Mac live wallpaper apps, compared

Written by the developer of Atheria. Every fact below was checked against each app's own website, and its App Store listing where it has one, on 3 August 2026. If something here is out of date or wrong, email me and I will correct it.

There is no single best live wallpaper app for macOS, because these apps are not really doing the same thing. Two of them are catalogues of video scenes, one turns a web page into your wallpaper, and one generates the artwork in real time. Which is right for you depends on which of those you actually want.

I build Atheria, so treat the recommendation at the end accordingly. What I can offer instead of neutrality is accuracy: the table is limited to facts each company publishes about itself, and I have been explicit about the things the others do that Atheria does not.

At a glance

Blank or "not verified" means I could not confirm it from a first-party source, not that the answer is no.

Backdrop, by Cindori

A catalogue of video scenes with a community platform for sharing them, sold as either a subscription or a lifetime licence, downloaded directly rather than through the App Store. Cindori say more than 70,000 people use it. The trial has no time limit but caps you at three watermarked backdrops.

Choose it if

You want an animated lock screen. It is Backdrop's headline feature, Wallux offers one on macOS 26 or later, and Atheria cannot match either. On macOS the only route to a live lock screen is to run outside the App Sandbox and overwrite private system files, which is exactly why every app offering it ships as a direct download. That is a legitimate trade to make. It is simply not the one I chose.

Wallux

A library of ready-made live wallpapers for macOS, downloaded directly from their site rather than the App Store, with a free plan for browsing and applying wallpapers and a paid plan above it. It markets itself as an alternative to Wallpaper Engine on Windows, and it has a creator programme and a Discord community.

Choose it if

You want the biggest ready-made library and you would rather pick something that already exists than make one. Atheria has a curated shader set and a generator, not a stock catalogue, so if browsing thousands of finished loops is the appeal, Wallux is built for that and Atheria is not.

Plash, by Sindre Sorhus

Free, on the Mac App Store, and doing something genuinely different: it puts any website on your desktop as the wallpaper. That covers animated pages, dashboards, a live feed, or anything else the web can render. It requires macOS 26.4 or later.

Choose it if

You want something free, you are comfortable finding or building the web page you want to display, or you want a wallpaper that shows live information rather than art. It is a well-regarded app from a well-regarded developer and it costs nothing to try.

Atheria

An engine rather than a catalogue. The generative wallpapers are computed on the GPU every frame rather than played back from a file, so there is no loop point and no seam, and the Flame Creator grows fractal flames from a small set of numbers rather than shipping finished files. You can also use your own video loops, with an editor built in.

The behaviour I care most about is that it stops. When the desktop is fully covered, rendering drops to 0 fps and resumes when you can see it again, and the drop in CPU and energy use is visible in Activity Monitor. There are further settings to slow it down when the desktop is mostly covered, when you step away, and when you are on battery.

It is on the Mac App Store and sandboxed, with no account, no server and nothing leaving your Mac. Pro is a one-time purchase.

Choose it if

You want wallpapers generated rather than downloaded, you want the app sandboxed and delivered through the App Store, you care that it does no work while hidden, and you would rather pay once than subscribe.

Common questions

Which of these are on the Mac App Store?

Atheria and Plash. Wallux and Backdrop are direct downloads from their own websites. This matters if you care about App Sandbox restrictions, App Store refunds, or Apple's privacy labels, and it does not matter at all if you do not.

Do any of them work without an account?

Atheria has no account and no server. Backdrop has a community platform and a licence manager. Check each app's own terms if this is important to you.

Is a live wallpaper bad for battery life?

It depends entirely on whether the app keeps rendering when you cannot see the desktop. Atheria stops completely when the desktop is fully covered. I would not make a claim about how the others behave without measuring them, so measure whichever you try: open Activity Monitor, cover the desktop, and watch.

Atheria on the Mac App Store · Every Atheria feature explained