Crest vs TopNotch: hide the notch, or use it?

These two apps want opposite things from the same piece of your screen. TopNotch makes the notch disappear into your wallpaper, for free. Crest hangs a working control panel from it for $24.99 once or $2.99 a month. Here is what each actually does, and why running both is a real answer.

Last updated: July 2026

Full disclosure: this page is published by the makers of Crest. TopNotch is a well made free app from the CleanShot team and we have described it from its own website rather than from memory, so this is useful whichever way you go.

Side by side

The comparison table is at the top of this page.

Where TopNotch is better

• It is free, and it stays free. There is no tier, no trial and no upsell waiting for you.
• It solves the actual complaint. If what you want is for the notch to stop existing, an app that puts a panel under it has not helped you at all.
• It runs older Macs. macOS 11 and up, against Crest's macOS 14.
• It knows when to be invisible. It watches for wallpaper changes and handles multiple displays and spaces, then gets out of the way. That restraint is the whole design.

Where Crest is better

• It gives you something back. The notch is the one part of the screen your eyes already know how to find. Crest puts what is playing, your next meeting, your todos, CPU, battery, and your clipboard history there, so you stop opening windows to check things.
• It answers Claude Code. When an agent asks permission, the request pins to the notch until you allow or deny it, on whatever display you are looking at. No other notch app does this.
• It has a real free tier. Now Playing, the Shelf, the Clipboard and window snapping stay free, so you only pay if it earns it.
• It behaves on battery. Animations pause on battery and the panel sleeps when your Mac does.

Why you can run both

Two notch apps usually collide, because both want to own the same strip. This pair does not. TopNotch changes how your wallpaper meets the menu bar, which is a wallpaper job. Crest hangs a panel below the notch when you reach for it, which is a panel job. Nothing about either one needs the other to stop.

That combination is genuinely nice: the notch disappears while you write, and turns into a control room when you go looking for it.

The pricing math

TopNotch is free. Crest is $24.99 once, with Take and Minutes, or $2.99 a month, with a free tier underneath it and a 7 day trial of everything else. Crest never requires a subscription; the monthly plan is there if you prefer it.

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