When comparing Magnet vs Cinch, the Slant community recommends Magnet for most people. In the question“What is the best window manager for Mac?” Magnet is ranked 11th while Cinch is ranked 36th. The most important reason people chose Magnet is:
Easy to learn keyboard shortcuts.
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Pros
Pro Keyboard centric
Easy to learn keyboard shortcuts.
Pro Intuitive handling
Just drag the window to one of the sides of the screen and it snaps there. This is especially useful for those who can't be bothered remembering the shortcuts.
Pro Cheap
At $0.99, it is not that expensive.
Pro Mouse controllable
Supports dragging a window along the edges of the screen to activate.
Pro Do not have to learn or remember keyboard shortcuts
Pro It's often on sale
For example, at the writing of this pro it's currently at $1.
Pro Up to six external displays supported
Pro Free and paid versions
There are both versions of Cinch available, though the free version can be naggy.
Pro Simple and easy to use
So simple, even my grandma can use it
Cons
Con Cannot setup custom sizes and window positions
Unfortunately, you can only move windows to preset positions.
Con Can only be purchased from the App Store
Magnet is only available in App Store.
Con Can't hide the menu bar icon
It would've been nice to be able to hide the icon so it doesn't clutter the menu bar.
Con Interference when switching between folders
Default Folder-X app "warns" that Magnet App may interfere with it's ability to switch between folders in Open and Save dialogue boxes.
Con Causes cursor bugs in IntelliJ IDEs
Unfortunately, Magnet causes the caret to bounce around in IntelliJ IDEs, this is very annoying.
Con Does not support the border of multiple displays well
When using multiple displays, the ability to dock a window to half of a display only works on one side of the screen divide. It can work (with some very careful cursor placement) only on the external monitor and not dividing edge of the native (laptop) monitor. It does not support quarter-splits either.
Bottom line, this was a great initial app, adding this capability before anyone else did, but it has been eclipsed by newer apps.