Native Windows Apps Without a Subscription
Two out of three apps on the menu now install on a PC. The office shelf is complete on Windows, the creative shelf is nearly there, and 42 apps have not been ported yet.
The cafe opened as a Mac thing. Every app on the menu in June ran on macOS, and the answer to the PC question was always the same one: not yet.
The PC builds arrived without a launch post. A second installer appeared on an app page, then another, then a shelf's worth in a single week. As of today, 85 of the 127 apps on the menu install on a computer running Windows. That is two out of three, and the number keeps creeping up.
What a build means on a PC
Each one is a real installer, for Windows x64 and for ARM64 machines, compiled from the same source as the Mac version. The app opens in its own window and reads your files straight off the disk, so the cable can stay unplugged. That is the local-first argument, and it fits a PC exactly as well as a Mac.
One sign-in activates the menu on both platforms. Solo Cup covers one computer and Family Roast covers five, and any of those five can be a PC.
The office shelf has no gaps
Every app on the Latte shelf runs on Windows now. Sixteen of sixteen.
DocCafe opens and saves .docx files, SheetCafe handles .xlsx, and SlideCafe edits .pptx. Between the three of them, the formats that make an Office subscription feel compulsory stop being compulsory, which is the argument from the Office piece and it holds on a PC.
The rest of the shelf: NoteCafe for notes kept as plain Markdown files, PDFCafe for reading and annotating, PDFToWord for converting a PDF back into an editable document, DocConvert for moving between formats, and TaskCafe plus StickyBoard for the work around the document.
LatteX compiles .tex files with the typesetting engine built into the app, so a LaTeX document renders without a multi-gigabyte TeX distribution underneath it. MarkdownCafe shows the source and the finished page side by side. ProjectCafe plans work in order, so moving one job moves every date that depends on it. CalCafe keeps a calendar in a local database, with no account and no sync service in the middle.
The scan family finishes the shelf. ScanStraightener straightens a photo of a page, ScanToPDF turns a stack of those pages into one searchable document, and ScanToDocx produces a Word file instead. A phone camera plus these three is a scanner.
The creative shelf is nearly whole
Twelve of fourteen. CremaStudio is the layered photo editor with PSD and RAW support. Pixpresso does the batch work: resize, rename, watermark, export, on hundreds of files at once. SketchCafe is a whiteboard for hand-drawn diagrams, DesignBrew handles technical layouts, and FontSiphon manages the fonts installed on the machine.
Three of them are for people who bill by the hour. MokaStudio is the video editor with a multi-track timeline and subtitle support. BrewCAD and BrewBIM open engineering drawings and building models, and Lungo3D goes further with a real geometry kernel for STEP files, working offline on the most confidential drawings a firm owns.
InvoiceCafe builds an invoice and exports the PDF in under a minute. BookCafe writes a book in chapters and publishes it as a website or a PDF. ResumeRoast does the document that gets you the interview.
Chat, files and a live globe
Frappe runs nine of nineteen. ChatCafe passes messages between machines on the same network without a server. ContactCafe edits .vcf and .csv contact exports in place, so the fields you did not touch survive. Emojito searches emoji, stickers and GIFs offline. FileShipper moves files between machines, and TorrentMilk is free.
Two of them watch the sky. FlightTrack draws live air traffic on a 3D globe, and GlobeSiphon puts more than three thousand satellites on the same globe. TripRoute turns a route you took into an animated video. DemoTrading practises crypto trading against live prices with money that does not exist.
The shelf that is there for fun
Affogato is fifteen of sixteen, which is fitting, because none of it is work. ChessCafe is free and the pieces fight every capture. CheckersCafe, ChineseChess and GomokuCafe cover the other three board games, each with five difficulty levels.
SteepJournal is a diary sealed with a password only you know. Portfocino tracks net worth across sixteen asset classes in one encrypted file. MochaMusic plays the music already on your disk. LofiLatte generates background sound, WallpaperBrew makes wallpapers from a palette, and BrewSpin puts a record player on the desktop.
For anyone who spends all day in front of a screen, the pets are the sleeper hit: DesktopDogs grows a puppy over a hundred days, DesktopCactus blooms on day fifty, and DockerCats naps on the taskbar. XSaver turns an idle machine into a control room, and Decoresso puts 3D objects on the desktop that you can spin.
Two shelves still filling in
Pour Over is eighteen of nineteen, and it is the shelf that did the heavy lifting this month: PhotoBatch, VideoRoast, ScribeSteep, SiteWrap, RetroFilter, CremaClear, CremaPicker, DiskSpeed, plus the ambient set of clocks, alarms, mood logs and quote rotators.
Cold Brew sits at four of fourteen: CoffeeTime, TinyImage, TinyVideo and TinyPDF. Espresso is down to one, DripCleaner, and that is the honest weak spot. The small Mac utilities lean hardest on the menu bar and on permissions only macOS grants, so they are the slowest to cross over.
The 42 apps that are still Mac-only
Nine of them are menu bar and system tools: CreamShot X, ClipBrew, RobuStats, MonitorControl, SnapBrew, BarKeeper, TouchCafe, AwakeBean and AirBudBrew. These borrow interfaces that have no direct equivalent on a PC, so porting them means rebuilding the idea rather than recompiling the code.
The other thirty-three have simply not been ported yet: PassBrew, TickerBar, PrivateMedia, FileSearch, FileSteep, LatteSEO, MapPoster, PersonalCRM, VectorStudio, ScreenMotion, PaintFroth, SteamBlur, ZenBell, GrindSession, PomoLatte, TypeClack, BlinkBrew, CamCascara, Barista, BrewReader, MindNote, PressZip, RistrettoFit, HabitTamp, PosturePerk, FolderRoast, NitroNet, NitroFeed and Brewser.
There are no dates on any of them. The order has followed the shelves rather than a public roadmap, and guessing at it out loud would be worse than saying nothing.
Finding the Windows apps
The menu page has a Windows filter. Turn it on and the grid drops to the 85 apps with a PC installer, which is a faster answer than any list written in a blog post, because it reads the same data the download buttons do. The shelves are at /menu#latte, /menu#mocha, /menu#frappe and /menu#affogato if you want to browse by type instead.
What it costs
The price does not change because the machine does. Solo Cup is $9.99 a month, or $4.99 a month billed yearly at $59.88. Family Roast is $15.99 a month, or $7.99 a month billed yearly at $95.88, and it covers five devices. Either way you get both platforms and the whole menu. The seven-day trial runs through Stripe, so a card goes on file when it starts, which is worth knowing before you click.
There is a longer version of this argument in why we don't call ourselves a Setapp alternative, and the short version is that a fixed catalogue of native apps you install beats a rotating one you rent.
If you have been reading this site from a PC and assuming it was not for you, this summer was spent proving otherwise. See the membership.