Momentum alternatives: new tab dashboards that do more for free

Momentum's free tier gives you a daily photo, a mantra, a to-do list, shortcuts and weather. Soundscapes, Tab Stash, the AI features and the task integrations all sit behind Plus. Dashy, which we make and have therefore put first, keeps the ambient half on the tab rather than behind an upgrade; Bonjourr, Tabliss, Anori and nightTab hand most of the rest back for nothing, and each one trades away something different.

Last checked: 2 September 2026. Chrome Web Store user counts and ratings move week to week, so every figure below links to the listing it came from.

What Momentum gets right first

Momentum earned its position. Its Chrome Web Store listing shows 2,000,000 users and 4.5 stars from 13.7K ratings, with a Featured badge and version 2.27.4 shipped in August 2026. Its Firefox listing adds another 30,513 users at 4.4 from 811 reviews. Its site claims more than three million active users and sells one idea, "Your space for focus", with a decade of daily photography behind it.

That restraint is the product. One photo, one question, one line of intent. If that is what you want from a new tab, nothing on this page beats it, and you should stop reading and keep it.

The complaint that sends people looking is narrower: the free page stays a mood board, and most of the things that would make it a workspace are on the other side of the upgrade.

What Momentum Plus holds back

The listing splits the two tiers itself. Free gets you, in its words, a "new background, mantra and quote each day", "Focus better with Focus Mode", "Simplify work and life with easy to-do lists", plus shortcuts, local weather and search.

Plus is where the rest lives: "unlimited Focus Mode", the vision board, Tab Stash, "Notes AI", "Ask AI", soundscapes, Metrics, unlimited to-do lists, countdowns, world clocks, premium weather, and the task integrations with Asana, ClickUp and Todoist. Momentum's own Plus page adds a Pomodoro timer, a site blocker, link groups, theme and font customisation, Strava and Fitbit metrics, hourly forecasts and priority support to the paid column.

Two things are worth naming plainly. First, ambient sound is a paid feature at Momentum, and sound is the cheapest thing a new tab can give you. Second, the Plus page frames the cost as ten cents a day, then lists 3.33 US dollars a month billed yearly, or 4.95 billed monthly. It prints no annual total, so that is one figure to check at the point of purchase.

None of that makes Momentum a bad product. It makes it a product with a firm line between mood and work, and the alternatives below draw that line somewhere else. We go through the two tiers feature by feature in our Dashy and Momentum comparison.

How to read this comparison

"Free" is doing a lot of work in this category, so treat it as three separate questions. Does the free tier show ads or sponsored tiles? Does it need an account? And does your setup survive moving to another machine? Bonjourr, Tabliss, Anori and nightTab are free with no catch and no cloud. Homey and Live Start Page are free with advertising you can pay or toggle away. Flocus is free until you want sync. Infinity puts a second, paid listing beside its free one.

Dashy: the ambient half, on the tab rather than behind an upgrade

Ours, so read it knowing who wrote it. It is first in this list for the same reason: we would rather admit the bias at the top than sell it at the bottom.

There are two Dashys. The original is on the Chrome Web Store today: its listing shows 10,000-plus users and 4.7 stars from 273 reviews with a Featured badge, last updated January 2026. It has 36 widgets built up over three years, wallpaper collections, ambient soundscapes on the tab, profiles for more than one dashboard, and sync between computers once you sign in. Against the specific complaint that brought you here, that is the point: soundscapes are the thing Momentum, and Flocus, put behind a subscription, and Dashy has had them on the page for years. Where it is dated, plainly: it is a 2023 design, a dense grid you configure before it looks like anything.

The new Dashy is a ground-up rebuild arriving October 2026 on its own listing, with the original left running. The tab opens on a curated wallpaper that changes with the time of day, and the page moves with it; you can upload your own. Soundscapes are included: rain, ocean, forest, fireplace, cafe and more. The clock, greeting and date come first, and weather locates itself before you set anything up. Notes, tasks and a calendar are built in, with Google Calendar, Todoist and Google Tasks as connections. Keep several dashboards and switch between them, add, move, resize and restyle anything, or start from a template that lays out the whole tab in one tap: Focus, Productive, Curious, Aesthetic. Your tasks, notes and timer also sit in Chrome's side panel, beside whatever page you are on. Customisation is free and needs no account, and nothing leaves the device until you connect something.

The part nobody else in this list has: your own AI assistant can arrange the tab. Dashy runs an MCP server, so you connect the assistant once, approve it by name, and it can build a page, place the widgets and set the wallpaper. Everything it touches is written down where you can read it, and anything it invents stays switched off until you say yes. That is in early access now and general in October 2026.

Where we sit honestly against the field: sync across devices and the connected services are on the paid Pro plan, and we have not published a price. We run on Chrome, Edge, Brave and other Chromium browsers, so if you need Firefox, Bonjourr and TablissNG are your options. And 273 reviews is a fraction of Momentum's 13.7K, which is the number that should temper everything above. The two Dashys, side by side, or ask for early access to the new one.

Suits you if the thing you resent paying for is the ambient half: sound, wallpaper that moves with the day, and a page that already looks right before you configure it.

Bonjourr: the free one that looks the part

If you want Momentum's calm without the upgrade prompt, this is the answer. Bonjourr's listing shows 300,000 users and 4.9 stars from 23.9K ratings, a Featured badge, version 22.3.0 from July 2026, and a package size of 1.38 MiB. The store's data disclosure says the developer will not collect or use your data.

Free covers all of it: 4K photo and video backgrounds that change with the time of day, a clock you can make analog or digital, quick links, search, weather, quotes, markdown notes with checkboxes, a Pomodoro timer, custom fonts, custom CSS and 39 languages. Its site says donations are the only way the two developers keep it running, and lists "No generative AI" as a feature rather than a gap.

The catch is sync. Bonjourr's documentation offers your browser's own sync, a GitHub Gist or a remote URL, and it is candid about the limit: syncing covers everything "with one notable exception: local files uploaded as backgrounds or link icons".

Suits you if you want a beautiful, private, genuinely free page and you are happy with links, notes and a timer instead of a widget grid. We have a longer side-by-side of Dashy and Bonjourr if you are weighing those two.

Tabliss: no permissions at all, and no updates since 2022

Tabliss is the purist's pick. Its listing shows 100,000 users, 4.7 stars from 385 ratings, 204 KiB and no permissions required, which is about as small a footprint as a new tab page can have. Free gets you Unsplash and GIPHY backgrounds, your own uploads, a clock, weather, to-dos, quick notes, a search box, a speed dial and custom CSS.

The problem is the date on the listing: version 2.6.0, last updated April 2022. The maintained fork, TablissNG, says the original "has been abandoned, with no updates for over a year and numerous unmerged pull requests", and adds custom search engines, NASA and Wikimedia backgrounds, video and GIF support and several new widgets. It ships on the Chrome, Firefox and Edge stores under GPL v3.

Suits you if permissions are your first question and you would rather install a community fork than trust a company. Install TablissNG rather than the original.

Anori: the closest thing to a free widget grid

Anori is the smallest product here with the most dashboard in it. The listing shows 30,000 users and 4.6 stars from 101 ratings, version 2.1.0 from August 2026. Free gives you bookmarks, to-do lists, notes, weather, timezone clocks, recently closed tabs, a choice of more than 10,000 icons, 20 languages, and separate dashboards you can switch between for different contexts.

It names Momentum in its own listing as the thing it is an alternative to, and that is a fair description. What it does not have is the photography or the daily ritual; it is a workspace, not a mood.

Suits you if you left Momentum because you wanted more panels on the page, not fewer, and you do not want to pay for them.

nightTab: bookmarks, dark, and nothing phoning home

nightTab describes itself as "a neutral new tab page accented with a chosen color", and that is exactly what you get: time, date, search, bookmarks in groups you build, and deep control over layout, theme, fonts and accent. Its listing shows 100,000 users, 4.7 stars from 444 ratings, 1.19 MiB, version 7.5.0 from June 2024. The developer states the extension "does NOT collect or use your personal or browser data in any way", and backups are a local file you keep.

Suits you if your new tab is really a bookmark launcher, you like dark interfaces, and you want your data to stay on the disk.

Live Start Page: ambience today, with ads in the deal

This is the one that answers the soundscapes complaint directly. The listing shows 200,000 users, 4.7 stars from 8.6K ratings and version 40.5.10 from August 2026, offering "Hundreds of unique Live Wallpapers and static backgrounds" plus a 10 to 15 minute meditation mode with nature soundscapes, weather, to-dos, clocks and speed dials.

The trade is disclosed on the listing: built-in advertising and sponsored bookmark tiles, of which it says "You can disable all of this in the settings or during onboarding". There is also a premium subscription billed monthly or annually whose price is not published on the listing, and the listing does not spell out which meditation content sits behind it.

Suits you if you want moving wallpaper and ambient sound today without paying up front, and you are willing to visit the settings once to switch the sponsored tiles off.

Homey: the cheapest paid tier in the category

Homey has 100,000 users and 4.8 stars from 6.5K ratings, version 4.27.7 from August 2026, with a Featured badge. Free gets live wallpapers, bookmarks, weather, notes, quotes, a search bar and a shortcut into an AI chatbot, and the listing is upfront that "The free version of Homey may display clearly labeled ads marked as 'Sponsored' on the new tab page." Its site prices Premium at 2 US dollars a month or 18 a year after a 14-day free trial, removes the ads and lifts the free tier's three-bookmark-tab cap. Chrome and Edge only.

Suits you if you like the cosy look, want the ads gone, and want the smallest possible subscription.

Infinity New Tab: speed dial at scale, with a confusing double listing

Infinity is two extensions. The free listing has 400,000 users and 4.6 stars from 11.8K ratings, version 11.0.43 from August 2026: more than 200 icons, HD wallpapers, cloud sync, Gmail notifications, a notepad, to-dos and 33 languages. The separate Pro listing has 300,000 users and 4.9 stars from 24.9K ratings, version 11.0.41 from July 2026, and syncs through a Google, Facebook, WeChat, Weibo or QQ login. Neither listing states a price, and the free one carries an affiliate disclosure saying its "merchant shortcuts in Infinity may use affiliate links".

Suits you if your new tab is a grid of sites you open every day, and you want that grid to follow you to another computer.

Flocus: aesthetic, and it gates sound the same way

Worth including because it shows the pattern repeating. The Chrome listing is small, 3,000 users and 4.6 from 7 ratings, last updated July 2025, and mostly a clock, a lofi background and a greeting that points at the full web app. On the web app, the pricing page puts "Up to 3 tasks at a time", "Limited themes" and "Limited ambient sounds" on free, with "No ads, ever", and moves the full tasks suite, all themes, all ambient sounds, Soundscapes and cross-device sync to Plus. The page shows Plus at 5 US dollars a month billed annually, struck through from 9, and calls it an early-bird price you lock in.

Suits you if you are here for the lofi aesthetic specifically. Just know you are swapping one sound paywall for another.

Picking one

Three sentences, and then go install something.

If you left Momentum over the soundscape paywall, Dashy is the one we would hand you, and we would say so anyway because we make it: the original has sound and widgets on the tab today, the rebuild arrives in October. If Momentum's photography and its single question are the point, stay. If you want the same feeling free, install Bonjourr, and reach for TablissNG or nightTab if permissions and local-only data matter more than polish. If you want a free widget grid this afternoon, Anori.

Whatever you switch to, the mechanics are the same and reversible in one click: Chrome keeps a single new tab override, shows a one-time prompt the first time it changes, and hands the page straight back when you disable the extension. If any of that is unfamiliar, our guide to changing your new tab page in Chrome has the exact clicks, including the Edge and Brave equivalents.