Omacosy – Omarchy-style tiling desktop for macOS, no SIP

I have been using omarchy on my tower since nearly a year now, shortly after it was released first. I really love the experience I am having with it but I still use my macbook for daly work, so I wanted to recreate a similar experience on it. Thats why I created omacosy, a setup for tiling windows, custom menu bar, some themes from omarchy, focus follows mouse, focus rings around windwos, some mac flavors with trackpad events and a custom mission control overview for your workspaces.I used AeroSpace over yabai for the tiling window manager because I didnt wanted to compromise on SIP which is a mac security feature. It is supposed to be keyboard first like omarchy to move windows organize workspaces etc The setup runs around 157mb of ram and consists of AeroSpace, Karabiner (for the super key), and five small self build swift binaries.I am running it daily on my M1 max macbook, currently on macOS26. I havent tested it much on other macbooks or macOS versions. The install script creates a manifest file to backup what was installed before and what it installed itself, the uninstall script takes that into account to clean up the macbook to exactly the state it was in before. It needs quite some permissions for it sfunctionality which I layed our in the project readme. I wanted to be really transparent about which permissions it uses and for what reason.I would love to get some feedback or see people trying it out and hearing your opinion. Mostly about what still doesnt feel smooth in the experience or if you find any performance issues.

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FL score

62

out of 100

Verdict

VALIDATE

medium confidence

Competition

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Trend

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A tiling window manager for macOS that respects system security by avoiding SIP disabling, targeting power users who want Linux-style window management on their MacBooks.

The pain

macOS lacks native tiling window management. Existing solutions like yabai require disabling System Integrity Protection, which creates security vulnerabilities and breaks with each macOS update. Power users switching between Linux/Omarchy and macOS experience friction from manual window management.

The gap

No tiling window manager exists for macOS that delivers a smooth, keyboard-first experience without compromising security. The creator built this for themselves but hasn't validated whether others share this specific pain point enough to pay for it or recommend it.

Build angle

Start by shipping to the Omarchy community (people who already love that experience) and gather specific friction points. Create a public roadmap addressing macOS version compatibility and performance testing across M1/M2/Intel chips. Position as the 'security-first' alternative to yabai, not a yabai replacement. Consider freemium model: free core tiling + paid themes/advanced workspace management.

Strengths

  • Creator uses it daily, real eating-your-own-dog-food validation
  • Solves a genuine security tradeoff that competitors ignore
  • Low resource footprint (157MB) shows engineering discipline
  • Transparent about permissions and clean uninstall shows trustworthiness
  • Clear technical differentiation (AeroSpace + custom binaries vs yabai)
  • Keyboard-first design appeals to power users with existing mental models

Risks

  • Extremely niche audience, only macOS power users who know about tiling managers and care about SIP
  • Limited testing (only M1 Max, macOS 26), will break on other hardware/versions and damage reputation
  • No evidence of market demand beyond creator's own need; Omarchy community size unknown
  • High friction to adoption: requires installing multiple tools, granting permissions, learning new workflow
  • Maintenance burden: each macOS update could break functionality; creator is solo
  • Competing against free yabai; unclear what monetization story exists
  • No distribution channel, found on HackerNews but no clear path to target users
  • Swift binaries + Karabiner + AeroSpace = complex dependency chain that could fragment

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