I’m more concerned that it requires Accessibility and Screen Recording privileges to do the same job that Hidden Bar does without any of those.
Not that I don’t trust the author here, since the source code is open after all – I simply do not have the time to audit it myself. And even if I did, I’d have to turn off auto update in order to prevent a similar switcharoo sneaking by without my knowledge.
It works for me. I used to be a paying customer of Bartender until I upgraded to Sonoma and was asked to pay yet again.
Hidden Bar may be somewhat minimalistic but it does the part I really need well enough. The extra features were nice but not really necessary.