Keep your Mac awake. One click from the menu bar.
Barista is a tiny, native macOS menu bar app that prevents your Mac from sleeping — a free, modern replacement for Caffeine, Amphetamine and KeepingYouAwake. One click to caffeinate, pick a duration (15m, 30m, 1h, 4h, 8h, 12h, or indefinite), and your Mac stays awake until you say otherwise. Built with stx + Craft so it stays out of the way: a 1.4MB native webview instead of a bundled browser, and under 100ms to a visible menu bar icon.
As a bonus, Barista also tidies up your menu bar.
| Barista | Caffeine.app | Amphetamine | KeepingYouAwake | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | Free, MIT | Paid | Free (Mac App Store) | Free, MIT |
| Download | ~20 MB | ~3 MB | ~15 MB | ~5 MB |
| Cold start | <100 ms | ~150 ms | ~300 ms | ~150 ms |
| Runtime | Native (Zig) | Native | Native | Native |
| Bonus: menu bar tidying | Yes | No | No | No |
| Source | Open | Closed | Closed | Open |
- Caffeinate, primarily — Prevent system sleep, display sleep and idle sleep with customizable durations (15m, 30m, 1h, 4h, 8h, 12h, indefinite). Left-click the cup to brew or stop; the icon fills while your Mac is awake and the remaining time is on hover.
- Right-click for everything else — A native menu with the current status, the durations, the menu bar controls, preferences and updates.
- Caffeinate on startup — Optional: start the app already caffeinated, so your Mac is awake the moment you log in.
- Global hotkey — Toggle caffeinate (or the menu bar) without reaching for the mouse.
- Menu bar management (bonus) — Collapse and organize menu bar items, with optional auto-collapse and an always-hidden section.
- Launch at login — Start Barista when you log in.
- Self-updating — Checks its own GitHub releases, verifies the download by SHA-256, and can install and relaunch.
- Native performance — Craft's native webview does the rendering, so there is no bundled browser. Startup is under 100ms.
- Beautiful UI — Dark-themed popup window with intuitive controls.
bun install
bun run dev# Run the app in development mode
bun run dev
# Lint
bun run lint
bun run lint:fix
# Build a distributable .app + .dmg (and a signed .pkg when signing is configured)
bun run buildBarista is a stx menu bar app. @stacksjs/stx
is the only dependency — it wraps Craft, the
Zig-powered native webview, and the desktop APIs (power management, preferences,
system tray) behind one package.
createMenuBarApp from @stacksjs/stx/menubar owns the local server, the
preference store and the login item, so the app is a declaration rather than a
runtime:
app.ts createMenuBarApp: context, routes, tray menu
build.ts Compile + package (DMG, and App Store .pkg when signed)
src/barista.stx The popup — signals-driven, no vanilla DOM code
src/caffeinate.ts Named wrapper over the desktop power API
src/tray.ts The menu bar item: its cup icon and its menu
src/durations.ts The durations the popup and tray both offer
src/preferences.ts Preference shape and defaults
src/updates.ts Self-update from GitHub releases
See the stx guide, Menu Bar Apps, for the pattern.
We welcome contributions! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.
- Hidden Bar for being the initial code inspiration
- Bartender
- Chris Breuer
- All Contributors
We would like to extend our thanks to the following sponsors for funding Stacks development. If you are interested in becoming a sponsor, please reach out to us.
The MIT License (MIT). Please see LICENSE for more information.
Made with 💙