Crest vs NotchNook: which notch app should you get?

Full disclosure: this page is published by the makers of Crest. We've kept the NotchNook side fair and specific, including the things it genuinely does better, so this is useful whichever app you end up with.

Side by side

Where NotchNook is better

• Track record. NotchNook has been around longer, ships frequent updates, and holds roughly 89% positive across 1,400+ Setapp reviews. Crest is the newest app in the category and can't claim that history yet.
• Customization. Colors, layouts, haptic feedback, fine-grained options everywhere. If you love tweaking every pixel, NotchNook is the deepest.
• AirDrop drop zone. Its tray includes a dedicated AirDrop target that reviewers consistently praise.
• Setapp. If you already pay for Setapp, NotchNook is effectively included in your subscription.

Where Crest is better

• A real free tier. Now Playing (with lyrics and the queue), the file Shelf with clipboard history, and window snapping are free forever, and the free home glance shows your pinned modules live. NotchNook gives you a trial, then asks for money. With Crest you only pay if the free tier wins you over.
• Price. $19.99 once vs $25 once, and there's no subscription pull: $3/month with NotchNook is $36 a year for the same app.
• Three modes, one Auto switch. Crest 4.0 arranges the notch into Home, Work and Code. Auto follows what you're doing: a meeting coming up flips it to Work, your editor in front flips it to Code, and a manual pick always wins.
• Battery and sleep, by design. The most common complaints about notch apps in general (and NotchNook in user reviews) are battery drain and freezing after sleep/wake. Crest was built against exactly those: animations pause on battery and Low Power Mode, monitors suspend while your Mac sleeps and re-pin on wake.
• Developer modules nobody else has. Crest can show your GitHub pull requests and CI status in the notch, and watch live Claude Code and Codex sessions, pinging the notch when an AI coding agent needs your permission and jumping you back to the exact terminal. If you write code, this alone may decide it.
• A Claude co-pilot in the notch. Ask it, or just talk to it, and it answers on your own Claude subscription with no API key. Say "remind me to call the bank at 6 and add finish the deck to my todos" and it turns your words into real reminders, todos, notes and calendar events that you approve with one tap. NotchNook has nothing like it.
• Volume and brightness on the notch, on macOS 26. Crest catches the media keys and flashes the level on the notch, and it keeps working on macOS 26 Tahoe where the older system-overlay approach stopped working.
• On-device privacy. Crest has no account, no analytics and no servers reading your activity; every module runs entirely on your Mac.

What we won't claim: that Crest is more polished than NotchNook. NotchNook has years of refinement behind it. What we do claim are the specific engineering choices above, and a price and free tier that let you judge Crest without spending anything.

The pricing math

Both apps sell a lifetime license: $19.99 for Crest Pro, $25 for NotchNook. NotchNook also offers $3/month, which passes the one-time price after five months. Crest Pro includes free updates for life and activates on up to 2 Macs. If price matters, Crest is the cheaper path to a full notch hub; if you're on Setapp already, NotchNook is effectively bundled.

Try before you decide

This is the easiest comparison to settle yourself, because trying costs nothing: NotchNook has a time-limited trial; Crest's free tier never expires, and Pro has its own 7-day trial now too. Run one, then the other (not both at once, they both own the notch), and keep the one that fits how you work. Download Crest free to start.

FAQ

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