Chorus vs Audio Hijack: which one do you need?

The short version

It's worth saying plainly why this comparison exists at all. Both apps sit on the audio side of a Mac and both come up in the same searches, but they were built to do different work, and neither is a smaller or cheaper version of the other. Chorus is for the sound you listen to, every day, out loud. Audio Hijack is for the sound you want to keep, as a file. It is entirely normal to want both, for different reasons, at different moments.

Chorus vs Audio Hijack at a glance

What Chorus is

Chorus is a native macOS menu-bar app for the devices already attached to your Mac. It groups outputs so several of them play as one, with a single volume that actually moves the sound rather than a slider that has quietly stopped working, and balance between the devices in the group so a quiet speaker can be brought up to meet a loud one.

Around that sits the rest of the job. You choose your input in the same panel. You send individual apps to different outputs, so a call can stay on your headphones while music plays across the room. You save the arrangements you use and switch between them with a keyboard shortcut, and your volume keys drive a whole group instead of one device. Chorus notices devices as they connect and disconnect and adjusts, which matters if you unplug a display at the end of the day. If you want to drive it from elsewhere, it automates through Raycast, Shortcuts or Stream Deck.

There is no driver and no kernel extension. Chorus uses the audio grouping macOS already has, so nothing is installed into the system and dragging the app to the Trash leaves your Mac as it was. It is $4.99 once, free for 30 days with no account and no card details, and one licence covers up to three Macs. It needs macOS 13 or later and runs on both Intel and Apple Silicon. And to say it once more, directly: Chorus does not record anything. There is no capture feature anywhere in it.

What Audio Hijack is

Audio Hijack, from Rogue Amoeba, is a recording app. Its own site puts it plainly: "If you can hear it on your Mac, Audio Hijack can record it, and more." It captures audio from websites, apps, microphones and mixers, and from the system as a whole, and it is built for making something out of that capture: podcast production, recording a VoIP call, streaming live to YouTube Live, Twitch or Facebook, or broadcasting to an internet radio audience over Shoutcast or Icecast. It includes speech-to-text transcription of what it records.

Because it works on a recording chain, Audio Hijack has processing blocks you insert into that chain, including a "Magic Boost" block and a volume block, so you can adjust an app's level as part of shaping the recording. That is not the same as a persistent, system-wide per-app volume control for everyday listening, which is Chorus's job. Audio Hijack is often used alongside Rogue Amoeba's own Loopback, a separate $99 app, for routing audio between other apps before capture. At $69, it is priced as a serious tool for people who record regularly.

Where Chorus wins

• Everyday listening is the whole point. Group your speakers, route an app to a different output, switch setups with a shortcut, all without ever touching a recording chain.
• The price, for this particular job. $4.99 against $69 for a tool built to capture, when all you want is to control where sound plays.
• It is small and it stays out of the way. One menu-bar panel covering outputs, inputs and per-app routing, with nothing to configure before you can use it.
• It follows your desk. Devices are picked up as they connect and dropped as they go, so a group survives the daily unplugging.
• Nothing installed into the system. No driver, no kernel extension, and no trace left behind when it goes.
• Three Macs on one licence, and 30 days free before you decide.

Where Audio Hijack is the better buy

• Recording, full stop. If you need to capture a podcast, a call, a stream or system audio to a file, Chorus has nothing to offer you here. Audio Hijack is built for exactly this.
• Live streaming and broadcast. Direct support for YouTube Live, Twitch, Facebook and Shoutcast/Icecast internet radio.
• Speech-to-text transcription of what it captures, built in.
• A processing chain over the recording. Magic Boost, volume blocks and other effects, applied while you capture, not after.
• A $29 upgrade if you already own Audio Hijack 3, which changes the maths considerably.

So which should you pick?

Pick Chorus if the problem is practical, day-to-day listening: two speakers that should sound like one, a call that belongs on headphones while music plays out loud, a mic you keep having to reselect, a setup you would like to change with one keystroke. That is the whole job, it is $4.99, and none of it involves recording anything.

Pick Audio Hijack if the problem is capture: a podcast episode, a recorded call, a saved stream, or a broadcast feed. Chorus cannot help with any of that, it has no recording feature at all, so do not buy it hoping it will.

Doing both is not a contradiction. Plenty of people use Chorus to manage where their Mac's sound plays every day, and reach for Audio Hijack only on the days they are actually recording something. The two apps were never competing for the same job.

For exactly what it records and how, see Audio Hijack's own product page.

Frequently asked questions