When comparing Gridsutra vs Spectacle, the Slant community recommends Spectacle for most people. In the question“What is the best window manager for Mac?” Spectacle is ranked 5th while Gridsutra is ranked 31st. The most important reason people chose Spectacle is:
Spectacle is licensed under MIT with source code available on [GitHub](https://github.com/eczarny/spectacle).
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Good Adobe support
Gridsutra has Adobe support with the ability of stacking Adobe windows.
Pro Simple UI
The interface if Gridsutra is well thought through and easy to use.
Pro Window arrangement with a single click
Windows can be arranged or snapped in Gridsutra with a single click.
Pro Intuitive UI and delightful user experience
Pro A great tool for a reasonable price
Pro Highly flexible
Gridsutra works with most MacOS applications.
Pro Great drag and drop functionality
The drag and drop option in the layout gives freedom to the user for arrangement of any windows to any positions desired.
Pro Useful ignore/unignore feature
The ignore / unignore feature in Gridsutra allows the user to block unwanted applications to be listed in the layout option.
Pro Custom layout support
Pro Free and open source
Spectacle is licensed under MIT with source code available on GitHub.
Pro Simple hotkeys
Spectacle offers easy-to-remember preset hotkeys.
Pro Mouseless
All windows in Spectacle can be controlled with keyboard shortcuts, so no mouse is needed. This makes for a fast way to control windows.
Pro Great UX
Spectacle is easy to use and configure. It's plug and play.
Pro Low footprint
Spectacle only uses up 18-19 MB of RAM, which means there is not much overhead by using this app.
Pro Multi-monitor support
Pro 7+ years of use
Using it for 7 years
Cons
Con Not maintained
The software is free, but no longer seems to be maintained.
Con Impossible to add new functions
While keyboard shortcuts can be changed for the available actions, there is no way to add custom actions which in turn limits the functionality of the app.
Con Limited window sizing capabilities
You can use 1/2 of the screen vertically and horizontally (divide into 4 parts). You can also use the screen in thirds too, but only the left and right third: you can't use the 1/3 in the center. There is no way to do a more granular distribution.
Con Breaks on macOS High Sierra / Chrome or Firefox
Doesn't support side by side windows.
Con Doesn't work with any Adobe products
There are some apps like Adobe Reader that do not work with Spectacle. Basically, any app with a heavily customized UI that breaks OS X accessibility will not work correctly under Spectacle.
