Agent HUD vs CodexBar
CodexBar is a menu bar app that tracks usage limits, credits and spend across a long list of AI providers, with a CLI and a Linux app. Agent HUD follows your coding agents at the notch or a screen edge: their status, their requests and their tokens, with iPhone and Apple Watch apps.
Updated 2026-10-30
What does CodexBar do?
CodexBar lists 110 providers. For each one it shows session, weekly and monthly windows with reset countdowns and a pace indicator, plus credit balances where the provider exposes them. For Codex and Claude it runs local cost scans and draws a quota burndown from recorded snapshots, and a Usage & Spend view groups the estimates by currency and provider. It also shows today's cost and the last 31 days of cost and tokens. Quota notifications are optional.
Its readings sit in the menu bar, one icon per provider or merged behind a switcher, and in WidgetKit widgets. The codexbar CLI gives the same readings to scripts and CI, and codexbar serve adds a web page. An optional Agent Sessions list shows Codex, Claude Code, pi and OMP sessions as active or idle, on this Mac or on macOS and Linux hosts reached through Tailscale or SSH, and brings the owning app forward. CodexBar is free and open source under MIT, needs macOS 14 or later, and has a Qt 6 desktop app for Linux.
What does Agent HUD do?
Agent HUD follows 18 agents and shows who is busy, who is done and who is waiting, at the notch or on any screen edge. Requests are answered on the HUD: approve, deny or always allow, and answer questions. One click takes you back to a session's thread, tab or terminal pane.
Quotas come with resets or burn rates and a warning before they run out. Token usage is counted from your agents' records by time, kind, agent, model, session, turn and call, with cache hits and cost estimates at list prices. Its iPhone and Apple Watch apps show quotas, statistics and sessions on the same network without a subscription; Agent HUD Remote adds any network, conversations, decisions, notes from your wrist, alerts and Live Activities.
Side by side
| Need | Agent HUD | CodexBar |
|---|---|---|
| Placement | Notch, Simple or Dynamic on each display, at the notch or on any screen edge. | Menu bar icons, one per provider or merged behind a switcher; WidgetKit widgets. |
| Coverage | 18 agents, plus the GLM Coding Plan quota and Qoder approvals. | 110 providers, read through OAuth, device flow, API keys, browser cookies or local files. |
| Quotas | Resets, burn rates and balances, with a warning before a quota runs out. | Session, weekly and monthly windows, reset countdowns, pace, credit balances, a burndown for Codex and Claude, optional notifications. |
| Tokens and cost | Time, kinds, agents, models, sessions, turns, calls, cache hits and estimates at list prices, kept for 30 days. | Today's cost, the last 31 days of cost and tokens, local cost scans for Codex and Claude, and Usage & Spend. |
| Live sessions | Busy, done or waiting for agents with live status, with waiting sessions first. | Optional Agent Sessions for Codex, Claude Code, pi and OMP, shown as active or idle. |
| Requests | Approve, deny or always allow, and answer questions, on the HUD. | Not described in its README or session docs. |
| Back to the session | One click to the thread, tab or terminal pane. | Agent Sessions brings the owning terminal, editor or desktop app forward. |
| Other machines | Reads the computer it runs on. iPhone and Apple Watch can follow several Macs. | Agent Sessions can reach macOS and Linux hosts through Tailscale or SSH. |
| Phone and watch | iPhone and Apple Watch apps: quotas, statistics and sessions on the same network without a subscription; decisions and conversations with Agent HUD Remote. | Its README lists community projects: Notify! CodexBar, which forwards readings to the Notify! app on iPhone and iPad, and Starbridge for Android and the web. |
| Scripts and agents | A built-in MCP server that agents use to read usage, sessions and statistics. | The codexbar CLI, and codexbar serve with a web page. |
| Systems | The release runs on macOS 14 or later, on Apple silicon and Intel Macs; the source builds for macOS 12 or later. Windows and Linux are in preview: unsigned packages for Windows 10 and 11 (x64) and x86_64 Linux, not yet tested on real machines. | macOS 14 or later; a Linux desktop app and CLI. For Windows, its README points to separate projects. |
| Licence and cost | Source on GitHub, Apache-2.0. Agent HUD Remote is an App Store subscription. | Free and open source, MIT. |
Which one fits?
CodexBar is built around how much of each provider's limit is left. Agent HUD is built around what your agents are doing and what they need from you.
- CodexBar fits if you track many providers, including services beyond coding agents, if you want readings in the menu bar, in a CLI or on a Linux desktop, or if you follow sessions on other hosts.
- Agent HUD fits if you want to see and answer your agents' requests where you work, token history down to turns and calls, or decisions and replies on iPhone and Apple Watch with Agent HUD Remote.
Sources
CodexBar's facts come from its own site, its GitHub README and its session and CLI docs, checked on 26 October 2026. This compares documented capabilities and is not a performance benchmark. A capability its docs do not describe is not counted as missing.
CodexBarCodexBar on GitHubCodexBar Agent SessionsCodexBar CLIAgent HUD source on GitHub
Questions
Can CodexBar answer an agent's permission request?
Its README and Agent Sessions docs do not describe it; sessions show as active or idle. Agent HUD shows the request on the HUD for the agents its supported agents table marks, and you approve, deny or answer there.
Do both work on a Mac without a notch?
Yes. CodexBar lives in the menu bar. Agent HUD runs Dynamic by default on a display without a notch, and Simple and Dynamic can sit on any edge.