Ventura launched in October 2022 and was a solid release. Stage Manager, a new System Settings, Continuity Camera, passkeys. It was well-received, and for Intel Macs that cannot go further, it remains the permanent destination.
The problem is that 2026 is four years later. The apps you were running when Ventura came out have grown. Electron-based apps like Slack, VS Code, Notion, and Figma have added features and added memory usage. Background services have multiplied. Meanwhile the hardware underneath has not changed. A 2019 MacBook Pro with 16 GB of RAM and an Intel Core i7 is doing considerably more work today than it was when it first ran Ventura. This guide is about understanding that gap and closing it as much as possible.
If you are on a Mac that can run Sonoma or later and are wondering whether to upgrade, skip to the section below on that question. If you are staying on Ventura regardless, start with the quirks section, then the checklist.
Who is still on Ventura and why
In 2026, three groups account for most Ventura users.
Intel Macs that top out at Ventura. The oldest Macs that can run Ventura are 2017 models: the iMac (2017), MacBook Pro (2017), and MacBook Air (2018 in some configurations). Those machines physically cannot run Sonoma or later; Apple's hardware cut-off is a real wall, not a suggestion. If your Mac is from that generation, Ventura is where you stay until you replace the hardware.
App compatibility concerns. Some users have stayed on Ventura deliberately because a specific app they depend on professionally has not been tested on Sonoma or Sequoia, or because a hardware driver for an older peripheral only supports up to 13.x. This is a reasonable position, particularly in creative or audio-production workflows where a broken plugin chain costs real time.
The "if it ain't broke" contingent. A smaller group has simply not upgraded because things work and they don't see a compelling reason to change. This too is reasonable. An OS upgrade is not free: it takes time, can break workflows, and occasionally introduces regressions that weren't in the release you were on. Stability has real value.
The Ventura-specific quirks
Ventura has a few behaviours that are different from later macOS versions and that can contribute to slowness in ways that aren't obvious.
Stage Manager memory behaviour. Stage Manager was introduced in Ventura and, in the 13.x releases, it keeps more windows in an actively-rendered state than later macOS versions do. If you use Stage Manager and have multiple workspaces open, you may find it consuming more memory than you'd expect. On a machine with 8 GB of RAM, this pushes you into memory pressure faster. The simplest fix is to turn Stage Manager off if you're not actively getting value from it. Go to System Settings › Desktop & Dock and toggle Stage Manager off. You can always re-enable it later.
Login items behaviour in 13.x. Ventura introduced a new login items management system (the one visible in System Settings under General, Login Items). But third-party apps that used the older LaunchAgent or LaunchDaemon method from before Ventura still work, and Ventura tends to run both the old and new registration systems simultaneously. The result is that some apps effectively get launched twice or maintain two background agents. Check both System Settings, General, Login Items and also open Terminal and run launchctl list | grep -v com.apple to see what third-party agents are actually running. Anything unfamiliar or duplicated can be disabled.
DriverKit transition issues. Ventura was one of the first macOS versions to fully enforce DriverKit replacements for older kernel extensions (kexts). Some peripheral drivers, particularly from audio and networking hardware, shipped partial DriverKit support in 2022 and have had ongoing stability issues. If your Mac feels sluggish and you have an audio interface, older USB hub, or non-Apple network adapter, check the manufacturer's site for a Ventura-specific driver update. A poorly-behaved DriverKit extension can consume disproportionate CPU time without it being obvious in Activity Monitor.
The general slowdowns
Beyond the Ventura-specific quirks, the same general causes account for most slowness on any Intel Mac in 2026.
Memory pressure. Open Activity Monitor (press Command-Space, type "Activity Monitor", press Return) and click the Memory tab. Look at the Memory Pressure graph at the bottom. Green means headroom. Yellow means the system is working. Red means it's genuinely struggling, compressing memory and writing to swap. On Intel Macs, hitting red is common once you have a browser with several tabs open alongside a couple of Electron apps. This is the most common cause of Ventura feeling slow in 2026.
Login items accumulation. Every app you install tends to add something that starts at login. Over four years of using the same Mac, these accumulate. Some are useful. Many are not. Open System Settings, General, Login Items and work through the list honestly. If you don't recognise something or wouldn't miss it, disable it. Fewer things starting at login means a faster boot and more available memory once you're up and running.
Swap thrash. When macOS runs out of RAM, it writes compressed memory to the SSD (swap). On Intel Macs, particularly those with SATA or older NVMe drives rather than the fast storage in Apple Silicon Macs, heavy swap activity creates a feedback loop: everything slows down, which causes more memory to be needed, which causes more swap. The only durable fix is to reduce memory usage. The checklist below covers the most impactful steps.
For a broader look at what memory pressure means in practice, the Sonoma slowness guide covers the same concepts with some additional context, and much of it applies directly to Ventura.
Ventura is not slow because it is older. It is slow because the apps running on it have grown.
Should you upgrade?
The honest answer is: only if your Mac supports Sonoma or later and you have a real reason to.
If your Mac is a 2017-2019 model that maxes out at Ventura, the question is moot. You are on Ventura until you buy new hardware. Focus on the checklist below and get as much life as you can from the machine you have. Apple maintains a macOS support lifecycle page where you can confirm which versions your specific model supports.
If your Mac does support Sonoma (for example, a 2019 Mac Pro or a 2020 Intel MacBook Pro), the case for upgrading is mainly about security patches. As of 2026, Ventura is no longer in Apple's active security update window. That matters more if your Mac handles sensitive data or is used for work. It matters less if it's a home machine you're comfortable managing carefully.
Upgrading for performance alone is rarely worth it. Sonoma is not meaningfully faster than Ventura on the same Intel hardware. The architecture underneath is the same. If your Mac is slow on Ventura, it will be similarly slow on Sonoma. The fixes that actually help are the ones in the checklist below, and they work regardless of which version you're on.
See also the related guide on macOS Tahoe performance if you are weighing whether the latest release makes sense for your hardware, and what to do when your Mac is slow after a macOS update if you upgraded recently and things got worse.
The this-week checklist
Five steps, ordered by impact. These are specific to Ventura 13.x.
1. Audit and clear login items, both old and new. Open System Settings, General, Login Items and remove anything you don't actively use. Then open Terminal and run launchctl list | grep -v com.apple to check for background agents registered the old way. Research anything unfamiliar. On Ventura, the two registration systems coexist, and both contribute to what's consuming resources at startup.
2. Turn off Stage Manager if you're not using it. Go to System Settings, Desktop and Dock, and toggle Stage Manager off. If you use it, leave it on, but if you turned it on when Ventura launched and rarely touch it, disabling it frees up memory that Ventura otherwise reserves for staging inactive windows.
3. Check for DriverKit driver updates for any third-party peripherals. Audio interfaces, USB hubs, MIDI controllers, and older network adapters all potentially have drivers that shipped imperfect DriverKit support in 2022. Visit the manufacturer's support page for each piece of hardware you have connected and install any updates from the last 18 months. A bad driver burns CPU silently.
4. Reduce your browser tab and Electron app count. This is the unsexy fix that matters most. Chrome and Firefox both use significant memory per tab, and each Electron app (Slack, Notion, VS Code, Discord, Figma) runs its own instance of Chromium. On a 16 GB Intel Mac, four Electron apps and a browser with twenty tabs is enough to push you into heavy memory pressure. Close what you're not actively using. Use browser tab suspension extensions (The Great Suspender for Chrome, Auto Tab Discard for Firefox) to keep tabs from consuming memory in the background.
5. Restart weekly. macOS accumulates memory over time, particularly with long-running apps. Processes that have been running for weeks without a restart tend to hold onto memory they could release. A full restart once a week clears this accumulation. It also gives macOS a clean pass at Spotlight indexing and other maintenance tasks that run most efficiently right after boot.
If your Ventura Mac hits yellow or red pressure, Shiny clears the inactive memory in one menu-bar click. It asks macOS to release memory that is cached but no longer in active use, without force-quitting anything. It's the fastest way to move from yellow back to green without restarting.