How Burly compares

Almost every choice here comes down to one question: do you want to decide where a link goes at the moment you click it, or do you want to write rules once and never think about it again? Velja, Choosy, Finicky, and OpenIn are built for the second answer. Burly, Browserosaurus, and Bumpr are built for the first. Neither is better, and picking the wrong side of that line is the most common reason people end up replacing whatever they installed.

The second question is how far down the app needs to reach. Bumpr and Browserosaurus stop at the browser: they can send a link to Chrome, but not to your work profile inside Chrome. Velja, Choosy, and Finicky reach Chromium and Firefox profiles but cannot target a Safari profile. Of the apps compared here, only Burly and OpenIn reach every profile, Safari included, so if your work life lives in a Safari profile the field narrows to two immediately.

Price sorts the rest. Finicky and Browserosaurus are free but ask for a config file or are no longer maintained. Burly is free and needs neither. If you want rules, native-app routing, or link types beyond the web, the paid apps genuinely earn their money, and each comparison below says exactly where.

If the category itself is new to you, the Mac link router guide explains what these apps do, why macOS needs one, and how to set one up before you start comparing prices.