Alternatives to Hammerspoon
Lua-scriptable macOS automation
Hammerspoon ranks #4 of 8 in Window managers, with an Alt Score of 65. It is licensed under MIT, free and available on macOS. 7 of 9 checklist rows are verified against a public source.
Developers and power users on macOS who are comfortable writing small scripts and want to automate their machine beyond what built-in tools or GUI utilities allow.
A bridge between macOS and a Lua scripting engine, with a wide set of extension APIs covering windows, applications, hotkeys, the mouse, screens, audio devices, wifi, battery, the clipboard, and low-level keyboard/mouse events. It's commonly used for custom window management and tiling, global hotkeys, and triggering actions off system events like network changes or battery level. Out of the box it does nothing until you write configuration for it.
You write a Lua script at ~/.hammerspoon/init.lua that wires system events to actions using Hammerspoon's extension APIs, then reload the config for changes to take effect; Hammerspoon runs in the background executing that script continuously.
Why people leave Hammerspoon
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Ranked alternatives
Ordered by Alt Score. Click any score to see the breakdown.
Feature comparison
How Hammerspoon compares with its alternatives, feature by feature.
| Window managers checklist | Hammerspoon | BetterTouchTool | FancyZones | Rectangle | Magnet | Moom |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Keyboard shortcuts | ||||||
| Snap layouts | ||||||
| Tiling (automatic) | ||||||
| Multi-monitor profiles | ||||||
| Scriptable | ||||||
| Open source | ||||||
| One-time purchase option | ||||||
| Touchpad gestures | ||||||
| Menu bar control |
Every fact and feature listed for Hammerspoon is verified against its own pages. Each alternative is sourced on its own page.
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License MIT verified 2026-07-10
The MIT License (MIT)
https://github.com/Hammerspoon/hammerspoon/blob/master/LICENSE -
Pricing model Free verified 2026-07-10
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
https://github.com/Hammerspoon/hammerspoon/blob/master/LICENSE -
Platforms macOS verified 2026-07-10
This is a tool for powerful automation of OS X. At its core, Hammerspoon is just a bridge between the operating system and a Lua scripting engine.
https://github.com/Hammerspoon/hammerspoon/blob/master/README.md -
Status active verified 2026-07-10
Download archive of Hammerspoon should no longer contain spurious resource forks that can confuse macOS Gatekeeper
https://github.com/Hammerspoon/hammerspoon/releases/tag/1.1.1 -
Keyboard shortcuts Yes verified 2026-07-10
Create and manage global keyboard shortcuts
https://www.hammerspoon.org/docs/hs.hotkey.html -
Tiling (automatic) Partial verified 2026-07-10
Window manipulation via Lua scripting; no built-in automatic tiling.
Inspect/manipulate windows
https://www.hammerspoon.org/docs/hs.window.html -
Multi-monitor profiles Yes verified 2026-07-10
Manipulate screens (i.e. monitors)
https://www.hammerspoon.org/docs/hs.screen.html -
Scriptable Yes verified 2026-07-10
What gives Hammerspoon its power is a set of extensions that expose specific pieces of system functionality, to the user. With these, you can write Lua scripts to control many aspects of your OS X env
https://github.com/Hammerspoon/hammerspoon/blob/master/README.md -
Open source Yes verified 2026-07-10
The MIT License (MIT)
https://github.com/Hammerspoon/hammerspoon/blob/master/LICENSE -
One-time purchase option No verified 2026-07-10
Free OSS; no purchase.
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
https://github.com/Hammerspoon/hammerspoon/blob/master/LICENSE -
Menu bar control Yes verified 2026-07-10
Create and manage menubar icons
https://www.hammerspoon.org/docs/hs.menubar.html
FAQ
Yes. FancyZones, Rectangle and AeroSpace have a free tier or are fully free. Free-tier limits in the comparison table are verified and dated.
FancyZones, Rectangle and AeroSpace — every license claim links its source.