I make Shiny, so take this comparison with appropriate scepticism. I have tried to be honest about where Memory Clean 3 holds its own and where Shiny genuinely does better. The goal is to help you pick the right tool for your situation, not to dismiss a product that many people have found useful.
At a glance
| Shiny | Memory Clean 3 | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $4.99 once, forever | Free + in-app purchase to unlock features |
| Macs covered | Up to 3 personal Macs | Typically 1 per license |
| Active development | Actively maintained | Slowed since around 2020 |
| Apple Silicon native | Designed specifically for Apple Silicon | Available as universal binary, but approach was designed for Intel |
| Telemetry | None | Some |
| IAP pressure | None | Yes - free tier shows ads and upgrade prompts |
| UI | Modern | Dated |
The Memory Clean 3 history
Memory Clean by FIPLAB has been on the Mac App Store for years. Memory Clean 3 arrived around 2017 as a paid upgrade, adding threshold-based auto-cleaning and expanded menu-bar stats. At the time it was a genuinely popular solution, and for good reason: it packaged up something macOS could do natively (the purge command) into a friendly interface that non-technical users could actually use.
The Intel Mac era rewarded this approach. Forcing memory to flush was a fairly predictable operation, and the gains felt real because traditional RAM worked in a way where clearing inactive pages translated to more headroom. Memory Clean 3 built a solid reputation on that foundation.
The problem is that Apple Silicon changed the memory model fundamentally. Unified memory, the way the M-series chips share RAM between CPU and GPU, and Apple's more aggressive memory compression all mean that the old "flush everything and start fresh" approach is less effective, and sometimes counterproductive. Active development on Memory Clean 3 slowed around 2020, and the app has not been meaningfully rethought for the hardware most Mac owners are now using.
Where Memory Clean 3 still wins
I want to say this clearly, because comparison posts that give no ground to the other side are not worth reading.
It is free to try. You can download Memory Clean 3, use the core cleaning feature, and see whether it does anything useful for your Mac before spending a penny. Shiny is $4.99 upfront. If you are genuinely unsure whether a memory cleaner will help you at all, starting with the free option to validate the concept is reasonable.
It has a long track record. Memory Clean 3 has been in enough hands, across enough Mac configurations, over enough years that most of the sharp edges are known. It does what it says. The reviews are real, the install base is real, and the company behind it is a legitimate UK developer.
Threshold-based auto-cleaning (paid tier) is a genuine feature. If you want the app to automatically trigger a clean when free memory drops below a set level, Memory Clean 3's paid tier does this. Shiny is intentionally manual: you click when you want to clean. If full automation is important to you, Memory Clean 3 has it.
Where Shiny wins
Built for Apple Silicon from the start. Shiny does not just run as a universal binary. Its entire approach was designed around how M-series Macs actually manage memory: closing orphaned helper processes left behind by apps that quit, releasing inactive memory pages that macOS has not yet reclaimed, and pausing idle background apps that are consuming resources without doing useful work. That is a different strategy to wrapping purge, and it fits the current hardware better.
No ads, no upgrade prompts, no friction. The free tier of Memory Clean 3 includes ads and nagging prompts to unlock the full version. That is a reasonable business model, but it makes the day-to-day experience worse. Shiny has one price, one tier, and nothing that asks you to do anything except click the button when you want more memory.
Price clarity. Memory Clean 3 is free, then requires a purchase to unlock the features that make it genuinely useful. Shiny is $4.99 once, covers three of your personal Macs, and never asks for anything else. Depending on how you count it, the effective prices are not that far apart, and the Shiny experience is cleaner throughout.
No telemetry, ever. Shiny collects no analytics, no usage data, and no error reports. Memory Clean 3 collects some data. If you care about keeping your Mac activity completely private, Shiny is the stricter option.
Actively maintained. Memory Clean 3's development pace has visibly slowed. Shiny is being actively developed: feedback gets acted on, updates ship regularly, and the app is a current project rather than a legacy one. When Apple releases a new macOS version or new chip architecture, Shiny will be updated for it.
Should you switch?
If you are currently using Memory Clean 3 and it is working for you, the honest answer is: it depends how much you care about the gaps above.
If you have an Intel Mac and do not plan to upgrade soon, Memory Clean 3's approach is more directly matched to your hardware. Sticking with it is reasonable.
If you have an Apple Silicon Mac (anything M1 or later), Shiny's strategy is a better fit for how your machine actually works. The purge-based approach Memory Clean 3 relies on is less effective on unified memory systems, and you will likely notice more tangible results from Shiny's method of closing helpers and pausing idle processes.
If the ads and upgrade prompts in Memory Clean 3's free tier bother you, that alone is a good reason to switch. Shiny costs $4.99 and the friction disappears entirely.
If you want the full picture before deciding, the roundup at best Mac memory cleaner 2026 compares all the major options side by side. And if you are coming from a different cleaner entirely, Shiny vs CleanMyMac and Shiny vs Memory Cleaner cover the other popular choices.
Bottom line
Memory Clean 3 is not a bad app. It is a product from a specific era of Mac hardware, built by a real developer, that did its job well when Intel was the platform everyone was on. If you installed it years ago and have not thought about it since, that is understandable.
But if you are choosing a memory tool today, especially on an Apple Silicon Mac, Shiny is the more modern answer. It was built for the hardware you actually have, it has no ads or in-app purchase pressure, it covers three Macs for $4.99 once, and it is actively being developed. There is no subscription, no telemetry, and no nudging.
Memory Clean 3 is fine. Shiny is what fine looks like in 2026.
If you want a memory tool built for Apple Silicon and pay once, that is Shiny. You can also read more about whether Mac cleaner apps are actually worth it if you are still on the fence about the category entirely.