XIsland: the best free alternative to Vibe Island
If you’ve been looking for a free alternative to Vibe Island, this is it.
XIsland does the same thing — monitors your AI coding agents from the macOS notch. Session status, permission approvals, inline answers, terminal jumping. All the core features you’d expect. And it’s free.
Not free-with-a-catch. Not free-for-now. Just free.
Why free
I built XIsland because I needed it. I run Claude Code, Codex, and Gemini CLI throughout my day. I needed a way to monitor all of them without tab-cycling through terminals. So I built it.
It solves my problem. I use it every day. That’s enough reason to keep it going.
This isn’t a weekend project I’ll abandon in a month. I’ve been a developer for 15+ years. I use XIsland as my primary tool for managing coding agents. Every beta gets tested in my actual workflow before it ships. If something is broken, I find out before you do.
Built for developers
I made design decisions that make sense if you’re a developer who lives in the terminal.
Keyboard-first interaction. The callout menu uses vim-style keybindings — hjkl to navigate, enter to act. You can approve tool calls, answer agent questions, and jump between sessions without touching the mouse.
Export and import settings. Move your config between machines. Back it up. Share it with your team. Small thing, but if you’ve ever had to reconfigure an app after a reinstall, you know why it matters.
No hand-holding UI. XIsland shows you what’s happening and gets out of the way. No onboarding wizards, no tips, no tooltips explaining what a terminal is.
Agent and terminal support
I’m working to support every mainstream coding agent and terminal. Right now that’s Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI, and OpenCode across Ghostty, iTerm2, Terminal.app, WezTerm, Warp, and Cmux.
Here’s the honest part: agents change fast. Really fast. New hook formats, new event types, breaking changes between versions. It’s not realistic to support every agent version forever. I focus on the latest versions of each agent and the terminals that work best with them.
If something isn’t working, try updating your agent to the latest version, or switch to a better-supported terminal. I know that’s not what people want to hear, but it’s the truth. I’d rather be upfront about it than pretend everything works perfectly all the time.
The long game
As long as developers are running AI coding agents in terminals, this use case is valid. And as long as it’s valid, I’ll keep building XIsland.
I ship updates regularly. I read every issue filed on GitHub. I use the app myself every single day, which means I have zero tolerance for things being broken.
Download XIsland or install via Homebrew:
brew install --cask bluedusk/xisland/x-islandIt’s free. Try it.