Bumpr alternative

A free Bumpr alternative that routes to browser profiles

Bumpr is a polished $2.99 picker for web and email links, but it chooses apps, not profiles. If you need links to land in a specific browser profile, Work Chrome versus Personal Chrome, or a Safari profile, Burly is the free alternative to try.

By Matt Senter, who builds Burly

Why people switch from Bumpr

Bumpr is cheap, well made, and does something Burly deliberately does not: it routes mail links as well as web links. People switch when they realise the picker stops one level too early. Bumpr picks the app, so it can send a link to Chrome, but it cannot send it to your work profile inside Chrome, and it cannot reach a Safari profile at all. If your day is split across profiles rather than across browsers, that gap is the whole problem, and it is the one Burly exists to close.

Is Burly a good Bumpr alternative?

If you are after a Bumpr alternative, it is usually because you have outgrown picking between browsers and now need to pick between profiles. Bumpr is a polished, inexpensive picker, and it does one thing Burly does not: it routes email links too, sending a mailto to the email client or webmail you choose. But it picks apps, not profiles, so it cannot tell Work Chrome from Personal Chrome, and it has no concept of Safari profiles. Burly is free, makes each profile a destination, and adds per-profile emoji, colors, and hotkeys. If you lean on Bumpr for email routing, that is the one thing you would give up.

How to switch from Bumpr to Burly

1. Download Burly and drag it to Applications.
2. Set Burly as your default web browser in System Settings, under Desktop & Dock.
3. Burly enumerates every profile in every installed browser, which is the level Bumpr's picker does not reach.
4. If you also want mailto links routed, keep Bumpr installed and set it as your default mail handler; the two settings are separate.

What you give up

Keep Bumpr in mind for what it uniquely does. It routes mailto links to your chosen mail client, supports per-domain rules, and ships browser extensions for right-click routing, and Burly has none of that. The good news is that this is not strictly an either/or: the default web browser and the default mail client are different settings, so you can run Burly for links and leave Bumpr handling mail.

Want the full feature-by-feature breakdown, including where Bumpr wins? Read Burly vs. Bumpr.