FAST vs Magnet

Start with the price, because it is the real question

Magnet is $4.99 on the Mac App Store, once. FAST is €29, once. That is roughly six times more, and no feature list makes that difference disappear — so the only honest way to compare them is to be clear about what the extra buys.

Magnet places a window. FAST remembers a workspace. If placing windows faster is the whole problem, Magnet solves it for five dollars and you should stop reading here. FAST earns its price only if you keep rebuilding the same arrangement — after a meeting, after undocking, on Monday morning.

The three things you cannot do by snapping

Bring a whole setup back

A Scene stores display roles, layouts, theme, matched windows and stacks, then restores them in one click — launching the apps that are not running and mapping everything onto the displays connected right now. Deep work, client call, Friday admin: one click each, every restore leaving an Undo snapshot. What a Scene stores.

Keep two windows in one tile

Snapping is one window per region by definition. FAST stacks them, shows a numbered badge, and cycles with ⌃⌥⇥, so a reference document can live behind the document you are writing.

Undo a mistake

⌃⌥Z reverses any geometry change, including a full Scene restore. Snapping tools have nothing to undo because they keep no history.

Everything else that differs

• Per-display layouts. Each monitor keeps its own layout, backdrop and app assignments — including a dedicated five-tile layout that appears automatically on a native 5120×1440 ultrawide.
• Spatial keyboard navigation. Vim-style ⌃⌥ H/J/K/L moves the focus, adding Shift moves the window, and every binding is remappable. Full keymap.
• Focus Mode. Turns the active display into one clean pane and returns to the exact prior geometry when you leave. Other displays never move.
• A real automation surface. Shortcuts, Siri, fast:// URLs and the bundled fastctl CLI run the same actions as the UI. CLI and URL scheme.
• Distribution. FAST is sold directly through Polar rather than the Mac App Store, which is why it can use the Accessibility API the way it does. System Integrity Protection stays fully enabled either way.

If snapping is genuinely enough

Then it is enough, and swapping one snapper for another is not worth your afternoon. FAST is worth the switch when you are re-dragging the same arrangement several times a week, or when a docking station keeps scattering it. If you try it and that is not you, the 14-day money-back guarantee is one email with no forms attached.