Comparison
Perked vs Hold My Lid
Looking for a Hold My Lid alternative to keep your Mac awake while your coding agents work? Here's an honest look at how Perked and Hold My Lid compare — what each is best at, and which one fits your workflow.
What is Hold My Lid?
Hold My Lid is a macOS menu-bar app aimed at exactly the same job as Perked: keep the Mac awake while coding agents work, lid shut. It runs on macOS 14 and later, ships a free trial, and one purchase covers up to three Macs. Alongside the usual battery cut-off and clamshell support it does something most of these apps do not — it reads agent lifecycle hooks, so for the agents it supports it knows whether one is actually working rather than merely running.
The main difference
Both apps decide an agent is busy the same two ways, so the difference is coverage. Each connects to lifecycle hooks where an agent offers them — that is a true working-versus-idle signal, so an agent sitting at a prompt lets the Mac sleep — and falls back to watching the process everywhere else. Hold My Lid hooks Claude Code, Codex and OpenCode; Perked hooks Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI, Copilot CLI, Qwen Code and Factory Droid, and recognises around thirty agents by process behind that. Perked also adds Lock & Leave, a thermal pause and a journal of every decision.
Perked vs Hold My Lid, feature by feature
| Feature | Perked | Hold My Lid |
|---|---|---|
| Auto-detects AI coding agents (zero setup) | ||
| Power-aware (AC / battery threshold) | ||
| Clamshell / lid-closed keep-awake | ||
| Timed sessions | ||
| Lock & Leave (lock screen, stay awake) | — | |
| Runs entirely on-device (no account) | ||
| Open source | — | — |
| Price | One-time from €1 | $9.99 one-time (up to 3 Macs) · free trial |
“Manual setup” means the app can do it, but you configure it yourself. Last reviewed June 2026.
Which should you pick?
Choose Hold My Lid if…
- You want to try before you buy, or need three Macs on one licence.
- OpenCode is your main agent — they hook it and we do not.
- A global toggle shortcut and display-off-on-lid-close matter to you.
Choose Perked if…
- You use agents beyond the ones they hook — Perked hooks six and recognises around thirty.
- You want Lock & Leave, a thermal pause, and a journal you can read back after a run.
- You would rather start at a lower launch price and keep it forever.
FAQ
What are agent lifecycle hooks?+
Some coding agents can run a command when a turn starts and when it ends. An app that registers those hooks learns when the agent is actually working, instead of inferring it from whether the process is running — so an agent left open overnight at its prompt stops holding the Mac awake. Both apps use them where the agent provides them, and fall back to process detection where it does not.
Is Hold My Lid cheaper than Perked?+
It is $9.99 one-time for up to three Macs, with a free trial. Perked starts lower during launch pricing and rises as it grows, and whatever you pay is locked in. Both are one-time purchases with no subscription.
Do both work on my macOS version?+
Yes — both require macOS 14 or later, on Apple Silicon and Intel.
Built for AI coding sessions
One-time purchase, yours forever — €1 today, and your price is locked in for good.
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