a wall.

It has a panel, not just shortcuts. Click a layout from the menu bar when you cannot remember the key, with each layout drawn and its shortcut shown beside it.

Animation: a window is dragged to the left edge, a glass outline shows the left half and the window fills it, then a second window is dragged to the right edge and fills the right half

Nineteen shortcuts, every one optional

Control-Option keys cover every layout from Left Half to Almost Maximise. Each one has a tick box, so you can turn off the ones that collide with something else you use.

Paneway panel on the Shortcuts tab listing Left Half to Almost Maximise, each with a tick box, a layout picture and its Control-Option key, with Almost Maximise unticked

It is a universal app for Apple silicon and Intel and asks for macOS 13 Ventura or later. One download of about 1.7 MB with a guide, a README and a licence. No account, no internet connection, nothing to subscribe to.

So, which one

Free and enough: the built-in tiling, then Rectangle if you want more shortcuts.

$4.99: Magnet if you want App Store sandboxing above all; Paneway if you want saved layouts and gaps, and would rather buy from someone shipping updates this year.

$15: Moom, if you want the deepest feature set and the strongest maintenance record.

Paneway is $4.99 on 1dot1. Prices and system requirements were checked on 19 September 2026 from each vendor's own pages; Rectangle and Magnet release dates are from their public release histories.