Short answer. Choose Ice if ice already works on your Mac and macOS version. Choose Tuck if you are on macOS 26 and Ice shows a blank or stuck layout.

The facts, side by side

Dated snapshot of public pages, 4 October 2026. “Not confirmed” means we could not find it on a public page. Prices and support change.
Topic	Tuck	Ice
Price	Free core. Tuck Pro is planned, one-time, and not on sale	Free
Licence	GPL-3.0	GPL-3.0
Source for users	Yes: GPL-3.0 entitles everyone who receives Tuck to its source	Yes
macOS support	macOS 26. macOS 27 support is in development	The stable release we found, 0.11.12, predates macOS 26. A 0.11.13 development prerelease exists. Users report blank layouts on macOS 26 and breakage on macOS 27 betas.
Permissions	Accessibility required. Screen Recording optional	Screen Recording was required in early versions; a request to make it optional is on its tracker.

Where Ice is strong

Free and open source, with a large user base and a long history on GitHub.
The project that introduced the separate Ice Bar for notched Macs.
If Ice already works on your Mac, it is a simple, free option.

How Tuck differs

Tuck is built for macOS 26. Ice’s stable releases predate macOS 26.
Tuck descends from Ice through Thaw, so it shares a lot. It is not a different design.
Screen Recording is optional in Tuck.

Choose Ice if

Ice already works on your Mac and macOS version.
You run a macOS version older than 26, which Tuck does not support.
You prefer the original project.

Choose Tuck if

You are on macOS 26 and Ice shows a blank or stuck layout.
You want a build that targets macOS 26 by design.

Limits of this comparison. Reports on a tracker describe particular builds and setups. They are not a failure rate. We have not run benchmarks, so we make no speed, memory or battery claims about either app. Tuck’s first build is not released yet.

Tuck vs Ice