Power Cleaner Studio vs CCleaner for Mac
Free + Pro tiers of the legacy Windows brand, now owned by Gen Digital (Norton).
Power Cleaner Studio
macOS 14+ · native · sandboxed
$9 one-time
Family Sharing across Apple ID · refundable via Apple
Full Free tier · cleanup unlocks with the one-time purchase.
CCleaner for Mac
Free version is permanent (subset of features)
Free + Pro / Pro Plus paid tiers (Pro ≈ $30/yr)
As listed on www.ccleaner.com/ccleaner-mac
Free + Pro tiers of the legacy Windows brand, now owned by Gen Digital (Norton).
Where we win
- ✓Free tier is full-feature *browse*; theirs is paid-walled clean
- ✓No history of telemetry controversies (CCleaner Windows had a 2017 supply-chain incident)
- ✓Native Apple Silicon with macOS 14+ minimum — newer system APIs
- ✓MCP for AI agents — modern integration that CCleaner doesn't touch
- ✓Activity Monitor + memory pressure — they don't ship this
Where CCleaner for Mac wins (honest)
- ◐Strong Free-tier feature set
- ◐Brand recognition (CCleaner for PC)
- ◐Browser data cleaner (cookies, autofill, history)
- ◐Older macOS support (10.12 Sierra+)
Feature-by-feature
Same features across both columns, no asterisks. ✓ = full, ◐ = partial, ✕ = no.
| Feature |
PCS
| CCleaner for Mac |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | ||
| One-time purchase (not subscription) | ✓ | ✕ |
| Free tier (forever, not just trial) | ✓ | ✓ |
| Family Sharing across Apple ID | ✓ | ✕ |
| Refund window | — Via Apple | — Varies |
| Trust & privacy | ||
| Zero telemetry / analytics | ✓ | ◐ |
| Sandboxed (Mac App Store distribution) | ✓ | ✕ |
| Works without Full Disk Access | ✓ | ◐ |
| Open-source components | ✕ | ✕ |
| Fuzz-tested dangerous-path corpus | ✓ | ✕ |
| Cleanup | ||
| Junk / cache cleanup | ✓ | ✓ |
| Duplicate finder (SHA-256) | ✓ | ✓ |
| Similar photos (perceptual hash) | ✓ | ✓ |
| App uninstaller + leftover discovery | ✓ | ✓ |
| Curated rules for difficult apps (Adobe etc.) | — yes (15 apps) | ◐ |
| Xcode / Brew / Trash quick-cleanup recipes | — yes (Xcode / Brew / Trash) | ✕ |
| Monitoring | ||
| Live system CPU + RAM + per-process | ✓ | ✕ |
| Menu-bar HUD with sparklines | ✓ | ✕ |
| One-click quit a hungry app | ✓ | ✕ |
| Honest memory-pressure indicator | ✓ | ✕ |
| Disk usage treemap (DaisyDisk-style) | ✕ | ✕ |
| Safety | ||
| Cleanup goes to Trash (recoverable 30 days) | ✓ | ✓ |
| Refuses critical paths (/System, ~/.ssh, …) | — yes (DestructivePathPolicy) | ◐ |
| Review-before-delete sheet | ✓ | ✓ |
| Extras | ||
| MCP server for AI agents (Claude / ChatGPT) | ✓ | ✕ |
| Antivirus / malware scan | ✕ | ✕ |
| Bundled VPN | ✕ | ✕ |
| Ad-blocker | ✕ | ✕ |
| Command-line tool | — yes (pcs-mcp) | ✕ |
What CCleaner for Mac does that inspires our roadmap
We watch every alternative. Here's where CCleaner for Mac pushed our thinking:
- →Browser-data cleaner (cookies, history, sessions) per browser
- →Scheduled auto-clean (we have on-demand only)
- →Photo analyzer for 'blurry / badly lit' shots (we do similar but could extend to quality scoring)
See the changelog for what's shipping next.
Try Power Cleaner Studio
Free download — full scan + browse + Activity Monitor. $9 once for the cleanup actions.
Looking for another comparison? vs CleanMyMac · vs MacKeeper · vs Mole