Keepresso vs Amphetamine, KeepingYouAwake, and caffeinate

If you searched for an Amphetamine alternative, a KeepingYouAwake replacement, or a friendlier caffeinate, you are in the right place. All four keep a Mac from sleeping. They differ in price, how much they can decide for you, and how much of the system they touch.

This page is a straight comparison. Keepresso is free and open source (GPL-3.0), signed and notarized, for macOS 14 and newer. The others are solid tools; pick the one that matches how you work.

Quick comparison

These tools can change over time; treat the table as a product-class comparison, not a point-by-point changelog of every release.

Amphetamine

Amphetamine was the go-to free keep-awake app on the Mac App Store for years, with a long track record, a deep trigger system, and a polished UI. The catch today is maintenance: it is closed source and effectively stalled, with its last release (5.3.2) back in 2023 and a minimum of macOS 10.13, so it runs on SDKs several macOS generations old. It still works, but it is not keeping pace with current macOS.

Where Keepresso is a better fit:

• Actively maintained for current macOS. Keepresso targets macOS 14 and newer with current SDKs, signed and notarized, and ships regular updates. Amphetamine has stood still since 2023.
• Open source. Both apps are free, so the real difference is the license: Keepresso is GPL-3.0, so you can read the code, file issues, and see exactly what runs on your machine; Amphetamine is closed source. See Is Keepresso safe?.
• Headless and remote Macs. Built-in Headless Setup, closed-display mode that sleeps the panel when the lid closes, and a CLI aimed at scripts and agent hosts. See Headless Mac mini.
• Built for AI agents. A trigger that knows when a coding agent is actually working, plus automation leases, an MCP server, and a bundled agent skill so an agent can hold the Mac awake safely, with bounds it cannot exceed. Nothing else in this product class has an answer to agents at all.
• Activity pane. A readable "why is my Mac awake?" view of every app's power assertions, not only Keepresso's own session.
• Safety nets and automation. A battery auto-pause, a thermal safety net for a Mac working with the lid shut, a scheduled wake for overnight jobs, and event hooks that run a Shortcut, a webhook, or a shell command when a session starts, ends, or pauses.

If Amphetamine already does everything you need on your version of macOS, there is no obligation to switch. But if you want keep-awake that is open source, trigger-driven, and actively kept current with macOS, Keepresso is built for that.

KeepingYouAwake

KeepingYouAwake is a free, open-source menu-bar app that wraps the same idea as caffeinate in a simple switch. It is excellent when you only want "on until I turn it off" with almost no preferences.

Choose KeepingYouAwake when:

• You want the smallest possible tool.
• You always decide keep-awake yourself (no "while X is running" rules).
• You do not need timed "until 18:00", battery auto-pause, or closed-lid mode on battery.

Choose Keepresso when you want that simple switch plus smart triggers, timed sessions, lid-closed mode, disk keep-alive, Shortcuts, and a command-line tool that can also hold the Mac awake without the app UI.

The caffeinate command

caffeinate ships with every Mac. It is the right tool for a one-off terminal session:

# Keep the system awake until you press Ctrl-C
caffeinate -dims

# Keep awake for one hour (3600 seconds)
caffeinate -t 3600

Limitations of living on caffeinate alone:

• No menu-bar switch once the Terminal window is gone (unless you background a process and remember the pid).
• No "while Zoom is open" or "while CPU is busy" rules without writing your own scripts.
• Easy to leave a forgotten caffeinate running, or to kill the wrong process.

Keepresso uses the same macOS power assertions under the hood, then adds the UI and triggers around them.

When you do not need Keepresso

Be honest about the job:

• One terminal compile, then you leave. caffeinate -t … or a short Keepresso timer is enough.
• You only ever flip a switch by hand. KeepingYouAwake is fine.
• Your org requires App Store-only software. Amphetamine may be the path of least resistance; Keepresso is distributed as a notarized DMG and Homebrew cask instead.

Install Keepresso

brew install --cask gyorgysh/keepresso/keepresso

Or download the DMG from GitHub Releases. Full steps: Install Keepresso and keep your Mac awake.

Related guides

• How to keep your Mac awake
• Smart triggers
• Keep your Mac awake during long builds
• Keep your Mac awake for Time Machine backups
• Keep a headless Mac mini awake