Arc alternatives

The right Arc Browser alternative depends on the part of Arc you refuse to lose.

Zen Browser is the closest match for Arc’s vertical shape and visual calm. Vivaldi gives you the most control. Dia carries The Browser Company’s attention into an AI-first browser. Microsoft Edge combines vertical tabs, Workspaces, and Split Screen in a mature Chromium browser. Horse is for the person who can keep every page open and still lose what they meant to finish.

Arc itself remains available and continues to receive Chromium updates, so keeping Arc is also a perfectly good answer.arc Spaces, Split View, Boosts, and its beautiful sidebar did not become bad ideas because development moved elsewhere.

This is an independent comparison. Horse appears on the list because we make it. Nobody paid for a position, there are no affiliate links, and Horse does not win every category. A useful comparison needs enough confidence to tell you when another browser is the better horse. Metaphorically. We remain the only literal horse.

Arc bundled several good ideas into one browser. An alternative does not need to imitate all of them. It needs to preserve the part that changed browsing for you.

Ask which sentence sounds most like your reason for opening this page:

Install the two strongest candidates and give each one an ordinary afternoon. Do not judge them by the import animation or the first twelve minutes of rearranging the sidebar. Tuesday is the test. Which browser still makes sense after the message, the meeting, the lunch, and the interesting link that became six interesting links?

Zen is the closest overall alternative for somebody who wants Arc’s shape. It is Firefox-based and combines vertical tabs, workspaces, split view, and a compact mode that can clear almost the entire browser interface from the page.zen

The important resemblance is not that the tabs moved left. Zen understands that the sidebar is part of the room. Workspaces separate different parts of life, and Firefox containers can keep accounts separate inside them. If you used Arc Spaces for work, home, and the project that has quietly acquired its own constitution, Zen will feel familiar without feeling copied.

Choose Zen if visual calm, vertical navigation, and workspaces are the part of Arc you miss. Test your essential extensions and websites before moving everything because its Firefox foundation is a real difference, not a footnote wearing a small hat.

Vivaldi is the strongest choice when Arc made you want more control. It includes vertical tabs, two-level Tab Stacks, tree-style views, Workspaces, saved sessions, and Tab Tiling for viewing several pages together.vivaldi

Arc made confident decisions on your behalf. Vivaldi hands you the control room and trusts you near the switches. You can make it dense, minimal, highly keyboard-driven, or magnificently peculiar. That makes it especially good for work that needs several accounts, page groups, or documents visible at once.

Choose Vivaldi if you enjoy deciding exactly how software should behave. Choose something more opinionated if the joy of Arc was that somebody else had already decided.

Dia is The Browser Company’s current browser. It can use context from open tabs, organise related pages, preserve split layouts, and separate work and personal browsing with Profiles. Its central idea is AI working with the material already in your browser.dia

That makes Dia the obvious candidate if Arc Max pointed in the direction you wanted the company to go. The family resemblance is in the visual care and willingness to reconsider the browser, not in reproducing Arc’s Spaces and sidebar.

Choose Dia if you want AI woven into everyday browsing. Choose Zen, Vivaldi, or Arc itself if the interface was the thing you loved. Dia currently requires an Apple-silicon Mac running macOS 14 or later.

Edge is the mature Chromium answer. It offers vertical tabs, persistent Workspaces, tab groups, Profiles, and Split Screen without asking you to gamble on a young browser.edge

Its Workspaces create dedicated windows for projects and keep their tabs saved. That is closer to Arc’s Spaces than a conventional tab group, while broad Chrome extension support and Microsoft’s website compatibility make the move comparatively uneventful.

Choose Edge if you want Arc-adjacent organisation on a browser with a large company and Chromium behind it. A Microsoft account is required for Workspaces, and the interface carries considerably more Microsoft than Arc ever did. Some people will call that reassuring. Others have already closed the download page.

Arc is excellent at grouping tabs into Spaces. Horse solves a different problem: what opened what?

Click a link in Horse and the next page branches beneath the page that opened it. Follow another and the branch continues. Those parent-and-branch relationships remain visible in the sidebar, so an interruption does not reduce the task to a collection of tabs that happen to be open at the same time.

We call these branching paths Trails. They are useful when re-entry is the expensive part of browsing. The form still belongs to the instructions. The hotel still belongs to the neighbourhood search. The magnificent side quest still has a route back to the thing you meant to finish.

That is why people with ADHD use Horse. It is an accommodation, not a treatment: the browser keeps one piece of context visible instead of asking working memory to rebuild it. You do not need a diagnosis to benefit from the same mechanism.

Horse runs on macOS, Windows, and Linux. It supports 1Password, Bitwarden, uBlock Origin Lite, and Dark Reader today. If you need Arc’s Boosts, broad Chrome extension support, or built-in Split View, another browser on this page will fit better. If you keep every page and lose the task, try Horse.

Safari is the calm answer for somebody whose life already moves between Apple devices. It has Tab Groups, separate Profiles, extensions, password integration, and continuity across Mac, iPhone, and iPad.safari

It does not try to recreate Arc. Instead, it makes the browser part of the operating system around it. That can matter more than vertical tabs when the page you opened on your phone needs to be waiting on your Mac.

Choose Safari for Apple continuity, battery life, and a browser that requires very little administration. Look elsewhere if Arc’s vertical interface, Chrome extensions, or extensive customisation was the point.

Brave is a Chromium browser with built-in blocking for ads and trackers. It also offers vertical tabs, a sidebar, tab groups, syncing, and compatibility with Chrome extensions.brave

That makes it a sensible landing place when you want familiar websites and extensions with stronger privacy defaults. Arc asked how a browser should feel. Brave asks how much tracking should get through the door. Both questions improved the category.

Choose Brave if privacy and Chromium compatibility matter more than rebuilding Arc’s complete interface. Its tab tools can support large browsing sessions, but privacy remains the centre of the product.

Chrome is the least surprising answer and, for some people, the correct one. It offers excellent website compatibility, the largest extension ecosystem, Profiles for separating accounts, and almost no learning curve for anybody who used it before Arc.chrome

An extension can add vertical tabs or a tab manager while leaving the familiar Chromium base intact. The result will not become Arc, but it may preserve the two additions you actually used without asking you to adopt an entirely new browser.

Choose Chrome when compatibility is non-negotiable. Choose almost anything else on this list if conventional tabs were the reason you tried Arc in the first place.

Not automatically. Arc still works, remains downloadable, and receives Chromium updates.arc If its current feature set fits your day, there is no prize for moving browsers as an act of personal growth.

Move because one specific job is no longer being served. Choose the alternative that does that job best, then let the rest of the comparison become blessedly irrelevant.

If your job is returning to the thing you meant to finish, try Horse free for 14 days. Bring one real task, follow every interesting branch, leave, and come back tomorrow. If the route is obvious, Horse has earned its place.