Crest vs NotchNook: which notch app should you get?

Full disclosure: this page is published by the makers of Crest. We've kept the NotchNook side fair and specific, including the things it genuinely does better, so this is useful whichever app you end up with.

Update, 3 October 2026: You cannot buy NotchNook anywhere we can find. Its maker’s site, lo.cafe, shows a statement from one of NotchNook’s co-founders about a dispute over control of the company behind the app, instead of the app. It says NotchNook has not ended and that access will be restored as soon as they are able to. The NotchNook page, lo.cafe/notchnook, answers “not found”, Setapp’s NotchNook address opens its general catalog, and Homebrew disabled its NotchNook cask on 19 September 2026 because the download could not be reached. We are not taking sides, and we will update this page when it changes.

Coming from NotchNook

Nothing imports from NotchNook, so here is where each thing you used lives in Crest, and whether it is in the free tier or needs Crest Pro.

Download Crest freeFree tier, no account · 7-day Pro trial, no card · macOS 14 or later

Free forever. Pro free for 7 days, no card needed.

Side by side

Where NotchNook is better

• Track record. NotchNook has been around longer, shipped frequent updates, and Setapp users rated it about 89% positive across 1,400+ reviews. Crest is the newest app in the category and can't claim that history yet.
• Customization. Colors, layouts, haptic feedback, fine-grained options everywhere. If you love tweaking every pixel, NotchNook is the deepest.
• AirDrop drop zone. Its tray includes a dedicated AirDrop target that reviewers consistently praise.
• Setapp, once. It used to come with a Setapp membership. On 3 October 2026 Setapp’s NotchNook page opened its general catalog instead.

Where Crest is better

• A real free tier. Now Playing (with lyrics and the queue), the file Shelf, the Clipboard, and window snapping are free forever. NotchNook gave you a trial, then asked for money. With Crest you only pay if the free tier wins you over.
• You can buy it. Crest is $24.99 once or $2.99 a month, sold and supported today. NotchNook was $25 once or $3/month, and right now it is not on sale.
• Pages of widgets, arranged your way. Crest 6 lays the notch out as a row of pages, Now, Home, Work and Code, each holding widgets you arrange yourself. Swipe with two fingers or use the arrow keys to move between them, and stretch a widget to resize it.
• Battery and sleep, by design. The most common complaints about notch apps in general (and NotchNook in user reviews) are battery drain and freezing after sleep/wake. Crest was built against exactly those: animations pause on battery and Low Power Mode, monitors suspend while your Mac sleeps and re-pin on wake.
• Developer widgets nobody else has. Crest can show your GitHub pull requests and CI status in the notch, and watch live Claude Code, Codex and Copilot CLI sessions, pinging the notch when an AI coding agent needs your permission and jumping you back to the exact terminal. If you write code, this alone may decide it.
• Claude in the notch. Ask it, or just talk to it, and it answers on your own Claude subscription with no API key. Say “remind me to call the bank at 6 and add finish the deck to my to-dos” and it lays out a plan of real reminders, to-dos and calendar events: tick what you want and press Do it. Nothing runs before that. NotchNook has nothing like it.
• Volume and brightness on the notch, on macOS 26. Crest catches the media keys and shows the level on the notch, and it keeps working on macOS 26 Tahoe where the older system-overlay approach stopped working. Scroll on the notch to change the volume.
• On-device privacy. Crest needs no account for its free tier, sends no tracking (just an anonymous install count you can turn off) and has no servers reading your activity; every widget runs entirely on your Mac.

What we won't claim: that Crest is more polished than NotchNook. NotchNook has years of refinement behind it. What we do claim are the specific engineering choices above, and a price and free tier that let you judge Crest without spending anything.

The pricing math

Crest Pro is $24.99 once, with Take and Minutes and updates through Crest 7, on up to 2 Macs, or $2.99 a month with every update. NotchNook sold a $25 lifetime licence or $3 a month, which passed the one-time price after five months, and came with Setapp. On 3 October 2026 none of those was on offer: its page answered “not found”, Setapp no longer listed it and Homebrew had disabled its cask.

Try before you decide

This is the easiest comparison to settle yourself, because trying Crest costs nothing: its free tier never expires, and Pro has its own 7-day trial. NotchNook had a time-limited trial, but on 3 October 2026 there was nowhere to download it. If you already own it, run one, then the other (not both at once, they both own the notch), and keep the one that fits how you work. Download Crest free to start.Free tier, no account · 7-day Pro trial, no card · macOS 14 or later

FAQ

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