Menu bar apps, compared

Two kinds of app live in the menu bar. Appearance apps change how the strip at the top of the screen looks; icon managers decide what is in it and, lately, style it a little too. Dynamic Menu Bar is the first kind. A tick means the feature ships today, a dash means the app does not have it, and text means it is there with a difference. Prices and requirements are as published on each maker's own page on September 6, 2026.

Apps that change how the bar looks

These do what Dynamic Menu Bar does: paint the strip at the top of the screen. Three of them work by editing a copy of the wallpaper, which is why they can hide the notch and cannot follow a window.

Feature	Dynamic Menu Bar$14.99 one Mac · $29.99 three, once	WandelBarFree · open source	Menu Bar TintFree	Boring Old Menu Bar€9.95 once · 14-day trial	TopNotchFree
Requires	macOS 26 Tahoe or later, Apple silicon	macOS 14 or later, Apple silicon	macOS 10.13 or later	macOS 11 or later	macOS 11 or later
How it paints the bar	An overlay beneath the bar’s text and icons	A band on a copy of the wallpaper	A tint over the bar	An opaque bar on a copy of the wallpaper	A black bar on a copy of the wallpaper
Live color from the screen	Yes	No	No	No	No
Solid color	Yes	Yes	Three sections	Light and dark	Black only
Gradient	Up to 10 stops	Yes	No	Not stated	No
Color that moves	Hue drift	No	Changes on hover	No	No
Blur	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
Textures	No	Yes	No	No	No
Shape	Full bar or floating pills	No	No	No	No
Rounded display corners	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes
The notch	Spread animation, notch stroke, dissolve behind it	No	No	Hides it	Hides it
Music visualizer	Yes	No	No	No	No
Light beam under the pointer	Yes	No	No	No	No
A different look per…	App	Space	No	Light and dark mode	No
Multiple displays	Coming soon	Yes	Not stated	Yes	Yes
Text and icons untouched	Yes	Yes	Tinted too	Yes	Yes
Open source	No	Yes	No	No	No

Icon managers that also style the bar

A different job: these decide which icons show and which hide, and both now tint and reshape the bar as a side feature. Dynamic Menu Bar is in the last column for the contrast; it does none of the managing, and it runs alongside either of them.

Feature	Bartender 6From $12 once · 4-week trial	IceFree · open source	Dynamic Menu BarAppearance app$14.99 one Mac · $29.99 three, once
Requires	macOS 15 Sequoia or later	macOS 14 or later	macOS 26 Tahoe or later, Apple silicon
Hides and shows icons	Yes	Yes	No
Finds hidden items	Quick Search	Ice Bar, search	No
Shows an item on a condition	Triggers	No	No
Tint	Color or gradient	Solid or gradient	Live from the screen, solid, gradient, hue drift, blur
Shape	Rounded or pill-shaped	Rounded or split	Full bar or floating pills
Rounded display corners	Yes	Yes	Yes
Live color from the screen	No	No	Yes
Color that moves	No	No	Hue drift
Music visualizer	No	No	Yes
A different look per…	Space	Light and dark mode	App
Open source	No	Yes	No

About each app

WandelBar — Paints a band onto a copy of the wallpaper behind Tahoe’s clear bar: solid or gradient tint, opacity, saturation, blur, shadow, textures, 26 presets, a design per Space. Free, GPL-3.0, macOS 14 Sonoma or later on Apple silicon. No live color, no motion, no music, nothing per app.
Menu Bar Tint — A tint over the bar in three sections, each with its own color and translucency, and a hover rule that changes or removes the tint under the pointer. Free, macOS 10.13 or later, updated for macOS 26. A fixed color only; the tint covers the text and icons as well.
Boring Old Menu Bar — Superimposes an opaque bar on a screenshot of the wallpaper, in a color of your choice with separate light and dark settings, optional rounded screen corners, multiple displays and Spaces; De-Notch-ifier is the same app preset to black. €9.95, macOS 11 Big Sur or later.
TopNotch — Hides the notch by putting a black bar across the top of the wallpaper, with optional rounded corners, on every display and Space, dynamic wallpapers included. Free, by the CleanShot team, macOS 11 or later. Black only; Forehead by Jordi Bruin is the same idea.
Bartender 6 — The long-standing icon manager: hidden items, groups, Quick Search, Triggers that apply presets by battery, Wi-Fi, location or time, item spacing. It also styles the bar — color or gradient tints, rounded or pill-shaped bars, borders, shadows, rounded display corners, a style per Space. From $12 one-time, macOS Sequoia or Tahoe.
Ice — The free, open-source icon manager: visible, hidden and always-hidden sections, the Ice Bar for hidden items beneath the notch, search, hotkeys. It also styles the bar — solid or gradient tint, shadow, border, rounded or split shapes, rounded screen corners, separate light and dark settings. GPL-3.0, macOS 14 or later.

Two more, for the record: ChangeMenuBarColor is a command-line tool that adds a colored strip to the wallpaper, and Forehead is TopNotch's twin. Both do one thing the wallpaper way. Missing an app that belongs here? Write to us and it goes in with the same care.

Questions

Is Dynamic Menu Bar an alternative to Bartender or Ice?

No — it does a different job. Bartender and Ice decide which icons show and hide the rest; Dynamic Menu Bar paints the bar beneath the icons and never moves them. If icons pile up behind the notch, you want a manager; if you want the bar in your own color, matched to the screen, or alive with music, you want Dynamic Menu Bar. The two run side by side; only keep one of them tinting the bar.

What is the closest free alternative to Dynamic Menu Bar?

WandelBar, if you are on macOS 26 Tahoe: a tinted, blurred or textured band behind the clear bar, free and open source. Menu Bar Tint for a plain fixed tint on any macOS. Neither follows the screen live, moves, reacts to music, changes per app, or draws beneath the text and icons rather than over the strip.

Which of these hides the notch?

TopNotch, Forehead and Boring Old Menu Bar paint the top of the wallpaper black, which makes the notch vanish into the bar. Dynamic Menu Bar does not hide it: its Spread animation grows out from the notch, a notch stroke can outline it, and the overlay can dissolve behind it.