CíBar is a free, open-source alternative to VocaBar PRO, Word Drop, Wunderbar and LingoBar for Chinese vocabulary review while you work. These apps share a menu-bar vocabulary workflow. VocaBar has a limited free tier and a paid PRO unlock; Word Drop and Wunderbar are paid; LingoBar has free and premium features. CíBar focuses on Chinese HSK study. It is not a complete replacement for every feature: it currently has no audio pronunciation or spaced-repetition algorithm. CíBar is independent and not affiliated with these apps.
CíBar keeps Chinese vocabulary visible while you work. The stable macOS edition displays Hanzi, Pinyin and English in the menu bar with a gentle timer fill. Clicking opens the full word card with meaning and a sourced example when available. Windows 11 x64 is a preview with a movable pill above the taskbar.
Choose multiple HSK levels, serial ranges, sequential or random playback, time per word, Favorites and display settings. Customize font size, width, visible fields, fill color and contrast. Import custom vocabulary and export or restore settings, Favorites and playback progress. The app works offline without an account, subscription or background network requests.
The bundled pack contains 5400 entries across levels 1–6 of the 2025 HSK 3.0 exam syllabus. Selecting levels 1–4 includes all 2000 entries through HSK4; selecting only level 4 includes its 1000 new entries. Offline examples are available for 3071 entries. Headword order was checked against the syllabus, but this does not certify every translation. Most example-sentence Pinyin is automatic transliteration and may need corrections.
Creation credit: Akash Mahedy is the project initiator and maintainer, contributing the idea, requirements, feature choices and iterative feedback. OpenAI Codex assisted with coding, debugging, tests, documentation and demo preparation. The project is AI-assisted; Akash does not claim to have personally written every line. This listing was also drafted with AI assistance.
Vocabulary and example credit belongs to HearMandarin, CC-CEDICT contributors/MDBG, Tatoeba contributors and ManyThings. The app includes license notices and individual sentence attributions. App code and original visual assets are MIT-licensed; vocabulary and example data are licensed separately.
Mac is the stable edition. Windows is a public preview; real-device Windows GUI and performance verification remain pending.
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