MacBase is live. It is a place to discover cool Mac apps and launch your own, for free.
I have run a launch directory since 2017, but it took shipping my own Mac apps to see what was missing. Here is why I built MacBase, what is on it today, and how to launch your app on it.
Why I built it
StartupBase has been my place for makers since 2017. The first version had nearly 10,000 listings and more than 13,500 users, and I rebuilt it this April. It takes every kind of product, and it should.
Then I started making Mac apps. Flit came out on September 11, Vitals on September 29 and Levers in October. Each time, I had the same problem: there was no obvious place to show the app to people looking for a Mac app. None of the three are on the Mac App Store, and launch sites put a Mac app next to every other kind of product.
Someone choosing a Mac app also has questions a general directory does not answer. Does it run on my version of macOS? Does it run natively on Apple silicon? Is it notarized by Apple? What does it cost, and is that a subscription?
So on October 19, I started building a place only for Mac apps.
Discover the best Mac apps
MacBase launches today with 154 apps, and 130 of them are not on the Mac App Store. Their makers sell them from their own sites or share them on GitHub, which makes them hard to find. You search for a window manager, land on a list that may be years old, and open ten tabs to see which apps are still updated and what they cost now.
On MacBase, you can start with what you need done. There are 50 categories, from window management to local AI, and you can narrow any list to free or paid apps, open source apps, apps that run natively on Apple silicon, or the macOS you are on.
Every app page answers those questions the same way, so you can compare two apps without opening their websites.
You can also start with an app you already know. More than 200 well-known apps have an alternatives page, so if CleanMyMac or iStat Menus has stopped working for you, you can see what people use instead.
Deals has about 50 discounts from makers, and a free account shows the codes. Open source lists Mac apps with public code, sorted by their stars on GitHub. And if you would rather ask than browse, MacBase has a public MCP server, so Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor can answer “what can I use instead of Alfred?” from real listings.
Launch your Mac app
After reviewing thousands of StartupBase submissions, I wrote that founders hate filling out launch forms. That is still true, so launching on MacBase starts without one. Paste a Mac App Store link, a website or a GitHub repository, and MacBase fills in a draft for you to check. To skip the form completely, paste your MCP link into Claude, ChatGPT, Codex or Cursor and say “list my app”.
Every app is checked before it goes live. An AI review publishes what is clearly a real Mac app, and anything else waits for me. Nobody gets sent back or turned down by a machine.
Your launch also does not end after one day. I wrote about that problem in Is Product Hunt still worth it?: the homepage moves on, and your product has to find its users somewhere else. A MacBase listing stays up, and votes do not decide where an app sits.
There are two ways to get more from it. Put the MacBase badge on your site and your listing gets a check mark, a followed link and a place above unverified apps. You can also pay for a featured spot at the top of the home page and your categories. Featured apps always carry a gold mark, so it is clear what they are.
What is next
The MacBase blog has its first post, with guides, roundups and what I learn about building and selling Mac apps to come. A page for Black Friday deals on Mac apps follows in November. If you want new Mac apps in your inbox, the newsletter sends them every Monday.
Try it
If you make a Mac app, submit your app. If something on MacBase is wrong or missing, tell me.