Here’s the Deal

Cinch vs KWM

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When comparing Cinch vs KWM, the Slant community recommends KWM for most people. In the question“What is the best window manager for Mac?” KWM is ranked 18th while Cinch is ranked 36th. The most important reason people chose KWM is:

For those who would like the same tiling window management of Xmonad and i3.

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Common Questions

What is the best window manager for Mac?

Pros

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

Pro
Works in the same way that Xmonad & i3 does for Linux

For those who would like the same tiling window management of Xmonad and i3.

Pro
Runs in the background

The application runs in the background. There is no indication that it is running except the automatic tiling of the windows. There is no menu bar icon or icon in the dock.

Pro
Windows respond very fast

Most users claim the tiling and splitting of the windows in KWM respond more quickly and more reliably than the only other known window manager of its type: Amethyst.

Pro
Software is free and open source

Pro
Highly configurable

Using the config file (kwmrc) you can configure a variety of options including Window spacing and padding, borders, hot-key commands, etc... There are those who would say that the possibilities are limitless.

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Cons

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.

Con
No longer being developed

Sadly the developer has moved on to work on a different project (chunkwm), so there will be no more updates for KWM. However the code works well; no matter what version of macOS you are using.

Con
Takes long to set up

You need to use the terminal and edit the configuration file in order to adjust it to the way you want. This might be a little confusing for basic users. But once you have it set, you can just copy the config file and use it on a multiple amount of machines.