RuleDock delivers everything you love about Fences—plus regex rules, DSL expressions, and better performance. All for free.
We built RuleDock because we experienced these issues ourselves.
Fences costs $9.99+ and requires renewal for major updates. RuleDock is completely free and open source—forever.
Users report Fences consuming 50MB+ RAM. RuleDock is designed with performance in mind and minimal CPU impact.
Fences offers basic sorting by file type. RuleDock supports regex patterns and powerful DSL expressions for complex logic.
Fences sometimes scrambles icons when monitors connect/disconnect. RuleDock tracks each display independently with reliable restoration.
Registry-based storage in Fences can corrupt. RuleDock uses SQLite—proven, reliable, and easily backed up.
Fences doesn't run natively on Windows ARM devices. RuleDock has native ARM64 builds for Surface Pro X and similar devices.
See exactly what you get with each desktop organizer.
| Feature | RuleDock | Stardock Fences | Nimi Places | DesktopOK |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | Free Forever | $9.99+ | Free | Free |
| Open Source | ✓ MIT License | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Foldable Fences | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| Auto-Sort by File Type | ✓ | ✓ | Limited | ✗ |
| Regex Pattern Matching | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
| DSL / Expression Rules | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Rule Priority Control | ✓ | Limited | ✗ | ✗ |
| SQLite Persistence | ✓ | ✗ Registry | ✗ | INI Files |
| Explorer Crash Recovery | ✓ Automatic | Partial | ✗ | Manual |
| Multi-Monitor DPI Handling | ✓ | ✓ | Partial | ✓ |
| Windows 11 ARM64 | ✓ Native | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Export/Import Config | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Pin/Lock Fences | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | N/A |
| Transparency Control | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | N/A |
Features you won't find in Stardock Fences.
Fences can sort by file type (images, documents, etc.), but what if you need to match Screenshot_2026*.png or invoice_\d{4}.pdf? RuleDock's regex support handles any pattern.
# Regex rule: match "backup_v1.0.zip", "backup_v2.3.zip", etc.
^backup_v\d+\.\d+\.zip$Need to sort files that are images AND in a specific folder? Fences can't express this. RuleDock's DSL can:
ext in ['.png', '.jpg', '.psd'] and path contains 'Design'Fences stores data in the Windows Registry, which can:
RuleDock uses SQLite—a proven database format used by Chrome, Firefox, and countless apps. Your layout is stored in a single portable file.
RuleDock is built on .NET 8 and WinUI 3 with performance as a priority:
When Explorer crashes (it happens!), RuleDock:
No manual intervention. No lost layouts.
Get started with RuleDock in minutes.
Note: RuleDock cannot import Fences configurations directly (different storage format), but recreating your setup typically takes just a few minutes.
Join thousands who've upgraded to a faster, more powerful desktop organizer.
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