AeroSpace
Hacker ApprovedRanked 3 of 11 tiling window managers by recommenders
Free tiling window manager for macOS that people recommend for keyboard-driven workspace switching and hotkey window layout. Caveat: occasional glitches with multiple windows and some app conflicts.
Free tiling window manager for macOS that people recommend for keyboard-driven workspace switching and hotkey window layout. Caveat: occasional glitches with multiple windows and some app conflicts.
89 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 77
- criticize it
- 12
- approval share
- 87%
Recommended in 12 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Owned for 4 months
Median of the 10 owners who said how long they have had it.
Each square is one year.
Why it carries the badge
- 77 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 6.4 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 12 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Keyboard-driven window and space switching
“As someone who prefers keyboard navigation over mouse navigation, I can't recommend it enough.”
Comment from 11 Jan 2026 in “The struggle of resizing windows on macOS Tahoe” “by far the least of all evils for anyone who wants fast, keyboard-driven desktop switching”
Comment from 4 Oct 2026 in “Make Tmux the OS” “The main reason I use Aerospace is for the space management and instant space switching.”
Comment from 10 Apr 2026 in “Native Instant Space Switching on macOS” - Comment from 2 Jun 2026 in “macOS Needs Its Grid Back”
- Comment from 15 Oct 2026 in “GridSnap – an open-source Divvy-style window snapper for macOS”
Works alongside other macOS tools
“Nix darwin + package manager with aerospace and sketchybar make it almost the same as my desktop pc”
Comment from 11 Mar 2026 in “MacBook Neo Review: No Other Budget Laptop Can Compete” “For free, I can use Alfred/Raycast, Aerospace, and either sketchybar or zebar”
Comment from 12 Apr 2026 in “Show HN: boringBar – a taskbar-style dock replacement for macOS” “perfect for use in combination with a tiling window manager like aerospace”
Comment from 24 Oct 2026 in “I ported foot terminal to macOS” - Comment from 13 Feb 2026 in “Resizing windows on macOS Tahoe – the saga continues”
- Comment from 2 Jun 2026 in “macOS Needs Its Grid Back”
Minimal time spent on window management
“I spend zero time on window management or organization now so it makes it thoughtless to use.”
Comment from 31 Mar 2026 in “New Apple Silicon M4 and M5 HiDPI Limitation on 4K External Displays” “No more dragging around windows or manually resizing them - just hotkeys.”
Comment from 14 Feb 2026 in “Resizing windows on macOS Tahoe – the saga continues” “It really makes it so much less tedious to move around my computer.”
Comment from 10 Dec 2025 in “Making macOS Bearable” Better multi-monitor workflow
“Aerospace has been a game changer for me. I could never work with multiple monitors before that.”
Comment from 17 Jan 2026 in “Dell UltraSharp 52 Thunderbolt Hub Monitor” “I use AeroSpace on mac os for tiling window management with spaces mapped per monitor”
Comment from 17 Jan 2026 in “Dell UltraSharp 52 Thunderbolt Hub Monitor” “I switched to aerospace which requires 'displays have separate spaces' to off”
Comment from 30 Mar 2026 in “New Apple Silicon M4 and M5 HiDPI Limitation on 4K External Displays”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Janky or glitchy with multiple windows
“All of these work well most of the time, but something weird is bound to happen at least a few times each day”
Comment from 20 Aug 2026 on Hacker News “It can get quite janky on occasions when multiple windows open at once.”
Comment from 2 Jun 2026 in “macOS Needs Its Grid Back” Loses windows or breaks full screen
“now it seems to be constantly losing windows and I have to keep resetting it”
Comment from 10 Apr 2026 in “Native Instant Space Switching on macOS” “Full screen windows seemingly break both completely.”
Comment from 20 Aug 2026 on Hacker News Falls short of i3 and Linux tilers
“Even using aerospace on my mac doesn't come close to the comfort I felt with sway on nixos”
Comment from 9 Jun 2026 in “Apple WWDC 2026 Livestream” “I can't get the Aerospace filing window manager to work like Qtile does. It's a shame.”
Comment from 22 Nov 2025 in “The Qtile Window Manager: A Python-Powered Tiling Experience” “I can't replicate the fast and unobstructed experience I have with i3wm”
Comment from 2 Jun 2026 in “macOS Needs Its Grid Back”
Other tiling window managers people recommend
The four most recommended other tiling window managers, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Niri | 125 | 17 | 88% | 13 | 6 mo16 owners | Approved |
| Sway | 81 | 23 | 78% | 12 | 4 yrs17 owners | Approved |
| AeroSpaceThis page | 77 | 12 | 87% | 12 | 4 mo10 owners | Approved |
| i3 window manager | 70 | 9 | 89% | 12 | — | Approved |
| XMonad | 28 | 1 | 97% | 11 | 10 yrs5 owners | Approved |
What people said
40 of the 102 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“perfect for use in combination with a tiling window manager like aerospace”
“it's great. You can navigate between windows with the keyboard”
“it's been working perfectly for me for a year or so. Such an improvement over just using spaces on macos.”
“by far the least of all evils for anyone who wants fast, keyboard-driven desktop switching”
“Very configurable, and it doesn't require you to deactivate SIP like yabai.”
“I use aerospace and break up those 22 windows into ~4-6 windows with ~3-5 tabs each”
“That was the reason for me to choose AeroSpace as a foundation instead of yabai.”
“I've been using Aerospace for a while and didn't experience any issue.”
“All of these work well most of the time, but something weird is bound to happen at least a few times each day”
“Full screen windows seemingly break both completely.”
“Even using aerospace on my mac doesn't come close to the comfort I felt with sway on nixos”
“It can get quite janky on occasions when multiple windows open at once.”
“I can't replicate the fast and unobstructed experience I have with i3wm”
“you can use Aerospace purely as a workspace switching solution without the tiling”
“I use aerospace and many other tools which give me such experience”
“For free, I can use Alfred/Raycast, Aerospace, and either sketchybar or zebar”
“The main reason I use Aerospace is for the space management and instant space switching.”
“now it seems to be constantly losing windows and I have to keep resetting it”
“I use Aerospace on macOS right now and think it's the best solution available.”
“My only complaint is I wish there was a way to make apps floating by default”
“I use mnemonics like always putting discord on workspace "D" so it becomes quite fast”
“I spend zero time on window management or organization now so it makes it thoughtless to use.”
“I switched to aerospace which requires 'displays have separate spaces' to off”
“once youre tiling, windows are edge to edge so the corner radius thing mostly disappears”
“Overall, I've found it easier to just fork Aerospace and add various extra features to it”
“Nix darwin + package manager with aerospace and sketchybar make it almost the same as my desktop pc”
“No more dragging around windows or manually resizing them - just hotkeys.”
“okay but not great tiling window manager. Note that AeroSpace really is among the best on macOS”
“Aerospace and Karabiner-Elements have gotten me most of the way there.”
“There are an absolute ton of very capable tiling window managers for macOS”
“Aerospace has been a game changer for me. I could never work with multiple monitors before that.”
“I use AeroSpace on mac os for tiling window management with spaces mapped per monitor”
“As someone who prefers keyboard navigation over mouse navigation, I can't recommend it enough.”
“it is great. Most other software that try to emulate a tiling window manager in windows/linux end up being too buggy and annoying to use full time”
“In order for me to work using macOS without constantly bemoaning what feel like obvious shortcomings I need aerospace and quite a few scripts.”
“Aerospace solves this, and many other design problems with Mac OS windowing.”
“Aerospace is what you need! The exact reason I decided on sticking with it.”
“It really makes it so much less tedious to move around my computer.”
“I can't get the Aerospace filing window manager to work like Qtile does. It's a shame.”
“You can have an i3-like window manager for macOS today if you wanted to”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.