ChainYourMac vs Amethyst: auto-tiling vs the scrolling strip

What Amethyst is

Amethyst is a free, open-source tiling window manager inspired by xmonad. It automatically arranges your windows into cyclable layouts — tall (one main window, others stacked beside it), wide, fullscreen, column, and more — and you flip between layouts and shuffle windows with keyboard shortcuts. Unlike the terminal-first tilers, it has an actual preferences window, needs no SIP changes, and works minutes after installing. That's why it's so often the first tiling manager people try on a Mac, and it's earned its place.

Its limits are the flip side of its simplicity: the preferences GUI is basic, layout logic is ratio-based rather than precise, and apps with minimum window sizes (think Spotify or some Electron apps) can fight the layout engine. Development is community-driven, so polish arrives at community pace.

What ChainYourMac is

ChainYourMac is a native macOS app — SwiftUI interface, Rust engine — built on the scrolling-strip model. Windows sit side by side on an endless horizontal strip at the widths you choose. New windows never trigger a reflow; they slot in at the edge and the strip extends. You navigate by scrolling: trackpad swipes with native momentum, or vim-style shortcuts, with 120 fps spring animations.

It's GUI-first everywhere — width presets, focus-follows-mouse, gestures, window rules, shortcut recording, all with live reload — plus window stacking, an independent strip per display, and native macOS Spaces integration.

The reflow problem, named

Here's the trade at the center of this comparison. Amethyst's layouts divide the screen among however many windows exist. Open a fourth window in tall layout and the other three make room; close it and they expand back. The layout is always "correct" — and never stable. For some people that's the entire appeal: everything visible, always.

For everyone else, it's a slow drip of annoyance: your editor is a different width at 4pm than it was at 9am, and you never chose either. The strip model was invented for exactly this. Your editor is 60% wide because you made it 60% wide, and it will still be 60% wide next week. The screen doesn't re-divide; the strip just gets longer, and you scroll.

Where Amethyst genuinely shines

Credit where due: Amethyst's on-ramp is unbeatable. Install it, grant Accessibility, and your windows are tiling before you've read any documentation — no config file, no CLI, no cost. For checking whether tiling suits you at all, it's the perfect experiment, and if the tall layout happens to match how you work, you may be done shopping entirely.

The friction shows up at the edges: apps with minimum window sizes can wrestle the layout engine, precise per-window sizing isn't really the model, and when a layout misbehaves your options are cycling to a different one or shuffling windows until it settles. None of that is disqualifying for a free tool — it's just where the ceiling is, and it's exactly the ceiling the strip model removes.

ChainYourMac vs Amethyst, side by side

Which one should you pick?

Choose Amethyst if…

• you want to try automatic tiling for free before deciding how deep to go;
• everything-visible-at-once layouts are the point for you, and reflow doesn't bother you;
• xmonad-style cyclable layouts are your favorite feature.

Choose ChainYourMac if…

• you tried auto-tiling and the constant resizing is what pushed you away;
• you want per-window widths that persist, plus stacking when you need density;
• you're trackpad-first and want gestures with real momentum;
• you want per-display strips and native Spaces without extra setup.

Amethyst is a great free on-ramp to tiling. ChainYourMac is where a lot of tiling users end up once they realize the reflow was the part they never liked.

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