Ask HN: Windows/Linux software that has no real equivalent on macOS?

9 points by fastily 191 days ago | 21 comments

Asking about productivity software and not video games. I’m curious about any niches that are underserved and/or have no real alternatives

mmooss 191 days ago |

Industry-specific applications often run only on Windows: Small organizations make them, limiting capacity to support more platforms, and their clients are businesses and therefore usually use Windows. For example, I'd expect that most software for running accountants' offices would run only on Windows.

A big exception is vendor-hosted browser-based software, which can run on more platforms. Some features could still be Windows-only. Another exception is phone-based software.

Shawnj2 189 days ago | |

Yeah one example is you can’t run Altium on macOS. You can run eagle which is similar but not the same thing as altium and has no compatibility with it.

al_borland 190 days ago |

The only thing I really miss at work after moving from Windows to macOS is AutoHotKey.

I tried Hammerspoon. I thought having a more normal language (lua) would make it easier, but it felt more like fewer batteries were included, which made the ramp up seem steeper. Trivial things in AHK seemed like they needed a lot of extra supporting functions to enable it in HS. Some rose colored glasses could be involved here as well, as AHK had a lot of its own quirks I had to work around to make it reliable… but that was for robust code, not simple functionality. I also had a lot of downtime at work when first using AHK… time I didn’t have when I was trying to get HS going. I stopped using it while trying to diagnose some mouse/windowing issues I was having. It’s safe to say it wasn’t the problem, but I haven’t gone back to it.

AppleScript exists, and JavaScript support has been added, but it seems like Apple doesn’t care much about it anymore.

Shortcuts isn’t as powerful, and without an Apple ID (which I can’t have on my work Mac), I don’t think I can actually share or migrate anything I make, which makes it feel like a dead end. It’s also pretty slow.

Automator also seems like it will be sunset at some point, in favor of Shortcuts.

treetalker 190 days ago | |

Tried Keyboard Maestro?

al_borland 190 days ago | | |

I haven’t. I should probably give it a closer look, but need to check to see if the security team at work denied it or not before I invest any money in something.

I thought it used to be more expensive, but maybe I was just making less at the time and that anchor remained in my head.

akulbe 189 days ago | |

I came here to say this, but you beat me to it. :D

ashed96 190 days ago |

IDM - Internet Download Manager -- Only available for Windows, never saw a proper alternative for Linux/MacOS with the same reliability and browser integration.

Though no longer download videos/files enough to complain about it.

al_borland 190 days ago | |

I end up using yt-dlp on macOS/Linux to download videos if needed. It’s worked on pretty much everything I’ve tried it on so far. Though admittedly not at seamless as a button being injected into the page itself.

ashed96 189 days ago | | |

Still on youtube-dl here - didn't know yt-dlp was the actively maintained fork.

bigyabai 191 days ago |

Most of the killer apps I use on Linux are either free versions of Mac apps (eg. Planify) or server software that will never run like-native (eg. Docker).

fodkodrasz 189 days ago | |

Hmm just looked up Planify, and despite being an open source project, it has no links to the source code, I had to sieve through the change log and find an issue link to find it.

vismit2000 190 days ago |

The ease of Windows Clipboard with Win+V; Windows Powertoys (particularly Find my mouse spotlight mode for presentation by pressing Ctrl twice)

approxim8ion 189 days ago | |

MacOS has a frustrating tendency to depend on external utilities for basic functions, but I've found Maccy to be as good as if not better than Windows clipboard manager. You can summon it with a keybinding or click on an icon in the menubar. It's really good and one of the first things I install on Mac.

tobinfekkes 190 days ago | |

Powertoys is a game-changer!

dasefx 190 days ago |

Notepad++, I really want that software on my Mac.

cpach 190 days ago | |

You might want to have a look at TextMate. Not sure if it’s a full replacement for Notepad++, but it’s quite nice.

SomeUserName432 189 days ago | |

Should run just fine with Whisky (free) or Crossover ($74/yr).

(Also with parallels, but that's a whole new price range for just using Notepad++)

pcunite 190 days ago | |

Agree. Currently using VSCode, but its not really a dedicated file editor.

apothegm 189 days ago | |

Have you tried BBEdit?