Overview
As someone who primarily uses MacOS, I find that I need a way to quickly jump from application to application as fast as possible and by default MacOS does not have a good way to do this. Alt-Tab is an okay method of jumping to your last used application but when I discovered Window Managers (WM) like Aerospace and Yabai I could not go back. The basic idea is that the user can create multiple “spaces” with assigned applications, similar to virtual desktops on MacOS and Windows. Then you can quickly switch between spaces with keyboard shortcuts.
Current Choice
Currently I use Aerospace for it’s nearly instant space switching, ease of use, and I do not need to disable System Integrity Protection (SIP) on MacOS which is a requirement for Yabai.
My Journey to find the right WM
Yabai
I use a window manager called Yabai on my work computer and I have spoken highly of it in the past. I use a 2019 Intel MacBook Pro at my full time job which is prone to overheating and poor performance when running anything beyond IntelliJ. For this reason, I’ve found Yabai to be the most performant and best overall option despite it’s shortcomings. Most notably, Yabai does not allow near-instant space switching without disabling SIP, which most certainly cannot be done on a work machine managed by an organization.
Aerospace
I have recently switched to Aerospace as my window manager because of a YouTube recommendation from Josean Martinez and Ben Vallack. I was excited for an alternative that was so similar to Yabai but praised for being better. I was intrigued by the accordion style window layout but was pleasantly surprised with how often I found myself using it. This is absolutely the best option that I have found so far and I definitely recommend Josean’s tutorial for setup and feature walkthrough!