GestureCraft vs Jitouch (2026)

This one's unusual, because Jitouch is free — so it isn't a price fight, and it isn't a takedown either. Jitouch is a genuinely loved Mac gesture app with a feature few others have (drawing letters on the trackpad to run commands), and it still works. But here's the honest catch: its code has been frozen since early 2023, and the official build is Intel-only. GestureCraft is the modern, maintained, native counterpart — and it also does more than gestures. Full disclosure: I make GestureCraft, so I'll be straight about what Jitouch still does better, and where free stops being the whole story.

At a glance

	GestureCraft	Jitouch
Price	$7.99 once	Free (open source)
What it's for	Gestures + shortcuts + mouse, unified	Trackpad & Magic Mouse gestures
Trackpad gestures	Yes	Yes
Magic Mouse gestures	2-finger tap & swipe	Yes
Character (letter-drawing) gestures	No	Yes — its signature
Keyboard shortcuts as triggers	Yes	No
Mouse buttons as triggers	Yes (click & hold)	No
Actions it runs	Shortcuts, app launches, window snaps, scripts, key sequences	App commands, windows, Spaces, tabs
Actively maintained	Yes	No — code unchanged since early 2023
Apple-Silicon native	Yes	Official build is Intel-only (runs via Rosetta)
Notarized app	Yes	No — GitHub download, manual approval
Built for macOS 26	Yes	No (still runs on recent macOS, but not updated for it)
Open source	No	Yes (GPL v3)
Subscription	No	No (free)

What Jitouch still does well

Best for: free trackpad and Magic Mouse gestures — and its one-of-a-kind character gestures.

Give Jitouch its due. It's free and open source (GPL v3), and it has a feature almost nothing else does: character gestures, where you draw a letter on the trackpad or Magic Mouse — N for a new document, S to save — and it runs the matching command, with on-screen feedback as you draw. It covers the built-in trackpad, an external Magic Trackpad, and the Magic Mouse, and it still runs on recent macOS. If those specific things appeal to you and paying nothing matters most, Jitouch is a real, honest option — I'm not going to pretend a free app isn't free.

Where Jitouch shows its age

The trade-off: it's a classic that's effectively frozen.

The catch is maintenance. Jitouch's current version is 2.82.1, but its code hasn't changed since early 2023 — no updates in 2024, 2025, or 2026. The official build is Intel-only, so on an Apple-Silicon Mac it runs through Rosetta; a native Apple-Silicon version exists only as an unofficial community fork that isn't notarized (you approve it past macOS security by hand). RoaringApps lists Jitouch as end-of-life, and there's no confirmed support for macOS 26. None of this means it's dead — it still works today — but it means no one is fixing it if a future macOS breaks it, and you're installing an unmaintained, un-App-Store app. That's the real cost behind "free."

What GestureCraft does differently

Best for: an actively maintained, native app that unifies gestures, shortcuts, and mouse buttons.

GestureCraft is built for exactly the gap Jitouch leaves. It's native on Apple Silicon, notarized, and built for macOS 26, event-driven so it sits at near-zero idle CPU, and it's kept up to date. And it's broader than gestures: a rule reads like a sentence — when I do a trackpad gesture, 2-finger tap or swipe on the Magic Mouse, press a key, or click a mouse button, run a Shortcut, launch an app, snap a window, type a keystroke sequence, or run a script, in every app or just one. Straight talk on what it doesn't do: it has no character gestures and doesn't map Magic Mouse pinch or rotate gestures — two places Jitouch is genuinely different. It's a one-time $7.99, up to three Macs, 14-day money-back guarantee.

Free vs $7.99

That's the honest decision. Jitouch costs nothing; GestureCraft is $7.99 once. If free-and-frozen is fine — you want character gestures or Magic Mouse gestures, and you don't mind an app that stopped updating in 2023 and runs through Rosetta — Jitouch is a legitimate pick, and I'd tell you so. The $7.99 buys you an app that's actively maintained, native and notarized for macOS 26, and covers keyboard shortcuts and mouse buttons alongside trackpad gestures. You're paying for currency and breadth, not for something Jitouch does and charges for.

Which should you pick?

• You want character (letter-drawing) gestures or Magic Mouse pinch and rotate, for free → Jitouch.
• You're comfortable running an unmaintained, Intel-official app (via Rosetta or a community arm64 fork) → Jitouch.
• You want an actively maintained, native, notarized macOS 26 app with 2-finger Magic Mouse taps and swipes → GestureCraft.
• You want gestures plus keyboard shortcuts plus mouse buttons, mapped to Shortcuts, apps, windows, and scripts, in one app → GestureCraft.

Comparing more gesture apps? See the GestureCraft vs Multitouch head-to-head, or the full roundup of Mac gesture and input apps.