DockDuck vs Marta: which should you use?
Marta is free, minimal and keyboard-driven, and people who love it really love it — but it has not shipped a release since 0.8.2 in July 2024, and it has no remote servers, no batch rename and no folder comparison. DockDuck is a paid, actively developed alternative (1.0.6 shipped August 2026) that covers all three. If you want free minimalism and can accept frozen software, Marta still works today; if your file manager is a tool you depend on, betting on active development is the safer call — and DockDuck’s trial costs the same as Marta: nothing.
Full disclosure: DockDuck is our app. This page still tries to be the comparison we would want to read — where a competitor is better, we say so.
| DockDuck | Marta | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $24.99/yr · $49 lifetime | Free (beta) |
| License & updates | One-time lifetime (all updates) or annual, renewed manually · 3 Macs | Beta; paid license planned post-beta, none exists today |
| Tech stack | Native Swift / AppKit | Swift (vendor-stated) |
| Dual-pane | Yes | Yes |
| Remote servers | SFTP, SMB, WebDAV, FTP | — |
| Batch rename | Yes | No |
| Folder compare / sync | Yes | No |
| Minimum macOS | macOS 15 | macOS 11 |
| Latest release | 1.1.0 · Sep 2026 | 0.8.2 · Jul 2024 (no release in 2+ years) |
| Trial | 14 days, no card | — |
Prices, versions and features verified against each vendor’s own pages on 2026-08-28.
What does Marta do better than DockDuck?
- Completely free, no license, no account.
- Ultra-light, keyboard-first design with text-file configuration — a genuine pleasure for terminal-minded users.
- Broader macOS support: runs on macOS 11 Big Sur; DockDuck requires macOS 15.
What does DockDuck do better than Marta?
- It is alive: DockDuck shipped 1.0.6 in August 2026; Marta’s last release was July 2024, with a silent blog since.
- Remote servers (SFTP, SMB, WebDAV, FTP) — Marta shipped none; its plugin architecture for them never materialized.
- Batch rename with patterns and preview; Marta renames one item at a time.
- Folder comparison and sync, a Shelf drop-stack, smart folders, and archives beyond ZIP (7-Zip, tar.gz/xz creation, RAR extraction).
Is Marta abandoned?
There is no official abandonment notice, but the evidence points that way: the latest release is 0.8.2 from July 2024, more than two years ago, the developer’s blog has been silent as long, and the paid 1.0 announced for “after the beta” has never arrived. The app still runs fine today — the risk is the future: no fixes for new macOS versions and no missing features ever landing.
Which one should you choose?
Choose Marta if free is non-negotiable and your needs stop at local dual-pane browsing with a keyboard focus. Choose DockDuck if you need servers, bulk rename or folder sync — none of which Marta has — or simply want your daily driver maintained against every new macOS release. Trying DockDuck for 14 days costs exactly what Marta does: nothing.