Looking for a DaisyDisk alternative?
DaisyDisk is one of the best-loved Mac utilities, and its sunburst map earned that. Here is what a visualizer does and doesn’t do, and where Vaulith differs.
The short version
- Choose Vaulith if you want the cleaner to find and safety-check junk for you, with every removal recoverable.
- Choose DaisyDisk if you want a beautiful, instant map of your disk and you’ll decide what’s safe yourself.
Try Vaulith free — scan and see your reclaimable number before paying anything, or compare plans.
Side by side
| Vaulith | DaisyDisk | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A cleaner that finds, safety-verifies, and recommends what to remove. You review and confirm every file. | An interactive disk-space map (the famous sunburst) that you explore and prune by hand. |
| A grade you can audit | Every whole-machine scan earns a letter Report Card (A+–F) for privacy and storage — computed on your device, never uploaded, and the scoring math is public. The first fix it suggests is always the free one. | The sunburst shows where space goes, but there’s no grade and no published scoring math (daisydiskapp.com, checked August 2026). |
| Platforms | macOS 13+ and Windows 10/11 — one license, up to 3 devices. | macOS only. |
| Where analysis runs & network calls during a scan | Fully on-device, and a scan adds no new outbound connections. Run the check yourself. | On your Mac too — “All your data stays with you” (daisydiskapp.com). Strong posture; no user-runnable verification method published. |
| How you find junk | The scan brings grouped recommendations: duplicates, developer and app caches, large files, blurry photos — each safety-verified first. | The map shows you what’s big; deciding what’s junk — and what’s safe — is up to you. |
| Duplicates & photos | Byte-exact (SHA-256) duplicates, visually similar photos, blur checks — and photos of documents are marked Protected. | Not what it does — a size map can’t tell two identical copies apart. |
| Deletion recoverability | Your files go to a restorable Quarantine, then the OS Trash; cache cleanup goes straight to the Trash. Nothing is permanently deleted by Vaulith — restore any time. | Emptying its collector deletes immediately — “Files deleted permanently,” per its own table (daisydiskapp.com). It warns clearly, but no undo. |
| Byte-accounting honesty | Clone-aware on APFS: the promised number can only under-promise, never inflate. | Advertises “10—100 GB +” typically recovered (daisydiskapp.com); clone-aware accounting isn’t advertised. |
| Sensitive-file awareness | Every plan, even Free: files that read like tax returns, IDs, or medical records — including documents photographed with your camera and saved as JPEG or PNG — are marked Protected. | “System files are automatically safeguarded” (daisydiskapp.com); sensitive-document detection isn’t part of the product. |
| Developer caches | A core focus: Xcode DerivedData, npm, pip, Homebrew — identified by name, safety-verified, cleared recoverably. | Big cache folders show up on the map if you know them; whether they’re safe is your call. |
| Pay once? | Founding Member (lifetime license): $129 once — all v1.x updates, Mac and Windows, up to 3 devices.† Free tier: 500 MB/month. | Yes — $9.99 one-time as of July 2026, up to 5 personal Macs. Great value for what it does. |
| Your cleaning history online | Sign in and see every scan — dates, findings, and space recovered over time. | No account and no web portal — nothing is recorded between sessions, so no history to review. |
| What the cloud can store about you | Only numbers — never a file name. Our servers see counts and sizes, nothing else. Crash reports are path-scrubbed too. | Nothing: DaisyDisk has no cloud component at all — and so no account and no history either. |
| Account requirement | None. Download, scan, and clean with no account, no email, no card. | None — no account and no cloud component at all. |
† Founding offer: first 500 members or until October 11, 2026, whichever comes first; the lifetime price then becomes $179. Or Vaulith Pro: $29/yr billed once, or $3.99/mo ($47.88/yr).
Comparison reflects publicly documented features as of July 2026. DaisyDisk is a product of Software Ambience Corp.; Vaulith is not affiliated with or endorsed by them.
The three differences that actually matter
1. A map shows size — not sameness, not safety
A sunburst can’t tell a duplicate from an original, or a safe cache from your photo library. Vaulith answers both: developer caches are identified by name and safety-verified, and duplicates are matched byte-for-byte.
2. Deletion you can take back
DaisyDisk deletes immediately and permanently; one misread folder is unrecoverable. Vaulith has no direct-delete code path — everything goes to a restorable quarantine or the OS Trash.
3. Both platforms, own it once
DaisyDisk is fairly priced but Mac-only; Vaulith’s $129 Founding Member covers macOS and Windows on up to 3 devices. Fine print and the Pro subscription live on the pricing page.
Fair is fair: DaisyDisk is the best disk visualizer on the Mac, and the two tools pair well. If you only want the map, buy DaisyDisk — or walk our free cleanup checklist by hand.
Skip the guesswork — see what’s safe to reclaim, free
Scan free, get safety-verified recommendations, and clean 500 MB/month — everything recoverable. First-time subscriptions and the Lifetime license carry a 7-day money-back guarantee.
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