When comparing Unclutter vs ShiftIt, the Slant community recommends ShiftIt for most people. In the question“What are the best power user tools for macOS?” ShiftIt is ranked 46th while Unclutter is ranked 64th. The most important reason people chose ShiftIt is:
ShiftIt is configured through a simple UI where you simply press the hotkeys you wish to map to a certain action.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Convenient and fast access to files and notes
Unclutter lives in the navbar at the top of your screen, and is always accessible. Any files and notes stored in Unclutter can be quickly accessed from anywhere, with just a mouse movement and scrolling down.
Pro Keep desktop clean(er)
Instead of keeping commonly used files on the desktop, you can tuck them away to the top of the screen. This can unclutter your screen, or create more room for more icons if you like quick access to everything.
Pro Easy to configure
ShiftIt is configured through a simple UI where you simply press the hotkeys you wish to map to a certain action.
Pro Free
Pro Intuitive
ShiftIt is very straight-forward to use for most frequent usages.
Pro Open source
Pro Configuration can be committed to your personal dotfiles repository
Configuration winds up living in .hammerspoon/init.lua and .hammerspoon/Spoons/ShiftIt.lua. Very easy to track configuration changes.
Cons
Con Can't keep visor open when typing in other applications
The unclutter visor will not stay open when working/typing in other apps. Sometimes it is desirable to use the visor to re-type things, it's not possible outside of copying and pasting, or opening and re-closing the visor.
Con $10 seems a bit much for what it does
Con A little slow
Similar to Spectacle, but it has a few more features, such as being able to pick the size adjustment increments. Spectacle was a little faster, though. Repeated size changes or moves in succession can cause it to wait for it to complete.
Con Imprecise when readjusting sizes
Con Doesn't support moving windows between workspaces
There's no way to move a window to a different workspace with hotkeys in ShiftIt.