Comparisons · Facts checked 3 September 2026
Pomeroy compared with iMCP, Macuse, LMCP and apple-mcp
Five tools give Claude your Mac apps. They differ on price, coverage, whether Claude can send, and who is looking after them. The table below states each on the same rows, and every fact about another tool was checked against its own site or repository on the date above. Pomeroy is $19 once, covers 8 Apple apps, is read-mostly, and needs macOS 15. Those are its limits as much as its strengths, and the pages linked below say so.
| Facet | Pomeroy | iMCP | Macuse | LMCP | apple-mcp |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $19 once, no subscription. Free for 50 actions a week with no account or card. 14-day refund. | Free. MIT licence. | $49 once (Lifetime), 7-day money-back guarantee. Free plan: 100 tool calls a day on one connected client, resetting at midnight UTC. | Free, with a permanent licence key. No paid tier announced. | Free. MIT licence. |
| Apps | 8 Apple apps: Mail, Calendar, Reminders, Notes, Contacts, Messages, Maps and Shortcuts. | 8 services: Calendar, Contacts, Location, Maps, Messages, Reminders, Shortcuts and Weather. No Mail, no Notes. | 9 Apple apps: Calendar, Mail, Notes, Reminders, Messages, Stickies, Contacts, Maps and Location, Shortcuts. Plus Computer Use to drive any Mac app through its interface. | 188+ tools. The Apple apps Pomeroy covers except Maps and Shortcuts, plus Outlook, Microsoft 365, Teams, Slack, WhatsApp, Signal, OneDrive, Google Drive, Zoom, Notion, OmniFocus, Finder, Safari and more. | 7 Apple apps: Messages, Notes, Contacts, Mail, Reminders, Calendar and Maps. |
| Reading and writing | Read-mostly. Claude can create events, reminders and notes, and run Shortcuts you already made. It cannot send mail or a message, and it cannot edit or delete a contact. | Creates calendar events and reminders and runs Shortcuts. Reads Messages and Contacts; cannot send a message or edit a contact. | Read and write. Sends mail and messages, creates and edits events, reminders and notes, and can click, type and navigate menus in any app through Computer Use, in the background. | Read and write. Sends and replies in Mail, Outlook, Messages, Teams, Slack and WhatsApp; writes files to cloud drives. | Read and write, including sending iMessages and email. |
| Works with | Claude Desktop. | Claude Desktop and any MCP client that runs a local command. | Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Raycast, VS Code, Warp, Zed, LM Studio, Windsurf, ChatWise and any MCP client. | Claude Desktop, Cursor, VS Code, Zed, Windsurf, Raycast, Grok, Perplexity, and ChatGPT or Claude.ai on the web through an optional cloud relay. | Any MCP client that can run a local command. |
| Requires | macOS 15 or later. | macOS 15.3 or later. | macOS 13 or later, Apple silicon or Intel. | macOS 13 or later, Apple silicon or Intel. Windows and Linux are on a waitlist. | Any macOS that runs Bun or Node. |
| Setup | Open the app, switch on the apps you want, press one button. The Claude extension installs itself: no Terminal, no config file. | Download the app or install the Homebrew cask, then choose Configure Claude Desktop from the menu bar; it writes the server into Claude's config file. Restart Claude and approve the connection. | Download the app. A .mcpb bundle opens in Claude Desktop and asks you to approve an OAuth connection; each app and each client is approved separately. | An installer script run in Terminal, or the Mac app. It configures Claude Desktop, Cursor, VS Code and other clients for you. | Add a bunx command to Claude Desktop's config file by hand, or run an npx installer; later a .dxt bundle. Permissions are granted to whichever process launched it, often the Terminal. |
| Updates | Signed automatic updates, which you can switch off. | No in-app updater. New builds come from GitHub releases or the Homebrew cask. | Updates included with Lifetime. | Signed automatic updates. | None. The repository is archived. |
| Maintenance | Actively developed. Every release is listed on the changelog and reaches installed copies by itself. | Last release 1.4.1 on 7 May 2025. Commits resumed on the main branch in September 2026 after a quiet year; 34 issues open, one of them asking about the project's future. | Actively developed commercial product. | Actively developed; version 3.0.380 at the time of writing. | Archived on 1 January 2026 and read-only: no fixes, no releases, no support for new macOS versions. |
| Source | Closed source. The privacy pledge is enforced by tests, not read. | Open source, MIT. About 1,500 GitHub stars. | The Mac app is proprietary. The small bundle that connects it to Claude is MIT. | Proprietary. The GitHub repository holds releases, not source. | Open source, MIT. About 3,100 GitHub stars. |
| Privacy | Your app data never leaves your Mac. The only requests are a licence check, an update check and four pseudonymous usage counts, all listed on the privacy page; a test fails if the code and that page disagree. | Runs locally in a sandboxed, signed menu-bar app. Open source, so what it does with your data is there to read. | Claims “All processing stays on your Mac. No cloud, no telemetry of your content.” Per-app, per-client approvals that can be revoked. The app is closed source, so the claim is asserted, not checkable. | Tool results stay on your Mac. The app sends a heartbeat about every five minutes carrying its version, your macOS version, CPU type and a hashed machine identifier; records install events with your approximate location; and verifies a licence key. The optional cloud relay routes requests through LMCP's servers. | Runs locally as a plain script with no telemetry. Open source, so the behaviour is readable, but nobody is watching it now. |
One page for each
Pomeroy vs iMCP
iMCP is a free, open-source Mac app that gives Claude your Calendar, Contacts, Location, Maps, Messages, Reminders, Shortcuts and Weather; it has no Mail or Notes and no automatic updates. Pomeroy is $19 once, covers 8 apps including Mail and Notes, updates itself, and cannot send anything. Pick iMCP if you like open source and the terminal; pick Pomeroy if you want Mail and Notes from something that looks after itself.
Pomeroy vs Macuse
Macuse is the more powerful tool: it reads and writes nine Apple apps, sends mail and messages, and can drive any Mac app through Computer Use, for $49 once with a free tier of 100 calls a day on macOS 13 or later. Pomeroy is narrower on purpose: 8 apps, read-mostly, $19 once, with a privacy pledge held by tests rather than asserted. Pick Macuse if you want Claude to act on your Mac; pick Pomeroy if you want Claude to read it and never send.
Pomeroy vs LMCP
LMCP is free and broad: 188+ tools across Mail, Calendar, Messages, Teams, Slack, WhatsApp, Microsoft 365 and cloud drives, for any MCP client on macOS 13 or later. Pomeroy is small on purpose: 8 Apple apps, read-mostly, $19 once, with every network request listed on one page and held there by a test. Pick LMCP for breadth and work apps; pick Pomeroy for a focused, safe connection to the Apple apps on your Mac.
apple-mcp is archived. What should you use instead?
apple-mcp, the open-source server that first gave Claude your Mail, Notes, Messages, Contacts, Calendar and Reminders, was archived on 1 January 2026 and no longer receives fixes. The maintained replacements are iMCP (free, open source, no Mail or Notes), Macuse ($49, read-and-write with Computer Use), LMCP (free, 188+ tools) and Pomeroy ($19 once, 8 Apple apps, read-mostly). Which to pick depends on whether you want Claude to be able to send.
Try Pomeroy free and decide for yourself.
Get 50 actions every week. No Pomeroy account or payment card required. Requires macOS 15 or later.