Browser comparison
Edge vs Sill: the productivity suite and the quiet room
Edge is Microsoft's everything-browser — Copilot in the sidebar, Collections, sleeping tabs, enterprise integration, apps on every platform. Sill is a native macOS browser that does deliberately less, more quietly, and sends nothing anywhere. The comparison is really about how much browser you want around your browsing.
Full disclosure: this studio builds Sill. This is written as the comparison worth reading anyway — Edge's genuine strengths included, its details drawn from its own public documentation.
Edge on the Mac is a serious browser: a well-maintained Chromium port with vertical tabs, sleeping tabs, Collections, Workspaces, and Copilot built into the sidebar. If your work lives in Microsoft 365, it's the path of least resistance, and its feature list dwarfs most competitors — Sill included.
The trade is noise and telemetry. Edge ships with shopping suggestions, Bing promotion, news feeds and sign-in prompts that take real effort to quiet, and Microsoft's data collection is extensive (and documented). Sill starts from the opposite default: nothing on the screen but your page, and nothing on the wire but your sites.
The quick answer
Choose Edge if…
- Your organization runs on Microsoft 365 — profiles, SSO and enterprise policies just work
- You want Copilot in the browser and use it enough to matter
- You need Windows, mobile apps, and account sync across all of them
- You want Chromium extensions and site compatibility
- Sleeping tabs, Collections and PDF mark-up are features you actually use
Choose Sill if…
- You want a browser with no feed, no shopping prompts, no assistant nudging you
- You want whole-workspace hibernation rather than per-tab sleeping timers
- You want zero telemetry rather than well-documented telemetry
- You want native macOS (WebKit) rather than a cross-platform port
- You want glanceable favorites and built-in dev tools without an account
Edge vs Sill: core features
| Feature | Sill | Edge |
|---|---|---|
| Engine | WebKit (native macOS) | Chromium |
| Platforms | macOS 14+ (Apple Silicon & Intel) | Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android |
| Price | Free (early access) | Free |
| Account required | No | No (Microsoft account needed for sync & Copilot) |
| Open source | Source on GitHub | No |
| Workspaces | Yes — hibernating workspaces | Edge Workspaces (shareable tab sets) |
| Memory model | Whole workspaces hibernate and release their memory; favorites stay loaded | Sleeping tabs — per-tab inactivity timer |
| Ad & tracker blocking | Built in — ad networks blocked natively; videos never autoplay | Tracking prevention built in; full ad blocking via extensions |
| AI features | None — routine detection is deterministic, local, and off by default | Copilot built into the sidebar (cloud) |
| Browser's own network calls | Zero of its own — no telemetry, no analytics, no account | Extensive, documented telemetry and Microsoft services |
| Developer tools | API client, MCP explorer, Web Inspector, JSON tree viewer | Chromium DevTools |
| Sync & mobile | None — single Mac, fully local | Microsoft account sync; iOS & Android apps |
| Extensions | No extension store (blocking & dev tools are built in) | Edge Add-ons + Chrome Web Store |
Accurate to the best of our knowledge as of 13 July 2026; Edge's details come from its public documentation.
Where Edge shines
- The enterprise answer. SSO, conditional access, managed profiles, IT policy — if work issues your laptop, Edge fits the machine. No indie browser competes here, Sill included.
- Feature density. Collections for research, shareable Workspaces, solid PDF tools, vertical tabs, per-tab sleeping — a genuinely long list of shipped, maintained features across every platform you own.
- Copilot, if you want it. An integrated cloud assistant for summarizing and drafting, one sidebar away.
See it for yourself: visit Edge’s official site ↗ (opens in a new tab).
Where Sill shines
- Quiet as the default, not an achievement. Sill has no feed, no shopping layer, no promoted search engine and no assistant. The page is the point; everything else steps aside — ⌘S even hides the sidebar.
- Hibernation beats sleeping. Edge's sleeping tabs doze individually on a timer. Sill hibernates whole workspaces the moment you switch away — memory released entirely, scroll position restored on wake.
- Nothing to configure away. Edge’s telemetry is documented and partly controllable; Sill simply has none. Zero network calls of its own, no account, verifiable in a traffic monitor.
- Local glanceability instead of cloud assistance. Mail counts and meeting nudges read locally from your own signed-in pages — the useful half of "smart browser," with the cloud half deleted.
The privacy picture
Edge's data practices are extensive but not hidden: diagnostic data, personalization signals and Microsoft-account integration, governed by settings and enterprise policy. If you work at quieting it, Edge can be made reasonable. Sill doesn't need quieting — it has no telemetry, no account, and no services of its own to call; its opt-in routine detection runs locally, observes metadata only, and never touches banking, health or government sites.
Verdict
Frequently asked questions
Is Edge good on a Mac?
Yes — it's a well-maintained Chromium browser on macOS, with vertical tabs, sleeping tabs, Collections and Copilot all present. The main Mac-specific costs are its telemetry and the busyness of its defaults, both of which take settings work to reduce.
What's the difference between Edge's sleeping tabs and Sill's hibernation?
Sleeping tabs pause individual tabs after an inactivity timer, keeping a lightweight placeholder. Sill hibernates at the workspace level: switch away and every tab in that workspace releases its memory entirely, then the whole room wakes where you left it, scroll position included.
Does Sill have anything like Copilot?
No, deliberately. Sill contains no AI assistant and no LLM. Its only smart behaviour — offering workspaces for routines it notices — is deterministic, local, metadata-only and off by default.
Can Sill join a corporate/managed environment?
Sill has no enterprise policy layer, managed profiles or SSO integration — Edge is far better suited to managed corporate machines. Sill is built for your own Mac.
Try it yourself:Sill is free early access for macOS 14+ — no account, nothing leaves your Mac.
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