Start page vs dashboard vs homepage: what is the difference?

A homepage opens when you select Home. A startup page opens when you launch the browser. A new tab page opens every time you press Ctrl+T. Start pages, dashboards and minimal pages are three styles of that third one, and picking between them comes down to how much you want the tab to do.

Last checked 2 September 2026. Every figure below comes from the product's own store listing or its own documentation, linked where it appears.

The three settings Chrome keeps separate

Google defines two of them in a line each. "Your startup page is the one that shows when you first launch Chrome on your device." "Your homepage is the one you go to when you select Home." Both live in Settings: the startup page under On startup, the homepage under Appearance, beside Show Home button (Google Chrome Help). Both accept any address you type.

The new tab page is the odd one out. Chrome's customizer lets you pick a theme from its collections, upload an image as a background, create a theme with AI, switch the tiles between My shortcuts and Most visited sites, and turn cards on or off (Google Chrome Help). Nowhere in that panel is a field for a URL. There has not been one for years.

That single gap is why the category exists. Chrome's own developer documentation explains the mechanism: an extension "can contain an override for any of the following pages, but each extension can only override one page", and the list is Bookmark Manager, History and New Tab (Chrome for Developers). Every extension in this article uses that one manifest key. Two things follow from it. Because the override is a single page, a second new tab extension does not get you both. And whichever one you install, a private window still shows Chrome's own page: the same documentation states that "In incognito windows, extensions can't override New Tab pages."

The confusion is not really the user's fault. Two of the three settings are named after things browsers stopped doing years ago: nobody has a "home" on the web any more, and most people never quit the browser, so the startup page rarely appears. The new tab page is the one you actually see, dozens of times a day, and it is the only one Chrome will not let you point at an address.

For the click-by-click version of all three, and the enterprise policy that does set a new tab URL, see how to change your new tab page in Chrome.

Start page: a place you pass through

A start page is a board of links. It answers the question "where am I going next" and then hands you off. The genre goes back to portal pages, and the modern version keeps the same shape: columns of bookmarks, a few feeds, a search box.

start.me is the clearest surviving example. Its listing opens "start.me turns your Chrome New Tab page into a beautiful personal dashboard", then lists "+3,500 widgets", RSS feeds "from your favorite sites", bookmark import, and "Create and share start pages with your team, your students, etc." It has 100,000 users and 4.3 stars from 1.4K ratings, carries a Featured badge, and sits at version 7.3.0, last updated January 2024 (Chrome Web Store).

Notice the vocabulary in that listing. A product named start.me calls its own page a dashboard. Momentum does the reverse: its site invites you to "Turn your potential into progress with a beautifully simple start page", and on the same page promises to "Transform your New Tab page into a focused, productive, and inspiring dashboard" (momentumdash.com). The words have collapsed into each other in marketing copy, which is exactly why this comparison is worth writing down.

A start page earns its keep when the same twelve links matter every day, when other people need the same board, or when you read feeds. It is a poor fit if what you want from the tab is a fact rather than a destination.

There is a trade in that model worth knowing before you commit. start.me is a service, not a page that lives only on your machine: the listing promises "the same bookmarks, notes and to-do lists at hand, on any device you use", and pages that other people can open. That is the right shape for a board a class or a team shares. It is the wrong one if what you want is a tab that draws without waiting on the network.

Dashboard: a page that tells you something

A dashboard answers a different question: "what is true right now". The weather. The next meeting. Three unfinished tasks. Links are usually there too, but they are not the point.

We build one of these, so it goes first and you can discount it accordingly. Dashy is a widget dashboard with the ambient layer in front: wallpaper and sound first, then the calendar, notes and tasks. The original listing shows 10,000+ users and 4.7 stars from 273 reviews; the rebuilt version arrives in October 2026. The full description is further down this page, after the two products you can measure it against.

Momentum is the largest of these by a wide margin: 2,000,000 users, 4.5 stars from 13.7K ratings, Featured, 17.93 MiB, version 2.27.4, updated August 2026 (Chrome Web Store). Its own site claims "3+ million active users", which is higher than the store's rounded figure.

The listing splits its features into two lists, and the split is worth reading before you install. Free covers "a new background, mantra and quote each day", Focus Mode, "easy to-do lists", shortcuts, "local weather info" and search. Momentum Plus adds "unlimited Focus Mode", a vision board, "Tab Stash", "Notes AI", "Ask AI", "Get in the zone with Soundscapes", "Seamless task manager integrations (ClickUp, Todoist, Asana, etc.)", Metrics, unlimited to-do lists, countdowns and world clocks.

Give Momentum its due. Asking one question every morning, and showing one photograph behind it, is a real design decision and it has kept two million people installed. If a grid of widgets sounds like noise to you, that restraint is the product.

It is also worth reading the paid list as a map of where the category is heading. Ambient sound, an assistant, tab storage and task integrations are what people ask a new tab for once the wallpaper stops being enough. Different products draw the paid line in different places, and the line, more than the feature list, is what you are choosing between.

The trade is that a single focus line cannot show you two calendars, a note and the rain radar at once. That is the job a widget dashboard takes on, and it is where our own product sits; more on that below.

Minimal page: a page that stays out of the way

The third style removes almost everything. A photograph, a clock, maybe a search box and a short list of links.

Bonjourr is the strongest of them. It has 300,000 users, 4.9 stars from 23.9K ratings, a Featured badge, and a 1.38 MiB footprint at version 22.3.0, updated July 2026. Its listing states plainly that it "collects no data, requires no account or sign-in", and offers 4K photo and video backgrounds, quick links, markdown notes and checklists, a Pomodoro timer, weather and a customisable clock (Chrome Web Store). Its own site describes it as open source and says that "since Bonjourr is free, respects your privacy and doesn't collect or sell your data, donations are the only way we're able to keep it running" (bonjourr.fr).

Its one structural limit is sync. Bonjourr can sync through Chrome, Firefox or Edge sync, through a GitHub Gist, or from a remote URL, but its documentation notes that "local files uploaded as backgrounds or link icons" cannot travel between instances because of the restrictions browsers place on extensions (Bonjourr docs). Your wallpaper stays on the machine you uploaded it to.

Tabliss is the other name people mention, and it deserves an asterisk. The listing is honest and appealing: 100,000 users, 4.7 stars from 385 ratings, 204 KiB, "100% free and open source", and a page that "does not require any permissions" (Chrome Web Store). Its GitHub repository describes it as "A beautiful, customisable New Tab page for Firefox, Chrome, and Edge" under GPL-3.0 with 2.8k stars (joelshepherd/tabliss). But the store version is 2.6.0, last updated April 2022. That is more than four years without a store release, and you should weigh it accordingly.

If your honest answer to "what do you want on the tab" is "almost nothing, and no permissions", a minimal page is the right category and Bonjourr is hard to beat inside it. We compare the two directly on our Dashy and Bonjourr page.

The three styles side by side

Sources for each row: start.me, Momentum, Bonjourr, Tabliss, the original Dashy, and Google Chrome Help for the built-in page. User counts on the Chrome Web Store are rounded by Google, so treat them as bands rather than exact numbers. Every Dashy figure in that row belongs to the original listing, including the size; the new one is not on the store yet.

Which one do you actually want?

Work down this list and stop at the first line that sounds like you.

• You need one specific address every time, and you install nothing. Set the homepage, and set the startup page to match. That is a settings change, not an extension.
• You share a board of links with a team or a class. You want a start page. start.me is built for exactly that, and it says so.
• You want the tab quiet and light, with no permissions and no account. You want a minimal page. Bonjourr is the maintained choice; Tabliss is the lighter one, with a four-year-old store release behind it.
• You want one question and one photograph each morning. That is Momentum's whole design, and it does it better than a grid would.
• You want the tab to hold your calendar, weather, notes and tasks at once, and still look calm. You want a dashboard with a real widget grid. That is Dashy, which we make, and the next section is the argument for it with its weaknesses attached.
• You administer other people's browsers. None of the above. Use the enterprise policy covered in our Chrome guide.

Where Dashy sits

Dashy is a dashboard, and it is fair to say so before anything else. If you read the list above and landed on "quiet, no permissions, no account", Bonjourr is a better fit than we are, and we would rather you enjoyed your tab than installed ours.

There are two of ours, which is worth untangling. The original Dashy is the row in the table above: on the Chrome Web Store since 2023, 36 widgets, wallpaper collections, soundscapes on the tab, profiles for more than one dashboard, and sync between computers when you sign in. At 14.6 MiB it is heavier than every page in that table except Momentum, and it looks its age: a 2023 grid you configure before it shows you anything. The new Dashy is a ground-up rebuild arriving in October 2026 on its own listing, with the original left running; the two are set out side by side, and the form on the home page is the only way into the new one before then.

What we build is the ambient version of the dashboard idea. The tab opens on a curated wallpaper that changes with the time of day, and you can upload your own. Soundscapes are included: rain, ocean, forest, fireplace, cafe and more. The clock, greeting and date are the first thing you see, and weather locates itself and appears before you set anything up. Notes, tasks and calendar are built in, with Google Calendar, Todoist and Google Tasks available when you want them.

Everything on the page can be added, moved, resized and restyled, and customization is free. Four templates give you a starting point: Focus, Productive, Curious and Aesthetic. No account is needed for the local experience, and nothing leaves the device until you connect something. Sync across devices and connected services is part of the paid Pro plan; there is no price published yet. Dashy runs on Chrome, Edge, Brave and other Chromium browsers.

One line on the Dashy side appears on none of the listings above: the tab can be handed to an AI assistant. It runs an MCP server, so the assistant you already use connects to it and lays the page out, one approval per app, with everything it changed written down where you can read it. In early access now, general in October 2026, and described in full on our AI page.

For the numbers: the original Dashy listing shows 10,000+ users and 4.7 stars from 273 reviews, with a Featured badge (Chrome Web Store). That is a smaller pile of evidence than Momentum's or Bonjourr's, and the rebuilt version has none of its own yet, which is the fair way to weigh this section. You can see what it looks like on the Dashy home page and read the longer explanation of the format on what a new tab dashboard is.

The whole thing, briefly

Homepage, startup page and new tab page are three separate Chrome settings, and only the first two take a URL. Everything sold as a "start page" or a "dashboard" is really a new tab replacement using the same override key. Start pages send you somewhere. Dashboards tell you something. Minimal pages leave you alone. Decide which of those three sentences describes the tab you want, and the shortlist writes itself.