The short answer. These tools change Dock behaviour rather than app behaviour. Lock the Dock to one display in a multi-monitor setup: DockAnchor. Hide it automatically: IntelliDock. Replace it: Sidebar or Tungsten Edge. Dock windows to screen edges: Dockit. That last one is a window tool despite the name — it moves windows, not the Dock.
This guide covers 5 dock utilities for macOS. Every fact below is drawn from the same verified records that back each app’s own page. The recommendations are our editorial judgment, not payment.
Quick comparison
| App | What it is | Pricing | Licence | Version |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DockAnchor | dock utility | Open source | MIT | 2.1.0 |
| Dockit | window manager | Open source | not published | — |
| IntelliDock | system tool | not published | not published | 1.0 |
| Sidebar | system tool | not published | not published | — |
| Tungsten Edge | system tool | Open source | GPL-3.0 | 0.15.0 |
What actually decides this
- Changing the Dock or replacing it. A tool that adjusts the Dock leaves the rest of the system intact. A replacement changes how you launch everything and deserves a longer trial.
- Multi-display behaviour. The Dock appears on the display with the focused window by default, which surprises people with two or three monitors. This is the single most common reason to look at this category.
- How the change is triggered. Automatic hiding works until an app puts a badge on an icon and you need the Dock back at once. Check whether the trigger is a shortcut, an edge, or only a timeout.
- What it costs in screen area. The Dock is a permanent strip of pixels. A replacement can be smaller, but only if you accept a different way of finding apps.
- Whether it also touches the menu bar. Some Dock tools extend to the menu bar or to a second bar. That widens what the tool controls and can start to overlap with a menu bar manager, which is a separate purchase.
Our picks
- DockAnchor — The Dock moving between displays is the default behaviour, and pinning it is the entire fix. Choose it when you use more than one display and want the Dock to stay where you put it.
- IntelliDock — Automatic hiding is what it does, and macOS only offers a crude version of it. Choose it when you want the Dock out of the way except when you ask for it.
- Sidebar — It is a Dock replacement, which is a bigger change than anything else here and should be judged as one. Choose it when you want to replace the Dock rather than adjust it.
- Tungsten Edge — It gives every window its own labelled card, which solves window finding rather than Dock behaviour. Choose it when you want a per-window taskbar because you lose windows behind each other.
The apps
DockAnchor
DockAnchor is a dock utility for macOS. Lock the macOS Dock to a single screen in a multi-monitor setup. It is released under MIT.
DockAnchor is listed with current version 2.1.0.
Full profile and verified facts for DockAnchor →
Dockit
Dockit is a window manager for macOS. An application that can dock any window to the edge of the screen. It is open source.
Full profile and verified facts for Dockit →
IntelliDock
IntelliDock is a system tool for macOS. Hides the Dock, Automatically. Its pricing is not published.
IntelliDock is listed with current version 1.0.
Full profile and verified facts for IntelliDock →
Sidebar
Sidebar is a system tool for macOS. The modern Dock replacement for your Mac. Its pricing is not published.
What it does. The modern Dock replacement for your Mac. All features at a glance.
Full profile and verified facts for Sidebar →
Tungsten Edge
Tungsten Edge is a system tool for macOS. Per-window taskbar and Dock replacement: every open window gets its own labeled card, while single-window apps stay compact icons. It is released under GPL-3.0.
What it does. Window-level taskbar — one card per window; multi-window apps split into multiple cards; click to switch / minimize. Smart native-tab merging — apps where “tabs are windows” (Ghostty, Finder) keep a stable card while you switch tabs: it won’t jump around or split. App drawer — stash rarely-used apps into a drawer on the right to keep the strip clean; pin favorites in the drawer to use it as a launcher. Drag to organize — reorder cards by dragging; drag a card into the drawer to stash it; drag it back out and it lands exactly where you drop it.
Tungsten Edge is listed with current version 0.15.0.
Full profile and verified facts for Tungsten Edge →
How to choose
- No licence fee, source available. DockAnchor, Dockit and Tungsten Edge — the source can be read and, under the terms of each licence, reused.
- Pricing not published in our data. IntelliDock and Sidebar — check the developer’s own site before assuming anything about cost.
Open source: DockAnchor, Dockit and Tungsten Edge (3 of 5).
Common mistakes
- Buying a Dock replacement to solve a window-switching problem. If you lose windows, a window switcher is the cheaper fix.
- Hiding the Dock and then being unable to find a running app that has no visible window.
- Installing a Dock tool and a window manager that both claim the screen edge. Whichever loads last wins, unpredictably.
- Judging a replacement on day one. Muscle memory takes longer to rebuild than most people expect.
- Hiding the Dock to reclaim pixels and then installing a menu bar tool that takes the same space back.
- Expecting a Dock tool to survive a macOS update unchanged. The Dock is one of the surfaces Apple adjusts most often between releases.
How this guide was put together
Each app’s facts come from its own record: the developer’s own pages and repository, the App Store listing where one exists, and the documentation, each with a source grade and an access date. Where a fact rests on the developer’s own statement rather than on something we verified independently, the sentence says so. Where our data has no value for something, the guide says “not published” instead of guessing.
A price appears here only where the record carries one from a stated source; the guide never estimates one, and it records the pricing model alongside so the two can be read together. Prices change and vary by region, so each app links to its own page for the current detail.
The facts and the recommendations are kept apart on purpose. Everything in the app entries, the comparison table and the answers above is composed from the records. The short answer, the criteria and the picks are our editorial judgment: they reflect what we would choose and why, and they are not paid for. Where we make a recommendation we name the condition it applies under, because we do not call anything “the best” without explaining the criteria.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I choose between these dock utilities?
There is no single answer — it depends on what you need. This guide covers 5 dock utilities: DockAnchor, Dockit, IntelliDock, Sidebar and Tungsten Edge. They differ mainly in pricing model, licence and the trade-offs each one carries. Pick by the trade-off you care about rather than by rank.
Are these dock utilities free?
Pricing across this group: open source (DockAnchor, Dockit and Tungsten Edge) and not published (IntelliDock and Sidebar). Where we list pricing as not published, the developer does not state a model we could verify — check their own site before assuming anything about cost. We quote a price only where the record carries one from a stated source, and we never estimate one. Prices change and vary by region and by store, so always check the developer’s own page for the current figure.
Which of these dock utilities are open source?
DockAnchor (MIT), Dockit (not published) and Tungsten Edge (GPL-3.0) are open source.
Do these dock utilities support Apple Silicon?
Our data does not carry an explicit Apple Silicon statement for any app in this group, so we do not claim one. The absence of a statement is not the same as the absence of support.
How do I choose between them?
Start with how you pay: the guide groups these apps by pricing model, because the budget is the constraint most people actually have. Then check the trade-offs listed for each app: the limitations are the part that decides most people’s choice, because they describe what the app will not do for you.
