Switching from IDM

A free, open-source alternative to Internet Download Manager

If you come from IDM, Prism will feel familiar: click a link and a download window appears, files come down over many connections, videos get a download button, and queues run at night. Prism does it for free — no trial, no license key — on Windows, macOS and Linux, with all of its code in the open.

Download Prism How to switch

Windows · macOS · Linux — 64-bit

Prism's Download File window, opened from a click in the browser: file name, 3.7 GB size, resumable, save folder and category. Prism's Download File window in the light theme.

What carries over

Your IDM habits, in Prism.

The things people rely on a download manager like IDM for, and where to find them in Prism.

Common download manager workflows and how Prism handles them
You want to…In Prism
Click a link and get a download windowThe Download File window opens in about a quarter of a second, with the size and resume support already known. Hold Alt to let the browser have it.
Download faster over many connectionsUp to 32 connections per file. A connection that finishes takes over half of the largest part still left, so none sit idle.
Grab a video from the pageA Download video button over the player, and a popup listing every stream on the page. MP4 up to 8K HDR, or MP3 only.
Resume after a crash or a lost connectionData is on disk before progress is saved; on resume Prism checks the file hasn’t changed on the server.
Sort files by typeCategories for video, music, documents, programs, archives and images, each with its own folder.
Download at nightQueues with their own schedule, concurrency and speed limit — then sleep, shut down or run a command.
Grab everything from a siteThe site grabber, with rules by file type and depth.
Limit the speed, add many links at onceA speed limiter, batch downloads, a clipboard monitor and a drop zone.

And then some

What else Prism brings.

Windows, macOS and Linux

The same app on every desktop, with the extension for Chrome, Edge, Brave, Opera, Vivaldi, Helium and Firefox.

Free, open, private

MIT-licensed, built by GitHub Actions from public code, with SHA-256 checksums. No ads, no account, no telemetry.

Torrents and magnets

BitTorrent and magnet: links next to HTTP, FTP/FTPS, HLS and DASH — one app for all of them.

AI models from Hugging Face

Search a model, get only the files you need, each checked against its SHA-256. More.

Nine languages, two themes

English, Czech, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Indonesian, Turkish, Simplified Chinese and Arabic, in light or dark liquid glass.

How to switch

From IDM to Prism in three steps.

You can keep IDM installed while you try Prism — just don’t let both browser extensions run at once.

Step by step

  1. Install Prism

    Pick your system below, or see the guide for Windows, macOS or Linux.

  2. Turn off the IDM Integration Module

    On your browser’s extensions page (chrome://extensions, edge://extensions, …). Two extensions competing for the same download means neither works reliably.

  3. Add Prism’s extension

    From the Chrome Web Store (Firefox: extension guide). Then pick which file types Prism takes in Settings → File types.

Download

Free. For every desktop.

Your system

macOS

macOS 11 Big Sur or later

First run: the app isn’t notarized by Apple yet, so macOS blocks it once. Run xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Prism.app in Terminal, or use System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway. Not sure which Mac you have? Apple menu → About This Mac → Chip.

Browser extension included: the DMG has a Browser Extension folder next to Prism — drag it to Documents, then load it in Chrome (Prism guides you on first start).

FAQ

Questions from IDM users.

Prism isn’t affiliated with Internet Download Manager or Tonec Inc.

Is Prism a free alternative to IDM?

Yes. Prism is free and open source under the MIT license — no trial, no license key, no paid tier and no ads — and it covers the everyday IDM workflows: multi-connection downloads, a browser download window, video grabbing, categories, queues with schedules, a site grabber and a speed limiter.

Is Prism faster than IDM?

We don’t know, so we don’t claim it: IDM hasn’t been measured, because the trial on the test machine had expired and we didn’t bypass it. Against aria2c and curl, Prism matched aria2c on a server that throttles each connection, was 3.2× faster than aria2c without limits, and was the only one to finish on a server that kept dropping connections. The harness is in the repository if you’d like to measure IDM the same way.

Can I use Prism and IDM on the same computer?

Yes. Just keep only one of the two browser extensions turned on, so they don’t both try to catch the same download.

Does Prism download videos like IDM?

Yes. Hover a video and a Download video button appears; pick MP4 in the quality you want or just the MP3. It works on every site yt-dlp supports — more than a thousand. Only download content you have the right to.

Is there an IDM alternative for Mac and Linux?

Prism runs on macOS 11 or later (Apple Silicon and Intel) and on 64-bit Linux (deb, rpm or AppImage), with the same engine and browser extension as on Windows.

More about Prism

The Prism home page has the full feature tour, benchmarks and the install guide.

Prism homeFeatures, benchmarks, film and guide. Prism for WindowsInstaller, MSI or portable for Windows 10 and 11. Prism for MacApple Silicon and Intel, macOS 11 or later. Prism for Linuxdeb, rpm or AppImage for any distribution. Browser extensionChrome, Edge, Brave, Opera, Vivaldi and Firefox. Hugging Face modelsGGUF and safetensors, only the files you need.

One beam. Many rays.

Free, open source and ready for your next big download.

Download Prism Star on GitHub