Starling Download

Mattermost, at home on your Mac.

Starling is a native Mattermost client written in AppKit. It switches channels before you notice, sends without waiting for the network, and behaves like the rest of macOS.

Download for Mac

Free. macOS 26 or later, Apple silicon and Intel.

Starling's main window: the Northwind team's sidebar, and the Releases channel with a release checklist, a SQL migration, and a mention.

Fast because it is native

Starling keeps your workspace in a local database and draws it with AppKit. Nothing waits for a web view, so the things you do a hundred times a day take no time at all.

Switch to a channel
60 ms
Send a message
0 wait
Catch up after sleep
0 clicks

Channel switch measured on the median of a Release build. Messages appear as you send them and go out in the background, and Starling catches up on its own after sleep or a dropped connection.

Threads beside the conversation

Open a thread in the inspector and keep the channel in view. Replies, reactions, and the people following along stay where you expect them, and the Threads view collects every conversation you follow.

A release checklist in the Releases channel, with its thread of four replies open in the inspector.

Code and math that read well

Starling renders Mattermost Markdown itself: highlighted code in Swift, SQL, Go, Python, and 20 more languages, LaTeX, tables, task lists, and link previews.

A Swift code review with syntax highlighting, and a capacity formula typeset from LaTeX.

Everywhere in a keystroke

Press ⌘K and type a few letters to reach any channel or person. Unread conversations and mentions come first.

The quick switcher listing a direct message with one mention, then channels and people.

Search without leaving the channel

Search messages and files across your team, narrow results with from:, in:, and before:, and open a result right where it was said.

Search results for checkout in the inspector, beside the Releases channel.

Made for macOS

Works with your Mattermost server

Starling talks to Mattermost 11 through the same API as the official apps, so your server needs no plugins or settings. Add the server's address on first launch and sign in as you always do.

Starling for iPhone and iPad is in the works.

Bring your team to the Mac.

Download Starling

macOS 26 or later.