A little AI chat panel that lives beside your Mac's Dock
Side is a tiny AI chat panel that sits right beside your Mac's Dock: one glance away, never in the way. • Fits the gap next to your Dock, floats above other windows, works across Spaces and full-screen apps • Switch providers, models and reasoning levels in one conversation • Bring your own account: sign in with ChatGPT or use an API key • Compact composer that expands to full height when needed • ⌘⇧Space to show or hide Free and open source (MIT).
Hey Product Hunt 👋
I'm the maker of Side.
I use AI chat all day, but every quick question meant switching to a browser tab or a big chat window and losing my place. I wanted something that felt more like a sticky note than an app: always there, never in the way.
So Side lives in the empty space right next to your Dock. It tracks where your Dock is, floats above your other windows (even full-screen apps), and stays a compact composer until you need more room, then expands to full height.
A few things I cared about:
• Any model, one chat: switch providers, models and reasoning levels mid-conversation
• Bring your own account: sign in with ChatGPT or use an API key. No extra subscription from me
• ⌘⇧Space to summon or hide it from anywhere
• Free and fully open source (MIT), built on Pi
It's macOS-only (Apple Silicon) for now, signed and notarized, with auto-updates.
I'd love your feedback, especially:
1. Which providers or models you'd want next
2. What you'd use a "beside the Dock" assistant for
Thanks for checking it out! 🙏
About Side on Product Hunt
“A little AI chat panel that lives beside your Mac's Dock”
Side launched on Product Hunt on October 8th, 2026 and earned 75 upvotes and 1 comments, placing #22 on the daily leaderboard. Side is a tiny AI chat panel that sits right beside your Mac's Dock: one glance away, never in the way. • Fits the gap next to your Dock, floats above other windows, works across Spaces and full-screen apps • Switch providers, models and reasoning levels in one conversation • Bring your own account: sign in with ChatGPT or use an API key • Compact composer that expands to full height when needed • ⌘⇧Space to show or hide Free and open source (MIT).
On the analytics side, Side competes within Mac, Productivity, Artificial Intelligence and GitHub — topics that collectively have 1.3M followers on Product Hunt. The dashboard above tracks how Side performed against the three products that launched closest to it on the same day.
Who hunted Side?
Side was hunted by pony. A “hunter” on Product Hunt is the community member who submits a product to the platform — uploading the images, the link, and tagging the makers behind it. Hunters typically write the first comment explaining why a product is worth attention, and their followers are notified the moment they post. Around 79% of featured launches on Product Hunt are self-hunted by their makers, but a well-known hunter still acts as a signal of quality to the rest of the community. See the full all-time top hunters leaderboard to discover who is shaping the Product Hunt ecosystem.
For a complete overview of Side including community comment highlights and product details, visit the product overview.
pony