BatFi review
Updated 23 August 2026 · quoted from their own page, checked on that date. We have not measured their app. Disclosure: WattMate is our app. Who measures this.
A charge limiter first: it holds the battery at a level you choose and can switch rules by time of day and by location. It also lists the apps using significant energy right now, which puts it closer to what we do than most limiters get.
What it claims
The charge management is the product. Around it sit battery details, a power-usage graph, and this, in their words: "BatFi also lists the apps using significant energy right now, so you know what to quit."
That sentence is worth reading closely if you are comparing it with us, because it describes the same first step and stops before the second one.
Price and requirements
| Their wording | Where |
|---|---|
| "One-time Payment" · "No Subscriptions" · $15 | their Gumroad page |
| "Mac with Apple Silicon required" | product page |
| "Supported Hardware: Apple Silicon" | their Gumroad page |
Open source is not claimed on the product page. There are links to the developer's GitHub profile in the footer, which is not the same thing, so we are not calling it an open source app.
Where it is better than ours
It acts, we only report. BatFi can hold the charge where you want it. WattMate deliberately does not write anything to the battery, and since macOS 26.4 caps charging natively on Apple silicon, we do not plan to.
Rules by time and place. Different limits at the desk and on the road is a genuinely nice idea and nothing in our app corresponds to it.
One payment, no subscription, which matches how a utility like this ought to be sold.
Where we do something different
Both apps will tell you which app is busy. The difference is what that costs you and whether anyone checks.
"Significant energy" is macOS's own phrase, and it is a threshold rather than a measurement: an app is either on the list or not. Apple publishes no number behind it. WattMate reports watts, converts them into how many minutes quitting would give back, and then measures the Mac again two minutes after you quit to see whether that held — including the case where the effect could not be isolated.
So: BatFi tells you what to quit, and it does that alongside a limiter we do not have. We tell you what quitting is worth and whether the promise came true.
Who should use which
| If you want | The honest pick |
|---|---|
| Charge held at 80% with rules by place | BatFi |
| A name to quit, right now | Either |
| Watts per app and minutes back, checked | WattMate |
| Plain charge limiting and nothing else | macOS 26.4 does it natively |
Questions people ask
Does BatFi work on Intel Macs?
Their page states "Mac with Apple Silicon required", so no. Ours has the same limit, and for us the reason is measured: the per-process energy counter compiles on Intel and silently returns zero.
Is it a subscription?
No. Their sales page says "One-time Payment" and "No Subscriptions", at $15.
Do I still need a limiter on macOS 26.4?
For limiting alone, probably not: Apple silicon Macs cap charging natively now. The case for BatFi is the extras around it, like switching rules by location.
Can I run BatFi and WattMate together?
Yes. BatFi writes charge settings, we only read, so there is nothing to collide over.
Related: every app reviewed · the other charge limiter, compared · what "significant energy" means · what each app costs in watts