Pulsida vs caffeinate

caffeinate is a small command that comes with every Mac. It's free and it works, if you're happy typing commands in Terminal.

What you get	Pulsida	caffeinate
How you use it	One click in the menu bar	A command typed in Terminal
Timer	Drag a ring, 5 minutes to 8 hours	Typed in seconds
Keeps working with the lid closed	Yes	No
Battery and heat safety	Yes	No
Lock keyboard and trackpad	Yes, with Cat mode	No
Shows when your Mac is awake	In the menu bar	In the Terminal window
Price	$9, once	Free, built in

Where caffeinate shines: If you live in Terminal, caffeinate is right there and costs nothing. It's ideal for keeping a Mac awake while one command runs.
Where Pulsida is different: Pulsida keeps your Mac working with the lid closed, which caffeinate can't do, and it adds a timer you can set in a second, control over the screen, safety cutoffs and Cat mode.
Which should you use?: If you only need to keep a Mac awake for a Terminal command, use caffeinate. If you want to close the lid, or just want it to be one click, use Pulsida.

Questions and answers

No. caffeinate prevents idle sleep, but closing the lid still puts a MacBook to sleep. Pulsida's closed-lid mode keeps it awake.

For most people, yes. Pulsida does what caffeinate does from the menu bar, and also works with the lid closed.

Changing System Settings, compared with a keep-awake app.

Apple's closed-display mode, compared with closed-lid mode.