Choosy alternative

A free Choosy alternative with Safari and Firefox profiles

Choosy is a powerful $10 browser chooser with deep rules. If you want profile first routing for free, including the Safari and Firefox profiles Choosy cannot reach, Burly is the alternative to try.

Why people switch from Choosy

Choosy is the most powerful browser chooser on the Mac, and people leave it for exactly that reason: they were never using the power. If your routing needs are "put this link in the right profile" rather than "match on URL and source app and time of day," Choosy's rules are a setup cost you keep paying for a result Burly gives you with no configuration. The other reason is reach: Choosy routes to Chromium profiles only, so both Safari and Firefox profiles are out of range. Burly reaches all three, and it is free.

Is Burly a good Choosy alternative?

People looking for a Choosy alternative usually fall into two camps: those who find its rule engine more than they need, and those who want to route to Safari or Firefox profiles, which Choosy cannot do. Burly is built for the first camp and capable for the second. There are no rules to write; you click a profile, or press its hotkey, and the link opens there. If conditional, time-of-day routing is the reason you used Choosy, Burly will feel simpler by design, which may or may not be what you want.

How to switch from Choosy 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. Let Burly discover your browsers and profiles. Your Choosy rules do not transfer, and for most people that is the point.
4. Assign per-profile keys and colors so the picker is faster than any rule would have been.

What you give up

The trade is real and it is all about automation. Choosy can decide without asking you, using rules that match on URL, source app, and even time of day, and it hooks into the Share menu, Handoff, and AirDrop. Burly does none of that. If you have built a rule set you trust, or you route from places other than a click, Choosy earns its $10 and you should stay.

Choosy is a long running macOS browser chooser with the deepest rule engine of the bunch. Rules can match on URL, source app, and even time of day, and it hooks into AirDrop, Handoff, and the Share menu. It can route to a specific profile in Chrome, Edge, Brave, and Vivaldi, and costs $10 as a one time purchase.

Burly vs. Choosy: the quick take

The quick take: Choosy has the deepest rule engine on macOS and integrates with Share, Handoff, and AirDrop, so it is the pick for heavy conditional automation at $10. Burly is free, picker-first, and reaches the Safari and Firefox profiles Choosy cannot, with per-profile keys and a system-wide hotkey for every profile. Choose by whether you want to automate routing with rules or make the call yourself at click time.

Burly vs. Choosy, feature by feature

Features checked against the Choosy site as of September 2026. Choosy lists at $10 one-time on the Choosy site.

Where Choosy is the better pick

• •Choosy has the deepest rule engine here. You can combine conditions across URL, source app, and time of day to route automatically and never see a picker.
• •It integrates with macOS Share, Handoff, and AirDrop, so links from those flows route too.
• •More than a decade of releases make it stable and well understood.

The verdict

Choosy is the pick if you want heavy, conditional rule based routing and deep macOS integration. Burly is the pick if you want a free, profile first picker with zero rules to write, that also reaches the Safari and Firefox profiles Choosy cannot target, plus per-profile keys and a system wide hotkey for every profile.

Other Choosy alternatives

If you are weighing Choosy alternatives in the plural, the field splits by how much automation you want to keep. Velja is the closest paid substitute at $8, with per-host and per-app rules and native-app routing, though its matching is shallower than Choosy's. Finicky is the free way to keep rules, written as JavaScript in a config file you can version-control. OpenIn is the only other app here that reaches Safari profiles while still giving you a real rules engine, and it routes mail and files as well. Bumpr is the budget picker if the rules were never the point. Here is the shortlist.

• Velja · $8 one-time
  A polished $8 router from Sindre Sorhus, built around per-host and per-app rules.
• Finicky · Free, open source
  Free and open source, driven by a JavaScript config file rather than a picker.
• Browserosaurus · Free, open source
  A free, open-source browser picker that was retired in 2025 and is no longer maintained.
• Bumpr · $2.99 one-time
  A $2.99 picker that chooses between browsers and mail clients, but not between profiles.
• OpenIn · $11.99 one-time
  An $11.99 route-everything utility covering links, mail, files, and phone numbers.

Want them side by side instead? The comparison hub puts every macOS link router in one table, and the Mac link router guide explains what these apps do and how to set one up.

Choosy alternatives: common questions

Is there a free Choosy alternative?

Burly and Finicky are both free. Burly asks you at click time with a radial picker and needs no setup; Finicky keeps the rules-first approach but expects you to write them as JavaScript. Neither reproduces Choosy's ability to match on time of day, or its Share menu, Handoff, and AirDrop hooks.

Can Choosy send a link to a specific Safari profile?

No. Choosy targets Chromium profiles, and cannot target a Safari or a Firefox profile. Burly targets Chromium, Firefox, and Safari profiles, which is the usual reason people switch to it from Choosy.

What happens to my Choosy rules if I switch?

They stay in Choosy, unused. Burly has no rules engine and nothing to import: it discovers your browsers and profiles automatically and asks you at click time instead. If your rule set is doing real work, that is a downgrade, and Choosy is the better tool to stay on.