Layout vs AeroSpace

What they have in common

Both replace macOS Spaces with workspaces of their own. When you switch, the windows of the workspace you leave move to a corner of the screen, out of sight, and the others come back where they were. There’s no slide, and neither one asks you to turn off System Integrity Protection: both work with the Accessibility permission. macOS never lets an app push a window fully off screen, so with either one, a thin edge can show in that corner.

Both are made for the keyboard, with a shortcut for each workspace and a command-line tool for scripts.

Side by side

	AeroSpace	Layout
A workspace is	A set of windows, tiled in a tree	A project: its windows, its layout, and what its apps open
Arranging windows	i3-style tree, with tiles and accordion layouts	Zones from a template, stacks of apps in a zone, floating apps
New windows	Tiled into the tree	Join the zone you pick for them, or float where the app opens them
Setup	A TOML file, ~/.aerospace.toml, with no GUI	An editor and a Settings window, with Export and Import
Several displays	Each display shows its own workspace	A workspace spans every display, and they switch together
Opening a project	Commands you write in the config	Launch opens its apps with the project folder, terminal commands and browser tabs
Chats and channels	Not part of it	Switching brings back the project’s Claude or Codex chat and its Slack channel
Agents	Not part of it	A card and ⌃⌥N when Claude Code, Codex or Cursor needs you
Trackpad	Not part of it	Swipe between workspaces, and swipe up for the Layout Overview
Command line	aerospace, with commands for nearly everything	layoutctl: list, switch, launch, stop, subscribe, notify
Install and updates	Homebrew cask, not notarized	Notarized download or Homebrew, with updates offered in the app
Stage	Public beta: breaking changes expected until 1.0	Early access until 1.0
macOS	13 Ventura or later	14 Sonoma or later, Apple silicon and Intel
Price	Free and open source, MIT license	$19 once, with a 14-day free trial

Where AeroSpace is the better pick

• You want a tiling tree. AeroSpace splits, joins and resizes windows in an i3-style tree, from the keyboard, and fits every new window into it. Layout places windows in zones you draw once for each workspace: they don’t rearrange themselves as windows come and go.
• You want each display on its own. In AeroSpace, every display shows its own workspace. In Layout, a workspace spans all your displays, and switching changes them all.
• Your setup lives in dotfiles. AeroSpace’s whole configuration is one text file, and its README says it will never have a settings window. Layout keeps its configuration in its own folder: you can export it to a file, but you edit it in the app.
• You want free and open source. AeroSpace is MIT-licensed. Layout is a paid app.

Where Layout is the better pick

• Your workspaces are projects. Launch a workspace and Layout opens its apps on the project: the editor on its folder, the terminal running commands such as pnpm dev, the browser on the project’s tabs.
• Your apps switch with you. Going back to a project brings back its chat in Claude’s Code tab or in Codex, and its Slack channel.
• You run agents in several projects. When Claude Code, Codex or Cursor asks for you or finishes in another workspace, a card says so, and ⌃⌥N takes you to that session. You can allow or deny Claude Code’s and Codex’s permission requests from the card. See Claude Code on several projects.
• You’d rather set it up in an app. Workspaces, zones and shortcuts are made in an editor, and a guided setup walks you through the first launch.
• You use a trackpad. The swipe that moves between desktops moves between workspaces, and the swipe up opens the Layout Overview, with every workspace and its windows.
• You want an app macOS trusts. Layout is notarized by Apple, and it updates when you choose to.

Switching from AeroSpace

Most of what an AeroSpace config does has a place in Layout:

In AeroSpace	In Layout
alt-1 runs workspace 1	Each workspace has its shortcut, ⌃⌥1 to ⌃⌥9 at first. Record other keys in Settings › Shortcuts
alt-tab runs workspace-back-and-forth	A quick ⌥Tab goes back and forth too, and holding it lists your workspaces
alt-shift-1 runs move-node-to-workspace 1	A workspace’s shortcut with ⌘ added sends the window you used last there, or use Move To
on-window-detected rules that send an app to a workspace	The app added to that workspace’s Apps, in a zone
The accordion layout	A stack: several apps share a zone, one in front
layout floating for an app	A floating app, at the size and place you choose
exec-and-forget commands that open your tools	Launch, which opens the workspace’s apps with their folders, commands and tabs
aerospace workspace api and aerospace list-workspaces --all	layoutctl switch api and layoutctl list
start-at-login = true	Open at login in Settings › General, and Launch at Login for the workspaces you want open

Before you turn Layout on

1. Quit AeroSpace from its menu bar icon. If your config has start-at-login = true, set it to false, or AeroSpace comes back at your next login.
2. Quit what your config started. AeroSpace’s docs suggest starting JankyBorders (borders) with after-startup-command. It keeps running after AeroSpace quits, and keeps drawing borders around windows, including the ones Layout keeps out of sight in the corner. Quit it with killall borders, and take it out of your config.
3. Make a workspace for each project. New Workspace from Project… lists your Claude and Codex projects, or takes any folder, and proposes the editor and terminal to open there. See Your first workspace.

When AeroSpace quits, it puts every window back on screen. Layout then starts with all of them in General, the workspace that holds every window no other workspace has, until you give them workspaces of their own.