Looking for a yabai alternative that doesn't touch SIP? yabai is BSP grid tiling from the terminal. ChainYourMac is a scrolling strip that never reflows. They disagree about what a layout should do when a new window appears.
yabai is free, scriptable to an absurd degree, and the right choice if you love BSP grids and the terminal. Its tiling works with SIP on; only its extras (Spaces management, animations, opacity and so on) need SIP partially disabled. ChainYourMac ($9.99, one time) is the other model: windows keep the size you set on a scrolling strip, configured from a GUI, with no SIP changes for any feature.
Try it right here — this is a working model of ChainYourMac, not a video.
A working model of ChainYourMac, not a video. Drag a title bar to reorder, click a Dock icon to open an app, close a window with its red button. In the real app every key here is ⌥ plus the key.
Switch if you want animations and Spaces integration without touching SIP, don't want a yabairc + hotkey-daemon stack, or you're tired of every new window resizing the others. Stay on yabai if BSP grids and a queryable CLI are the whole point — ChainYourMac will not do that. It does a strip.
yabai (now at github.com/asmvik/yabai) is a free, open-source (MIT) tiling window manager driven entirely from the command line. It arranges windows in binary-space-partition layouts — each new window splits an existing region in half — with stack and float modes available too. Configuration is a yabairc script full of CLI commands, hotkeys aren't built in — most people use the companion tool skhd, and its query interface lets you script practically anything about your window state.
It's a genuinely impressive project, and for terminal-native users it's the deepest tiling toolkit on macOS. That depth has a price: there's no GUI at all, the learning curve is steep, and its changelog shows scripting-addition fixes landing for specific macOS releases.
Then there's the SIP question. yabai's core tiling works on a stock Mac, but its advanced features — creating, destroying and moving Spaces, window animations, opacity, shadows, sticky windows, picture-in-picture — require partially disabling System Integrity Protection so yabai can inject a scripting addition into Dock.app (what works with SIP on). Plenty of people do it happily; plenty of people are not willing to relax a security boundary for window management.
ChainYourMac is a native macOS app (SwiftUI interface, Rust engine) built around a different model: the endless horizontal strip. Windows sit side by side at whatever size you give them; new windows slot in at the edge; you navigate by scrolling — a three- or four-finger swipe that follows your fingers, or Vim-style Option shortcuts. Nothing ever reflows.
Everything is configured from a GUI that applies instantly — width presets, gaps, gestures, window rules and shortcut recording. It works with native macOS Spaces (each Space keeps its own strip), runs an independent strip per display, and requires only the standard Accessibility permission. No SIP changes at any feature level, no config files, no companion tools.
This is the heart of it. In a BSP layout, screen space is a fixed pie: every new window takes a slice from an existing one, so your editor gets narrower as your day gets busier. That's not a yabai flaw — it's the BSP contract, and many people like the everything-always-visible discipline of it.
The strip makes the opposite trade. Your editor stays at the width you chose forever; new windows extend the strip past the screen edge instead of carving up what's visible. You see fewer windows at once and scroll between them — calm layouts, at the cost of the at-a-glance grid. Which contract you prefer is the whole decision.
The workflows differ as much as the layouts. Tuning yabai means editing yabairc, reloading, checking behavior, editing skhd for the matching hotkey, reloading again — a loop that terminal users find comfortable and everyone else finds like homework. Window animations are one of the features that need the SIP-disabled scripting addition, and that addition has to keep pace with macOS releases — part of the deal with any tool that reaches as deep as yabai does.
ChainYourMac's loop is: open the settings window, click the thing, watch it apply live. Rebinding a shortcut is click the field and press the keys. Windows glide between positions with spring animation synced to your display's refresh rate, and the app is notarized and updates itself like any other Mac software. Neither approach is wrong — they're just built for different owners.
| yabai | ChainYourMac | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free, open source | $9.99 one time, lifetime |
| Layout model | BSP grid (+ stack, float) | Scrolling horizontal strip |
| New window opens | Splits a region; others resize | Slots in at the edge; nothing resizes |
| Configuration | yabairc script + skhd hotkeys | GUI settings, applied instantly |
| SIP changes | Tiling: none. Spaces management, animations, opacity, sticky windows: partial disable | Never |
| Animations | Needs SIP partially disabled | Yes — synced to display refresh |
| Multi-monitor | Yes | Yes — independent strip per display |
| macOS Spaces | Create/destroy/move Spaces needs SIP disable | Yes — native, per-Space strips |
| Scriptability | Exceptional — full query CLI | URL scheme, CLI and Raycast commands |
| Learning curve | Steep | Minutes |
| Support | Community / GitHub issues | Direct email from the developer |
No hard feelings either way — yabai is superb at being yabai. The question is whether you want a grid you can program or a strip that stays out of your way.
Not for its core tiling. yabai's basic BSP layouts work with just the Accessibility permission. Its advanced features — creating, destroying and moving Spaces, window animations, opacity, shadows, sticky windows and a few more — require partially disabling System Integrity Protection so yabai can load a scripting addition into Dock.app. ChainYourMac never touches SIP at any feature level. Details: using yabai without disabling SIP.
Yes — yabai is free and open source, and it's an excellent piece of engineering. Hotkeys usually come from the separate skhd tool, and configuration lives in a yabairc script. ChainYourMac is a paid native app: $9.99 one time for a lifetime license with free updates.
No — and that's deliberate. ChainYourMac is built around the scrolling strip model, where windows keep their size and new windows never cause a reflow. If binary-space-partition grids are exactly what you want, yabai or AeroSpace are the better fit.
No — run one window manager at a time. Both continuously move and resize windows, so they'll fight over the same layout. Quit or disable one before starting the other.
Yes, natively. Each macOS Space keeps its own independent strip, and no SIP changes are needed for it. yabai can also work with Spaces, but its deeper Space-management features are the part that requires the SIP-disabled scripting addition.