Two situations send most people searching for this. You're comparing two things directly: two flight prices, two apartment listings, two drafts of the same document, and switching back and forth between tabs makes it hard to hold both in your head at once. Or you're watching one thing while working in another: a dashboard you want visible while you answer email, a video call running next to your notes. Either way, the goal is the same. You want to see two websites at the same time, not alternate between them all day.
There are five real ways to open two websites side by side, and this guide covers all five honestly, weaknesses included. Pick whichever fits how you actually work. You don't need to read past the one that solves your problem today.
Can you see two websites at the same time in one browser?
Yes, in more than one way, and you likely already have what you need for the simplest version. Your operating system, your browser, and browser extensions can each put two sites on screen together, no new software required for the first two methods. Here's the short version of all five, in order from least to most permanent:
- Your operating system's built-in split screen
- Two separate browser windows, arranged by hand
- A split-screen browser extension
- A browser that tiles or splits tabs natively
- A fixed dashboard grid, like TulipLot
The first four live inside whatever browser you already use. The fifth is a different kind of tool entirely, and it's worth understanding what it trades away before you get there.
Method 1: your operating system's split screen
Windows has Snap: drag a window to either edge of the screen, or press the Windows key plus an arrow, and it fills exactly half, with a menu offering to fill the other half with a second window. macOS has Split View: hold down the green button in a window's top-left corner and choose a side, or drag one window to the edge while another sits ready to fill the rest. Both take about ten seconds and need nothing installed.
This is genuinely the fastest way to get two websites in view right now. It's built into the computer you already have, it costs nothing, and it works with any two windows, not just a browser, so the same trick handles a browser next to a spreadsheet just as easily as two browser windows.
The weakness is that it doesn't stick. Close the window, restart your computer, or just open a fresh browser session, and the split is gone. You're dragging to the edge again next time. And because a snapped window is still one whole browser window, if you've got other tabs open in it, one stray click on the wrong tab swaps out the site you were just comparing.
Who it suits: a quick, one-off comparison you won't need again tomorrow.
Method 2: two browser windows side by side
This is the manual version of method 1. Instead of letting Snap or Split View decide the split, open a second browser window (not a new tab, a genuinely separate window: Ctrl+N or Cmd+N), drag it next to the first, and resize both by hand until you like the balance.
The upside over an automatic split is control. You can give one site 70% of the screen and the other 30%, stack them instead of placing them side by side, or spread them across two monitors if you have them. If you're comparing a wide spreadsheet against a narrow reference page, an even split rarely looks right, and this method fixes that.
The weakness is the same one as method 1, plus more of your own effort. You're rebuilding this every session, and now you're doing the resizing by hand instead of letting a keyboard shortcut do it for you. On a single small laptop screen, two full windows side by side often leaves each one too narrow to read comfortably, and you end up scrolling sideways on both.
Who it suits: anyone who wants exact control over the split and doesn't mind rebuilding it.
Method 3: a split-screen browser extension
A category of browser extensions exists specifically to keep two sites inside one browser window, panes side by side, without needing two separate OS windows at all. Installed and set up once, some of these are genuinely useful: fewer windows to manage than method 2, and the split lives inside your normal browsing session instead of off to the side of it.
Here's the part worth knowing before you install one. Look closely at how a lot of these extensions actually work, and you'll notice many of them don't embed the second site inside the first pane at all. Instead they open it in a real, separate browser window, positioned and sized to look like a single split view. That's not a bug in the extension. It's because a real portion of the web refuses to be displayed inside another page under any circumstances, for a genuine security reason, and no extension can override that refusal. Why some sites won't load in a dashboard goes into exactly why that happens and what does and doesn't get around it, since the same rule shows up again later in this guide.
That's the honest weakness of this method: results depend heavily on which sites you're trying to split, not just which extension you pick. Some pairs of sites split cleanly. Others quietly fall back to a plain second window, which is functionally method 2 with an extra piece of software watching your browsing to make it happen. Worth weighing before you grant any extension that kind of access.
Who it suits: people happy staying inside one browser, comfortable granting an extension that access, whose particular sites happen to cooperate.
Method 4: a browser that splits tabs natively
A handful of browsers build tab splitting straight into the browser itself, letting you drag one tab next to another so both are visible in the same window, no extension required. If you already use one of those browsers, this is close to free: the feature is just there, waiting.
The catch is right there in that sentence: it only helps if you're already using that browser, or willing to switch to one that has it. Switching your everyday browser is a bigger decision than installing an extension, mostly because of everything that comes along with it: saved passwords, bookmarks, other extensions, the dozens of sites that recognize you because you're already logged in there. None of that necessarily follows you cleanly to a new browser, and giving up your current setup just to get tab splitting is a real cost, not a minor one.
Who it suits: someone who already uses, or is genuinely happy to adopt, a browser that tiles tabs natively.
Method 5: a fixed dashboard grid
Every method above shares one thing: you rebuild it. New session, new reboot, new week, and you're snapping, dragging, or re-splitting again, because none of the first four remember what you had open yesterday. That's fine for a comparison you'll only need once. It wears thin fast if it's the same two or three sites, every single day.
That's the gap TulipLot is built to close. It turns one browser tab into a fixed 3×2 grid, six cells, that looks exactly the same every time you open it. Put your project board top-center and your inbox top-left once, and they're still there tomorrow, and the week after, with nothing to rearrange each morning. Free covers five usable cells plus one ad cell in the bottom-right corner; Premium is $4 a month for all six cells with no ads. Free needs no credit card and has no time limit either way.
What actually happens when you add a site depends on the site, the same way it did in method 3, and it's worth being just as upfront about it here. Trello is a catalog example that loads live in the grid the moment you add it, nothing extra required. Notion and Hacker News are catalog examples that need a nudge first: the free TulipLot Companion, a Chrome extension you install once and then turn on for that specific site, after which they load live too. And Gmail, Outlook, and Google Calendar are catalog examples that never embed, Companion or not; each opens in its own browser tab as a one-click launcher instead, because their own protections run deeper than anything the Companion can adjust.
The tradeoff, stated plainly: methods 1 through 4 need nothing but what's already on your computer, and you can start using any of them in the next thirty seconds. TulipLot means creating a free account and spending a few minutes arranging your first grid. What you get in exchange is that you stop spending those thirty seconds every single day.
Which one should you use?
| Method | Best for | Setup | Sticks between sessions |
|---|---|---|---|
| OS split screen | A quick, one-off comparison | None | No |
| Two browser windows | Full manual control over the split | A few seconds, every time | No |
| Split-screen extension | Staying inside one browser window | One-time install | No |
| Tab-splitting browser | Anyone who already uses one | None, if you're already using it | No |
| Fixed dashboard grid | The same sites, day after day | A few minutes, once | Yes |
Questions people ask
Is there a website that shows multiple websites at once?
Not one that works for every site, no. Tools that try, TulipLot included, run into the same rule: a site can tell browsers not to display it inside another page, and browsers obey. Some sites allow it, some need a browser extension first, and a handful refuse outright no matter which tool is asking, because that choice belongs to the site itself, not to whatever's trying to display it. What you can find, and what's worth looking for, are tools that are upfront about which case each of your sites falls into instead of quietly showing a broken pane and leaving you to guess.
Why won't some sites open side by side?
Because the site itself said no, not because anything you're using is broken. Browsers honor an instruction that some sites send back, blocking any other page from displaying them inside a frame, a genuine security measure meant to stop a trick called clickjacking, where a hidden frame tricks you into clicking something you never meant to. That decision happens before any split-screen extension or dashboard ever gets a say, which is why the same extension can work perfectly on one site and fail completely on the next. It's the site's own security choice, consistent across every tool, not a bug in whichever one you happen to be using.
Does viewing multiple sites slow my computer down?
A little, but usually less than you'd expect. Two live webpages use more memory than one, the same way two browser tabs use more than a single tab does, but the difference between that and a single window is small on any computer bought in the last several years. What actually slows a machine down is a page that's heavy on its own, autoplaying video or a chat app refreshing nonstop, far more than the raw number of sites on screen. If one of your sites is like that, put it to sleep or close it when you're not using it, and everything else stays just as responsive.
Most people land on one of these five without ever needing the others, and any of them beats the alt-tab shuffle you started with. If your day involves the same handful of sites on repeat, five ways to lay out a productive dashboard is worth a look once you've picked your five (or six). And if a fixed grid sounds like the fit, create a free account and see which of your own sites load live.