Layouts · macOS
Is your layout actually faster?
QWERTY, Colemak, Dvorak — Pulse tracks your real speed and accuracy on each layout you use, so the great layout debate ends with your own numbers.
Recent sessions
Layouts
Your QWERTY is 54 WPM faster than your Colemak on average (84% gap).
Averages are computed over all your real-world sessions tagged with that input source. Practice-mode sessions are tagged separately and won't pollute the comparison.
Drag the divider — the Layouts list on the left, the drill-in detail for one layout on the right.
Everyone argues about Colemak.
Pulse just shows you the WPM.
The layout debate, settled on your own hands
Colemak and Dvorak both move common letters onto the home row and cut finger travel — on paper. The catch is that paper assumes you already type the new layout fluently. The honest question isn't whether a layout is faster in theory; it's whether your speed, after the relearning cost, ever clears the QWERTY you've had since childhood.
The first few weeks of a switch are brutal. You drop from, say, 80 WPM to 25 and feel every keystroke. Most people quit here, in the trough, convinced the new layout is slower — when really they're just three weeks in. Watching your speed climb back week over week is the difference between an informed decision and a frustrated abandonment. A layout's payoff, if it has one, is rarely raw WPM. It's where the work lands. A good switch pulls presses off the weak pinkies and onto stronger fingers, which a per-finger breakdown shows plainly and a single speed number hides.
And the layout is only one variable. If you've never learned to type without looking, switching layouts fixes the wrong problem — deliberate practice on the layout you already have usually buys more speed, faster. Pulse measures each layout you use separately and keeps the receipts, so the choice rests on your numbers instead of a forum argument. If you want the groundwork first, our guide to improving typing speed covers the fundamentals that hold true on any layout.
Frequently asked.
Is Colemak or Dvorak faster than QWERTY?
After the learning curve, alternative layouts can reduce finger travel — but most gains are modest and personal. Pulse shows your actual per-layout speed instead of relying on claims.
Does Pulse support non-QWERTY layouts?
Yes. Pulse follows your active macOS layout and tracks speed and accuracy for each one separately, including while you learn a new one.
How long does it take to get fast on Colemak or Dvorak?
Plan on a few weeks to return to your old QWERTY speed and a couple of months to clear it, if you ever do. Pulse charts your per-layout WPM week over week, so you can see exactly where the new layout crosses your old one — or decide it never will.