App Tamer
Ranked 9 of 10 Mac utilities by recommenders
People use it to cap CPU use of background apps and daemons such as Backblaze, which gives them back a responsive Mac. The main caveat is that it doesn't tame everything.
People use it to cap CPU use of background apps and daemons such as Backblaze, which gives them back a responsive Mac. The main caveat is that it doesn't tame everything.
6 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 6
- criticize it
- 0
- approval share
- 100%
Recommended in 3 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 6 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- Nobody criticizes itNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 3 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not 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
Limits CPU use of background apps
“now using App Tamer to prevent the processes from continuing to use multiple cores”
Comment from 16 Oct 2026 in “Apple ML Research: Muse Spark Open with MLX on Mac Studio” “after I used App Tamer to set it to not use more than 20% of CPU resources”
Comment from 21 Jan 2026 in “Can you slim macOS down?” “It lets you jail background apps at 10% cp”
Comment from 28 Mar 2026 in “Make macOS consistently bad (unironically)” Stops background daemons hogging the machine
“Useful for keeping Backblaze and other daemons from taking over”
Comment from 17 Oct 2026 in “Apple ML Research: Muse Spark Open with MLX on Mac Studio” “it's given me my computer back for years now”
Comment from 16 Jan 2026 in “Can You Disable Spotlight and Siri in macOS Tahoe?” Works as needed from a serious developer
“that's quite a neat bit of kit. St. Clair does serious work”
Comment from 17 Oct 2026 in “Apple ML Research: Muse Spark Open with MLX on Mac Studio” “It's working great so far, just does what I need it to do.”
Comment from 18 Oct 2026 in “Apple ML Research: Muse Spark Open with MLX on Mac Studio”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Doesn't control every process
“helping a bit, but it doesn't allow me to tame everything”
Comment from 16 Oct 2026 in “Apple ML Research: Muse Spark Open with MLX on Mac Studio”
Other Mac utilities people recommend
The four most recommended other Mac utilities, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude usage menu bar app | 15 | 3 | 83% | 4 | — | Approved |
| noTunes by tombonez | 15 | 1 | 94% | 2 | — | — |
| PanicLock | 12 | 4 | 75% | 2 | — | — |
| Itsyhome | 12 | 0 | 100% | 1 | — | — |
| App TamerThis page | 6 | 0 | 100% | 3 | — | — |
What people said
All 9 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“It's working great so far, just does what I need it to do.”
“that's quite a neat bit of kit. St. Clair does serious work”
“Useful for keeping Backblaze and other daemons from taking over”
“now using App Tamer to prevent the processes from continuing to use multiple cores”
“helping a bit, but it doesn't allow me to tame everything”
“It lets you jail background apps at 10% cp”
“I highly recommend App Tamer”
“after I used App Tamer to set it to not use more than 20% of CPU resources”
“it's given me my computer back for years now”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.