Best Display Tools for Mac

The short answer. Most people need one of two things here, and it is worth deciding which. If you need HiDPI scaling and brightness control from the menu bar, Crisp covers both. If your setup is several different monitors and you want one control for all of them, Dimly is built for the mixed case, with hardware control where the display supports it and an overlay where it does not. If the display is OLED and burn-in is the concern, Candela is the only one here aimed at panel care rather than control. And if you also want to switch the monitor’s input source, that is DisplayBuddy.

This guide covers 4 display tools for macOS. Every fact below is drawn from the same verified records that back each app’s own page. The recommendations are our editorial judgment, not payment.

Quick comparison

What actually decides this

• Hardware control, or an overlay. DDC changes the monitor’s own brightness and keeps the full range and contrast. An overlay dims the picture on the Mac side. Both are legitimate; the overlay costs you contrast and is a poor fit for colour work, and it is usually the fallback rather than the plan.
• Scaling, or brightness. HiDPI scaling changes how large everything is rendered. Brightness changes the backlight. They are different problems that get bundled into one menu, and a tool good at one is not automatically good at the other.
• Whether the display supports DDC. DDC works over DisplayPort and HDMI on most external monitors and on very few built-in ones. This is the single most common reason a control appears to do nothing.
• One monitor or a mixed set. A single-display tool is simple. A mixed setup — different brands, different connection types — is where the per-display handling matters, because the fallback has to be decided per monitor.
• OLED panel care. Burn-in protection only means something on a panel that can burn in. On an LCD the same feature is a set of habits with no mechanism behind them.

Our picks

• Crisp — Its record lists DDC brightness, HiDPI scaling and presets together, which is the combination most external-display setups need. Choose it when you need HiDPI scaling and brightness control from the menu bar.
• Dimly — Its record describes per-display control with hardware DDC where supported and a smooth overlay fallback where it is not, which is the mixed-setup case. Choose it when your monitors are mixed and you want one control for all of them.
• Candela — Its record describes OLED burn-in protection and panel health history rather than brightness control alone. Choose it when the display is OLED and burn-in is the concern.
• DisplayBuddy — Its record lists input source alongside brightness, contrast and volume, which the other tools here do not cover. Choose it when you also want to switch the monitor’s input source.

The apps

Candela

Candela is a display utility for macOS. Display care for external monitors: OLED burn-in protection, panel health history, and everyday brightness, volume, and contrast controls. It is released under MIT.

What it does. Candela protects OLED displays from burn-in, checks panels for defects and wear, and gives every Mac display better controls. Free and open source.

Candela is listed with current version 1.0.5.

Full profile and verified facts for Candela →

Crisp

Crisp is a display utility for macOS. Manage external displays from the menu bar: HiDPI scaling, DDC brightness, color, and presets. It is released under MIT.

What it does. A free, open-source alternative to BetterDisplay and Lunar: DDC brightness, HiDPI scaling, presets, virtual displays, and arrangement, all in the menu bar, plus a command line tool.

Crisp is listed with current version 1.6.0.

Full profile and verified facts for Crisp →

Dimly

Dimly is a display utility for macOS. Control brightness across mixed monitor setups from one menu bar app. It is released under AGPL-3.0.

What it does. Per-display brightness - hardware DDC control or smooth overlay fallback, per monitor. Contrast - hardware DDC contrast control for external monitors. Sleep, wake, and blackout - instant blackout overlay plus true DDC standby when supported. Appearance filters - per-display gamma filters: Invert, Warm, Cool.

Dimly is listed with current version 2026.6.0.

Full profile and verified facts for Dimly →

DisplayBuddy

DisplayBuddy is a display utility for macOS. Control external display brightness, contrast, and input source. Its pricing is not published.

What it does. Control brightness, contrast, volume and inputs on any external monitor using DisplayBuddy. Works with Dell, LG, Samsung, Xiaomi, and all major brands via DDC.

DisplayBuddy is listed with current version 3.9.6.

Full profile and verified facts for DisplayBuddy →

How to choose

• No licence fee, source available. Candela, Crisp and Dimly — the source can be read and, under the terms of each licence, reused.
• Pricing not published in our data. DisplayBuddy — check the developer’s own site before assuming anything about cost.

Open source: Candela, Crisp and Dimly (3 of 4).

Common mistakes

• Assuming every monitor supports DDC. When a brightness control does nothing, this is usually why, and the fallback is an overlay.
• Treating an overlay as equivalent to hardware dimming. It reduces the picture rather than the backlight, and contrast goes with it.
• Doing colour-critical work with a software overlay applied. It changes what you are looking at, which is the opposite of what colour work needs.
• Reaching for a scaling tool to fix a brightness problem. They sit in the same menu and solve unrelated problems.

How this guide was put together

Each app’s facts come from its own record: the developer’s own pages and repository, the App Store listing where one exists, and the documentation, each with a source grade and an access date. Where a fact rests on the developer’s own statement rather than on something we verified independently, the sentence says so. Where our data has no value for something, the guide says “not published” instead of guessing.

A price appears here only where the record carries one from a stated source; the guide never estimates one, and it records the pricing model alongside so the two can be read together. Prices change and vary by region, so each app links to its own page for the current detail.

The facts and the recommendations are kept apart on purpose. Everything in the app entries, the comparison table and the answers above is composed from the records. The short answer, the criteria and the picks are our editorial judgment: they reflect what we would choose and why, and they are not paid for. Where we make a recommendation we name the condition it applies under, because we do not call anything “the best” without explaining the criteria.