Is Orbit just Gmail in a wrapper?

It is the real Gmail, deliberately. Anything Gmail ships, including its own Gemini features, arrives in Orbit the day Google ships it, because Orbit does not reimplement Gmail. What Orbit adds is running many accounts side by side without them colliding.

Your lifetime license shouldn't have an expiry date.

Kiwi for Gmail is retiring its legacy plans as of January 1, 2026, moving the people who bought one onto a current paid plan. If you paid once expecting to own your tool, this page is for you.

Try Orbit free for 14 days

No card required. macOS 14 or later, Apple silicon.

You bought Kiwi for the right reason

Each Gmail account as its own real Gmail, in a real Mac app, paid for once. The idea was right. Orbit is that idea, rebuilt natively, with the promise kept in writing.

Side by side

Meru is in here because it is the other app people land on after Kiwi, and it is cheaper than Orbit. It is also built on the opposite idea. Meru puts every inbox into one view; Orbit keeps every account in its own sealed session. If merging your mail into a single stream is what you want, Meru is the honest answer and you should take it.

	Kiwi for Gmail	Meru	Orbit for Mac
The real Gmail web UI, per account	Yes	Yes	Yes
How your accounts sit together	Separate windows	Inboxes combined "All your inboxes at once," in one view	Deliberately apart One window, own cookies per account, Cmd-1 to 9 to switch
Pricing	Subscription Lifetime and legacy licenses retired January 2026	Free tier, or $29 once Multiple accounts need Pro	$89 once The license never expires
Engine	Electron A bundled copy of Chromium	Electron Windows, Mac and Linux from one codebase	Native Swift on Apple's WebKit A 4 MB download, no second browser inside
Calendar, Drive, Meet	Partial	Gmail only It is a Gmail app by design	Included per account Plus Gmail's built-in Gemini, because it's the real Gmail
If the company changes its mind	You already know how that feels	Open source, so a fork stays possible AGPL-3.0 on GitHub	The app keeps working There is no Orbit server it depends on

One-time means one-time

Our terms say the license is perpetual, and the architecture backs it up. Orbit has no server your tool depends on. Your Google sign-ins live on your Mac, not in our infrastructure, because there is no infrastructure. If Dearnode disappeared tomorrow, the copy of Orbit on your Mac would keep working, because there is nothing to switch off.

What you buy: this major version, forever, with every update to it included, and up to three Macs. What it never quietly becomes: a subscription you did not sign up for.

Why separate beats combined, if you send for a living

A unified inbox is the more popular idea, and for one person with two mailboxes it is the better one. The trouble starts when the accounts belong to different people. A client's account, your own company's, a side project, a volunteer board. Merged into a single stream they are just messages, and the only thing standing between you and a reply from the wrong address is your attention at eight in the morning.

Orbit takes the opposite bet. Every account is the real Gmail, loaded in its own session with its own cookies, and switching between them is Cmd-1 through Cmd-9. Because each account is a genuinely separate session, signing out of one, or a security re-check on one, leaves the others untouched. Your accounts never log each other out.

It also means the sender is never ambiguous. You are not choosing an address from a dropdown, you are already inside that account, looking at its own inbox, with its own signature and its own labels.

Honest answers to the awkward questions

Meru is $29 and Orbit is $89. Why?
Different products. Meru merges your inboxes into one view and is Gmail only. Orbit keeps every account sealed off from every other, and gives each one Calendar, Drive and Meet as well. If a single merged stream is what you want, Meru is genuinely the better buy and we would rather you bought it than returned Orbit.

Is this just Gmail in a wrapper?
It is the real Gmail, deliberately. That is the point. Anything Gmail ships, including its own Gemini features, arrives in Orbit the day Google ships it, because we are not reimplementing Gmail and then racing to catch up. What Orbit adds is the part a browser does badly, which is running many accounts side by side without them colliding.

Why not just use browser profiles?
You can, and it works. It also means a second full browser, a Dock full of near identical windows, and profile switching that takes several clicks. Orbit is a 4 MB download, one window, and a single keystroke per account.

What happens after the first year?
The app keeps working, forever, with no reduced mode and no nagging. What ends after a year is your entitlement to new versions. The version you have stays yours.

What if you go out of business?
Orbit does not phone home to run. There is no Orbit account, no Orbit server holding your mail, and no license check that has to succeed for the app to open. Your Google sign-ins are on your Mac. That is the whole reason a lifetime license is a promise we can actually keep, and the reason Kiwi's could be withdrawn.

Switching takes about five minutes

Install Orbit, then sign in to each Google account once, through Google's own login page. Your accounts, your sessions, on your Mac. Your filters, labels, and layout are already there, because it is your real Gmail, not a rebuild of it.

Still weighing the field? We wrote a longer, honest comparison of every Kiwi for Gmail alternative on the Mac in 2026, including the free ones and the cases where Orbit is the wrong answer.

Try Orbit free for 14 days

No card required.

Orbit for Mac is made by Dearnode, Inc. Gmail and Google Workspace are trademarks of Google LLC. Orbit is not affiliated with or endorsed by Google, by Kiwi for Gmail, or by Meru. Competitor details as published on their own sites in July 2026.