Wallgami
Next to the others
The paid leader is excellent and has a content library nothing here can match. The free one is genuinely good and costs nothing. This is where Wallgami is different, not where it is better at everything.
| Wallgami | Wallpaper Engine | Lively | DeskScapes 2026 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | $4.99 | Free | $9.99 ($6.99 at launch) |
| Needs a games client installed and signed in | No | Yes — Steam only | No | No |
| A wallpaper can run a program | No. The ability does not exist. | Yes, locally. Withdrawn from the Workshop in June 2026. | Yes — a documented wallpaper type | Not that we could find |
| Rules you set for battery, games and calls | Nine situations, four actions each; window rules act only on the screen they happen on | Yes, a good set | Yes, a smaller set | Limited |
| Shows what it is costing right now | Windows: yes, live, including browser processes. Mac: not yet | Not that we could find | Not that we could find | Not that we could find |
| Obeys the system’s reduce-motion setting | Yes | Not that we could find | No — it requires that setting to be on | Not that we could find |
| Screens wallpapers for dangerous flashing | Yes, for videos and animated images | Not that we could find | Not that we could find | Not that we could find |
| Dims the wallpaper so icon labels stay readable | Yes | Not that we could find | Not that we could find | Not that we could find |
| Pauses by itself when a meeting app is open | Yes — Teams, Zoom, Webex and others; the list is yours to edit | Not that we could find | Not that we could find | Not that we could find |
| Somewhere to find wallpapers inside the app | Import from YouTube and other video sites by link, or browse YouTube in the app | The Workshop — far larger than anything here | None at all | Its own collection |
| A different wallpaper per virtual desktop | Yes, on Windows | No — asked for repeatedly | No — asked for since 2021 | Not that we could find |
“Not that we could find” means exactly that: we looked in the product, its settings and its documentation and did not find it. It is not a claim that the feature cannot possibly be there.
Get Wallgami
Free, for Mac and Windows 11.
- Find Wallgami in your Downloads. Safari unzips it for you; otherwise, double-click the zip.
- Drag Wallgami into Applications. On an account that is not an administrator, macOS asks for an administrator’s password here.
- Open it. macOS asks once whether to open an app downloaded from the internet. Wallgami is signed with an Apple Developer ID and notarized by Apple, so there is no warning to get past.
- Edge may say the file “isn’t commonly downloaded”, because it is new and not code-signed yet. Click … beside it and choose Keep; when Edge asks again, open the arrow beside Delete and choose Keep anyway.
- Open the installer from your Downloads. It installs for you alone, so it does not ask for an administrator. If Windows shows a blue “Windows protected your PC” box, click More info, then Run anyway.
- Click through the installer. It can also fetch the optional AI upscaler (about 43 MB) and start Wallgami with Windows; both are yours to untick.