# Hammerspoon vs Keyboard Maestro Published January 1, 2026 · Updated August 10, 2026 Hammerspoon and Keyboard Maestro are both Mac automation on a Mac, so the pick depends on workflow. Coders: Hammerspoon. Visual builders and teams: Keyboard Maestro. Many long-term Mac power users end up keeping both, split by job. As of October 2026, both install with brew install --cask hammerspoon and brew install --cask keyboard-maestro. Re-checked August 2026: Hammerspoon 1.0.0 and Keyboard Maestro 11.x still mark the two sane defaults outside Apple Shortcuts and BetterTouchTool. Hammerspoon is the right install when you want a free, open daemon you can extend without a canvas ceiling. Keyboard Maestro is the right purchase when you need recorded macros, conflict palettes, clipboard stacks, and a visual debugger teammates can read. Calling a single global winner would paper over that split. If Lua is fun for you, start with Hammerspoon. If you need throughput this hour, buy Keyboard Maestro. Long-term Mac power users often end up with both tools split by job: tiling and system watchers in Hammerspoon, text and clipboard workflows in Keyboard Maestro. ## Head to head | Factor | Hammerspoon | Keyboard Maestro | | --- | --- | --- | | Price | Free | Paid | | Open Source | No | No | | Replaces | Keyboard Maestro ($36) | — | | Best for | automation, lua, scripting | automation, macros, keyboard | | Install | brew install --cask hammerspoon | brew install --cask keyboard-maestro | | Category | System Utilities | System Utilities | ## Hammerspoon Powerful macOS automation tool using Lua scripting Install: `brew install --cask hammerspoon` [Hammerspoon on Bundl](https://bundl.run/apps/hammerspoon) ## Keyboard Maestro Automation software Install: `brew install --cask keyboard-maestro` [Keyboard Maestro on Bundl](https://bundl.run/apps/keyboard-maestro) ## Features - **Automation Model.** Code ceiling vs canvas floor still decides the winner. Hammerspoon rewards programmers, Keyboard Maestro rewards visual builders. - **Window & Workspace Control.** Hammerspoon wins for developers wanting bespoke tiling reactors; Keyboard Maestro is fine for deterministic snap palettes. - **Triggers & Event Reactivity.** Both are event-rich; Hammerspoon exposes more system signals via Lua, Keyboard Maestro exposes them as GUI triggers. - **Learning Curve & Onboarding.** Keyboard Maestro wins onboarding decisively; Hammerspoon's curve pays off later for coders. - **Text, Clipboard & Data Handling.** Keyboard Maestro's clipboard/text pipeline is best-in-class among Mac automators. - **Extensibility & Ecosystem.** Hammerspoon is the more open, hackable runtime; Keyboard Maestro is the richer out-of-the-box library. - **Reliability & Debugging.** Keyboard Maestro's visual debugger and logs shorten mean-time-to-fix for most users. - **Pricing & Licensing (2026).** Hammerspoon wins on price alone; Keyboard Maestro's one-time US$36 remains among the best values in paid Mac utilities. - **Maintenance & Platform Fit (Tahoe / Apple Silicon).** Both healthy August 2026; Keyboard Maestro's commercial rhythm edges platform-fit confidence for risk-averse shops. ## FAQ ### Which version should I install today on macOS Tahoe 26.x? Hammerspoon 1.0.0 (GitHub releases or Homebrew) and Keyboard Maestro 11.x (stairways.com / Homebrew). Both are universal, notarized, and require Accessibility permission after a major OS upgrade. ### Is Hammerspoon free? Is Keyboard Maestro a subscription? Hammerspoon is MIT free. US$0 forever. Keyboard Maestro is a one-time US$36 purchase (US$25 upgrade) in August 2026, not a subscription. Neither vendor moved to recurring billing by the re-check date. ### Do I need to code to use Hammerspoon? Yes. Hammerspoon automations are Lua functions against hs.* APIs. Spoons bundle reusable behaviors, but customizing them still means editing init.lua. If that sounds unwelcome, Keyboard Maestro's visual canvas is the faster fit. ### Can they replace Apple Shortcuts? They complement it. Shortcuts handles system integrations and iCloud automations; Hammerspoon covers daemon-like reactors and tiling you cannot express in Shortcuts; Keyboard Maestro covers clipboard/macro/palette depth that Shortcuts lacks. Many power users run two of the three. ### Which is more reliable for window management? Hammerspoon gives finer-grained tiling reactors but demands defensive Lua (nil windows on Space transitions). Keyboard Maestro's Manipulate Windows actions are more predictable if you only need deterministic halves/thirds and app-specific placement. ### Can I run both at once? Yes, but coordinate hotkeys to avoid conflicts. Typical combo: Hammerspoon owns tiling and menubar widgets in Lua; Keyboard Maestro owns text expansion, clipboard history, and recorded workflows. Give Accessibility to both. ### Which has better clipboard history? Keyboard Maestro. Named clipboards, persistent history, clipboard filters, OCR, and regex follow-ups are built in. Hammerspoon can watch pasteboard with Lua, but you build the history UX yourself. ### How do teams share automations? Keyboard Maestro macros paste as XML/plist and can be synced via iCloud/Dropbox. Hammerspoon configs are Lua files, version-control them in git and share Spoons on GitHub. Visual macros are more readable to non-programmers. ### Did pricing change since early 2026? No material change in this August re-check: Hammerspoon stayed free/MIT at 1.0.0; Keyboard Maestro stayed at US$36 one-time. Always verify rectangleapp.com/hammerspoon.org/keyboardmaestro.com at checkout for taxes. ### Which is safer on battery-dependent Macs? Keyboard Maestro idles marginally cheaper because it fires only on triggers. Hammerspoon's impact depends on your Lua, tight hs.timer polling or aggressive window watchers can raise idle CPU, but a minimal init.lua is similarly frugal. ## Sources - [Hammerspoon official site](https://www.hammerspoon.org/) - [Hammerspoon GitHub releases (1.0.0 April 2026)](https://github.com/Hammerspoon/hammerspoon/releases) - [Homebrew cask: hammerspoon](https://formulae.brew.sh/cask/hammerspoon) - [Keyboard Maestro official site (pricing & v11)](https://www.keyboardmaestro.com/main/) - [Keyboard Maestro wiki. What's New (v11)](https://wiki.keyboardmaestro.com/manual/Whats_New) - [Keyboard Maestro. Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_Maestro) - [Homebrew cask: keyboard-maestro (alternative distribution metadata)](https://formulae.brew.sh/cask/keyboard-maestro) ## Related - [Keyboard Maestro vs Alfred](https://bundl.run/compare/keyboard-maestro-vs-alfred) ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "Organization", "@id": "https://bundl.run/#organization", "name": "Bundl.run", "url": "https://bundl.run", "logo": { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://bundl.run/og-image.png", "width": 1200, "height": 630 }, "description": "The Ninite for Mac. 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