Amethyst is the friendly gateway into Mac tiling — free, automatic, xmonad-flavored. Glidro solves the thing Amethyst users most often complain about: windows that resize themselves every time something opens.
Glidro uses Scrolling. Glidro 1.1.0 is Developer ID signed and notarized by Apple. Release availability is shown on Payhip.
Amethyst is free and the easiest way to try automatic tiling on macOS — if you don't mind windows resizing as others open and close. If that reflow is exactly what bothers you, Glidro ($9.99, one time) keeps every window at the size you set on a scrolling strip, with trackpad gestures and a full GUI.
Try it right here — this is a working model of Glidro, not a video.
A working model of Glidro, not a video. Drag a title bar to reorder, click a Dock icon to open an app, close a window with its red button. In the real app every key here is ⌥ plus the key.
| Feature | Amethyst | Glidro |
|---|---|---|
| Use if | You want free auto-tiling and don't mind reflow | Windows resizing themselves is the problem |
| Layout | Tall / wide / column cycles | Scrolling strip, never reflows |
| Price | Free | $9.99 one time |
| Navigation | Keyboard shortcuts (xmonad-style) | Keyboard, trackpad swipe, Fn-drag to reorder |
| Skip if | Reflow drives you crazy | You want cycling geometric layouts |
Amethyst is a free, open-source tiling window manager inspired by xmonad. It automatically arranges your windows into cyclable layouts — tall (one main window, others stacked beside it), wide, fullscreen, column, and more — and you flip between layouts and shuffle windows with keyboard shortcuts. Unlike the terminal-first tilers, it has an actual preferences window, needs no SIP changes, and works minutes after installing. That's why it's so often the first tiling manager people try on a Mac, and it's earned its place.
Its limits are the flip side of its simplicity: the preferences GUI is basic, layout logic is ratio-based rather than precise, and apps with minimum window sizes (think Spotify or some Electron apps) can fight the layout engine. Development is community-driven, so polish arrives at community pace.
Glidro is a native macOS app — SwiftUI interface, Glidro Engine — built on the scrolling-strip model. Windows sit side by side on an endless horizontal strip at the widths you choose. New windows never trigger a reflow; they open beside the focused window by default and the strip extends. You navigate by scrolling: a trackpad swipe with adjustable sensitivity, or Vim-style Option shortcuts, with keyboard and trackpad navigation.
It's GUI-first everywhere — width presets, focus-follows-mouse, gestures, window rules, shortcut recording, all applied instantly — plus window stacking, an independent strip per display, and native macOS Spaces integration.
Here's the trade at the center of this comparison. Amethyst's layouts divide the screen among however many windows exist. Open a fourth window in tall layout and the other three make room; close it and they expand back. The layout is always "correct" — and never stable. For some people that's the entire appeal: everything visible, always.
For everyone else, it's a slow drip of annoyance: your editor is a different width at 4pm than it was at 9am, and you never chose either. The strip model was invented for exactly this. Your editor is 60% wide because you made it 60% wide, and it will still be 60% wide next week. The screen doesn't re-divide; the strip just gets longer, and you scroll.
Credit where due: Amethyst's on-ramp is unbeatable. Install it, grant Accessibility, and your windows are tiling before you've read any documentation — no config file, no CLI, no cost. For checking whether tiling suits you at all, it's the perfect experiment, and if the tall layout happens to match how you work, you may be done shopping entirely.
The friction shows up at the edges: apps with minimum window sizes can wrestle the layout engine, precise per-window sizing isn't really the model, and when a layout misbehaves your options are cycling to a different one or shuffling windows until it settles. None of that is disqualifying for a free tool — it's just where the ceiling is, and it's exactly the ceiling the strip model removes.
| Feature | Amethyst | Glidro |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free, open source | $9.99 one time, lifetime |
| Layout model | Auto layouts (tall, wide, column…) | Scrolling horizontal strip |
| New window opens | Layout re-divides; others resize | Opens beside focus; scrolling widths stay the same |
| Layout stability | Reflows constantly | Never reflows |
| Configuration | Basic preferences GUI | Full GUI, applies instantly |
| Navigation | Keyboard shortcuts | Keyboard, trackpad swipe, Fn-drag to reorder |
| Window stacking | Layout-dependent | Yes — stack any column |
| Multi-monitor | Yes | Yes — independent strip per display |
| SIP changes | No | No |
| Support | Community / GitHub issues | Glidro email support |
Amethyst is a great free on-ramp to tiling. Glidro is where a lot of tiling users end up once they realize the reflow was the part they never liked.
Yes — Amethyst is free and open source, maintained by the community. It's often the first "real" tiling window manager people try on macOS because it works out of the box with sensible layouts. Glidro is a paid native app: $9.99 one time for a lifetime license with free updates.
Because that's how its layouts work. Amethyst's xmonad-style layouts are ratio-based: the screen is divided among however many windows exist, so every open or close redistributes space and resizes what's already there. If that constant reflow is what bothers you, a scrolling window manager like Glidro is the direct answer — windows keep the size you set, always.
Yes — unlike yabai or AeroSpace, Amethyst has a preferences window for layouts, shortcuts, and basic behavior, though the depth is limited. Glidro is GUI-first end to end: width presets, focus behavior, gestures, window rules, and shortcut recording are all settings panels with changes that apply instantly.
No — Glidro has one model: the scrolling strip. Instead of cycling whole-screen layouts, you set per-window widths (with presets you can cycle per window), stack related windows into columns, and scroll. If cycling geometric layouts is the feature you love, Amethyst does that better.
No — run one window manager at a time. Both continuously arrange windows and will fight over the same layout. Quit one before enabling the other.