Crest vs The Boring Notch: free vs free, honestly

Full disclosure: this page is published by the makers of Crest. The Boring Notch is a genuinely good project and we've kept its side fair, including the things it does better.

Side by side

Where The Boring Notch is better

• Everything is free. Every feature, forever, no upsell. That's a real advantage and we won't pretend otherwise.
• Open source. GPL-3.0, auditable code, an active community, and a Homebrew install. If open source matters to you on principle, this is the one.
• The music visualizer. Its live audio visualizer is a signature touch that genuinely delights people.
• A standalone camera mirror. A webcam preview you can pop open anytime. Crest checks your camera and mic from the meeting banner before a call, but doesn't do an always-on mirror.

Where Crest is better

• It installs like a real Mac app. Crest is signed and notarized by Apple. The Boring Notch's own README explains that macOS will flag it as from an unidentified developer, and you have to bypass Gatekeeper (via Terminal or System Settings) to run it. That's fine for tinkerers, offputting for everyone else.
• The core is free here too. Now Playing with lyrics and the queue, the file Shelf, the Clipboard and window snapping cost nothing, forever. For most people that's the same daily ground The Boring Notch covers, without the security dance. And Crest 6 lays the notch out as pages of widgets, Now, Home, Work and Code, that you arrange yourself.
• A much deeper paid tier if you want it. $24.99 once, or $2.99 a month, adds the other 13 widgets, plus Take and Minutes,, and every one earns its place: Claude (ask it, or just talk; it runs on your own Claude subscription with no API key, and when it suggests reminders, to-dos or calendar events it lays them out as a plan you tick and send with Do it), Calendar with one-tap meeting join, Reminders, Notes, Focus timer, System, Weather, Notifications, Batteries for the Mac and your Bluetooth devices, Controls for quick toggles and sound output, Hosts, and the developer pair below.
• Developer widgets nobody else has. GitHub pull requests and CI in the notch, plus live Claude Code, Codex and Copilot CLI session monitoring that pings the notch when an AI agent needs your permission, and a click that jumps you back to the exact terminal.
• Volume and brightness keys that still work on macOS 26. The trick notch apps use to draw their own volume overlay (suppressing the system one) stopped working on macOS 26 Tahoe, where Control Center draws the HUD, so those overlays now do nothing there. Crest intercepts the media keys directly and shows the level on the notch, so volume, mute and brightness keep working with a clean readout. You can also scroll on the notch to change the volume.
• Someone answers your email. Crest is one developer's full-time product with direct support. A volunteer project can be slower on fixes, and bug reports go into a public queue.

What we won't claim: that The Boring Notch is bad software. It's a lively project that keeps improving, and if you never leave its feature set you may never need Crest Pro. The honest pitch is simpler: Crest free matches the daily basics with a cleaner install, and Pro exists when you outgrow them.

The actual decision

Since both are free to run, this costs you nothing to settle: install one, live with it for a few days, then try the other (one at a time, they both own the notch). If you find yourself wanting to-dos, meeting join buttons, a Claude you can talk to, or your pull requests up there, that's when the $24.99 question even appears. Download Crest free to start the test.Free tier, no account · 7-day Pro trial, no card · macOS 14 or later

FAQ

More comparisons: Best Mac notch apps in 2026 · vs NotchNook · vs TopNotch · vs Perch · vs Notchmeister · vs Alcove · vs MediaMate · vs Droppy · Crest overview