#The shortlist at a glance
A disclosure first, because it shapes the list: NotchBay is a Swift app, and every build and release of it happens on the MacBooks this stack is installed on. That keeps the recommendations honest in a specific way: where a claim below is personal experience, it is experience from shipping that one app; everything else is stated so you can verify it on the vendor's site. Nearly every list of must have Mac apps for developers opens with the same three categories, terminal, editor, launcher, and this one does too, because that part of the consensus is correct. Prices and versions move constantly, so treat any number here as a pointer, not a quote.
| Category | What it does | What I reach for | Also worth a look |
|---|---|---|---|
| Terminal | Shell, SSH, scripting | Ghostty | iTerm2, Warp |
| Editor / IDE | Writing and reading code | VS Code | Cursor, Xcode |
| Launcher | Apps, snippets, clipboard, scripts | Raycast | Alfred |
| Window management | Snap windows to halves and quarters | Rectangle | Built-in tiling, Magnet |
| Package manager | Install CLIs and apps | Homebrew | - |
| Database client | Browse and query data | TablePlus | - |
| HTTP debugger | Inspect and rewrite traffic | Proxyman | - |
| Git client | Visual diffs and history | Fork | Tower |
| Notch dashboard | Claude usage, agents, clipboard | NotchBay | - |
"What I reach for" is personal preference, not a verdict; the alternatives are all solid. Verify current pricing and system requirements on each app's own site.
#Terminal, editor, launcher: the daily three
Three apps carry most of a coding day, and they are the ones to set up first on a fresh install.
The terminal
iTerm2 is the long-standing power-user default with split panes and deep configuration. Warp rebuilds the terminal around command blocks and built-in AI help. Ghostty, free and open source, is the newest of the three and the quickest to make your own, because its entire configuration is a plain-text file at ~/.config/ghostty/config. One line from that file is a good taste of it:
keybind = global:cmd+grave_accent=toggle_quick_terminal
That option gives you a quick terminal: press Cmd and backtick in any app and a terminal slides down over whatever you are doing, then tucks away again. The global: prefix is what makes the shortcut work system-wide, and macOS will ask for an accessibility permission to allow it, the same permission NotchBay has to request for its own system-wide features. Any of the three terminals is a fine pick, and the built-in Terminal.app covers occasional use.
The editor
Most developers land on VS Code, the free Microsoft editor with an enormous extension market, or Cursor, the fork that bakes AI pair programming into the same shell. The honest note from this desk: NotchBay is written in Swift and SwiftUI, so the app this site exists for gets built in Xcode, Apple's free IDE, every day. If you want to see what a from-scratch Xcode project looks like, the walkthrough on how to make a Mac app starts from an empty one.
The launcher
Raycast and Alfred both open apps, run scripts, expand snippets and keep clipboard history behind a single hotkey, quietly replacing a dozen small utilities. What separates Raycast is its extension store. One concrete example: install the community Brew extension and you get a Search Brew command that looks up any Homebrew formula or cask by name and installs, upgrades or uninstalls it from the launcher window, no terminal round-trip. Alfred's workflows are the older, deeply customizable alternative. Both have free tiers with paid upgrades, so check their sites for what the pro features cost.
#The plumbing: Homebrew, windows, data, HTTP
Under those three sit the tools that do quiet, load-bearing work.
Homebrew is the package manager the rest of this list hangs off. Install it from brew.sh, and then most of this post is a single command:
brew install --cask ghostty visual-studio-code raycast rectangle tableplus proxyman fork
The --cask flag is the detail newcomers miss: it is how Homebrew installs GUI apps rather than command-line tools. From then on, brew upgrade updates everything it manages in one pass, which is the whole argument for installing apps this way.
Rectangle snaps windows with keyboard shortcuts, free and open source. Learn the defaults before customizing anything: Ctrl-Option-Left fills the left half of the screen, Ctrl-Option-Right the right half, and Ctrl-Option-Return maximizes. macOS 26 (Tahoe) ships its own window tiling, so try the built-in option first and add Rectangle if you want finer control and more positions.
A database client saves you from squinting at query output in a terminal. TablePlus puts a clean native window over Postgres, MySQL, SQLite and more; its free tier limits how many tabs and connections you can keep open, workable for a side project, tight for a full work week. Check their site for the current terms.
Proxyman, the HTTP debugger, earns its slot with one feature: breakpoints. Set a breakpoint on an endpoint and Proxyman pauses the matching request or response mid-flight, lets you edit the headers, the JSON body or the status code by hand, then resumes delivery. Turning a 200 into a 500 on the way back answers a question no unit test quite does: what your app actually shows the user when the server misbehaves. It decrypts HTTPS with a local certificate and captures iOS simulator traffic too; there is a free tier, with paid plans listed on their site.
#A Git client you actually trust
Git on the command line is fine until a merge goes sideways. A visual Git client turns a tangled history into something you can read. Fork and Tower both give you clear diffs, interactive staging and a history graph you can follow; Fork is the lighter tool with a one-time license, Tower the heavier subscription option aimed at teams. If you live inside VS Code, its built-in source-control panel handles most day-to-day work without a separate app. Whatever you pick, the value is the same: seeing a diff before you commit it, and untangling a rebase without memorizing flags.
Plenty of these tools also live up in your menu bar. I keep a separate rundown of the menu bar apps for developers I rely on, and a wider list of the best Mac apps for everything outside a dev setup.
#The notch as a dev dashboard
The last item is the one we built, so read the praise with that bias in mind. NotchBay turns the space around the MacBook notch into a small developer dashboard, and two features earn their place for me.
First, it shows Claude Code usage and the status of running agents at a glance, so I can see how much of my plan window is left and whether a background agent is still working without switching to a terminal. If you run coding agents, the piece on a Dynamic Island for AI agents and the guide to monitor Claude Code on your Mac go deeper on how that works.
Second, it keeps an OCR clipboard history in the notch, so text I copied earlier, including text lifted out of a screenshot, sits one glance away instead of buried in a paste buffer I already overwrote.
NotchBay is itself a product of this stack: written in Swift and SwiftUI, built in Xcode, versioned through Git, shipped by scripts run from a terminal on the same machines this post describes. It runs on Apple Silicon MacBooks with a notch on macOS 26 (Tahoe), $19 one-time with a 14-day money-back guarantee. It is not going to replace your terminal or editor; it just puts the two signals we check most while coding, usage and clipboard, where your eyes already are.
#Frequently asked questions
What are the must-have Mac apps for developers?
A terminal (Ghostty, iTerm2 or Warp), an editor (VS Code, Cursor or Xcode), a launcher (Raycast or Alfred), Homebrew, a window manager like Rectangle, a database client like TablePlus, an HTTP debugger like Proxyman, and a Git client like Fork. NotchBay adds a Claude usage and clipboard dashboard in the notch.
Do I need to pay for any of these?
No. Ghostty, VS Code, Homebrew and Rectangle are free and open source, and Raycast, TablePlus and Proxyman have free tiers. NotchBay is paid. Pricing changes often, so confirm the current terms on each app's own site.
Which terminal is best on a Mac?
There is no single best one; iTerm2, Warp and Ghostty are all strong, and the built-in Terminal covers light use. Pick whichever matches how you work and switch if it gets in your way; shell configs move over easily.
Is Homebrew safe to install?
Homebrew is a widely used, open-source package manager installed by a large share of Mac developers. Install it from the official brew.sh site and avoid pasting install commands copied from random blogs.
What is the best window manager for Mac?
Rectangle is the popular free, open-source choice for snapping windows with keyboard shortcuts. macOS 26 (Tahoe) also ships built-in tiling, so try that first. Paid options like Magnet exist if you want extras.
How does NotchBay help developers specifically?
It shows Claude Code usage and running-agent status in the notch and keeps an OCR clipboard history there, so usage limits, agent progress and earlier copies stay visible without leaving your editor.
Do these apps run on Apple Silicon and macOS 26?
Most run on both Intel and Apple Silicon across recent macOS versions. NotchBay specifically requires an Apple Silicon MacBook with a notch on macOS 26 (Tahoe). Check each app's site for its current minimum.
