GitHub notifications Chrome extension vs. a native menu bar app
If you search for a faster way to see your GitHub notifications, the top results are usually Chrome extensions like Notifications for GitHub or Refined GitHub. They're free, popular, and genuinely useful. So when would you pay $19 once for a native app instead?
How browser extensions work
An extension adds an icon to your Chrome toolbar that polls the GitHub API and shows an unread count. Click it and you get a dropdown list of notifications. The most popular one, Notifications for GitHub, has hundreds of thousands of users and does this well.
The catch is in the name: it lives inside Chrome. That has real consequences:
- No badge when Chrome is closed. Close the browser at the end of the day and nothing watches your repos until you open it again tomorrow.
- Chrome sleeps tabs and throttles timers. Background polling can be delayed for minutes at a time, so the count is sometimes stale exactly when you're busy and relying on it.
- One browser only. Working in Safari, or in a terminal and an editor without Chrome focused? You get nothing.
- You must keep a browser window open — on a laptop, that's a persistent chunk of memory spent just to watch a notification counter.
How a native menu bar app differs
A native app like DevNotify puts the unread count in your macOS menu bar, outside any browser:
- Always running, whether Chrome, Safari, or no browser is open at all.
- Polls on a fixed schedule as a first-class app process — no tab throttling, no sleeping timers.
- Visible from anywhere. The badge is in the menu bar, so a glance works from Xcode, Slack, or a full-screen terminal.
- Lighter footprint. DevNotify is built with Tauri and uses the system WebKit rather than shipping its own Chromium — a native app that weighs less than keeping a Chrome window alive for the same job.
Side-by-side
| Chrome extension | DevNotify | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | $19 lifetime (free 7-day trial) |
| Works when browser is closed | — | Yes |
| Works outside the browser | — | Menu bar, always visible |
| Polling reliability | Subject to tab throttling | Fixed schedule, app process |
| Browsers | Chrome (and Chromium forks) | Any — browser-independent |
| Data handling | Varies by extension; check permissions | Token stays on your Mac, zero analytics |
| Platform | Anywhere Chrome runs | macOS |
Which should you use?
Stick with the extension if: you always have Chrome open anyway, you only care about notifications during browsing sessions, and free matters more than anything else. It's a good tool.
Switch to a native app if: you've ever closed Chrome and missed a review request, you work across multiple apps all day, or you want the count visible no matter what's on screen. That "always on, visible everywhere" property is the whole reason menu bar apps exist.
Many developers use both: the extension for deep-linking while browsing GitHub, the menu bar app as the always-on safety net. If that's you, start with the free trial.
No account needed — just a GitHub token. $19 one-time lifetime license afterwards, 7-day trial included.
Download free trial Buy license — $19
More reading: all GitHub notification options for macOS compared · DevNotify vs Gitify · minimal GitHub token scopes explained