CodexBar
Ranked 5 of 10 Mac utilities by recommenders
Free macOS menu bar app tracking Claude and Codex usage, with support for more providers; critics report high RAM use and crashes.
Free macOS menu bar app tracking Claude and Codex usage, with support for more providers; critics report high RAM use and crashes.
15 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 11
- criticize it
- 4
- approval share
- 73%
Recommended in 3 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 11 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 2.8 recommenders for every criticNeeds 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
Covers more providers than alternatives
“1.7k stars already and supporting more services”
Comment from 8 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: macOS menu bar app to track Claude usage in real time” “CodexBar covers a lot more ground.”
Comment from 8 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: macOS menu bar app to track Claude usage in real time” “which supports more providers”
Comment from 10 Jun 2026 in “Show HN: macOS menu bar gauges for your Claude Code quota” Tracks Claude and Codex usage
“CodexBar seems to do that good enough (and supports Codex)”
Comment from 10 Jun 2026 in “Show HN: macOS menu bar gauges for your Claude Code quota” “track the usage with something like codexbar or similar”
Comment from 13 Jun 2026 in “AI Coding at Home Without Going Broke” “particularly when you pair it with CodexBar”
Comment from 15 Jul 2026 in “Codex Micro”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
High RAM and CPU use
“takes 7GB of RAM on macOS shows just how little attention to performance/design he pays”
Comment from 30 Jan 2026 in “Moltbook is the most interesting place on the internet” “it spawns claude subprocesses that quickly eat up your RAM and CPU cycles”
Comment from 30 Jan 2026 in “Moltbook is the most interesting place on the internet”
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 | — | — |
| CodexBarThis page | 11 | 4 | 73% | 3 | — | — |
What people said
14 of the 16 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“particularly when you pair it with CodexBar”
“track the usage with something like codexbar or similar”
“it constantly freezes and crashes”
“CodexBar seems to do that good enough (and supports Codex)”
“which supports more providers”
“it spawns claude subprocesses that quickly eat up your RAM and CPU cycles”
“Now, the quality _is_ not great and I get prompted at least once a day to enter my keychain access”
“takes 7GB of RAM on macOS shows just how little attention to performance/design he pays”
“His other projects like CodexBar and Oracle are great too”
“CodexBar keeps saying "Claude usage probe timed out"”
“the cask script and it has a hardcoded dependency on arm which prevents brew from installing”
“I am on Intel and that doesn't run”
“CodexBar covers a lot more ground.”
“1.7k stars already and supporting more services”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.