Spotlight, Alfred, Raycast: pick one launcher and stop switching
All three open apps on a keystroke. They differ in what happens on the second keystroke, and that is the only decision that matters.
Every launcher does the same first trick: ⌘Space, type three letters, press
Return. The differences show up when you ask for something the launcher was not
designed around, which is why people install a second one and then a third.
Spotlight
Built in, no install, no account, no licence. On recent macOS versions it handles apps, files, maths, unit conversion, weather, dictionary and web suggestions. It indexes your mail and notes, which is either a feature or a privacy decision depending on your view.
Limits are structural. There is no clipboard history, no text expansion, no
user-defined actions, and no way to make ⌘Space do something else for a
particular app. Spotlight is also the one launcher that other apps cannot
extend, so the ceiling is Apple’s roadmap.
If your needs stop at “open Things and calculate 18 percent of 240”, stop here.
Alfred
The oldest of the three and the most Mac-native in feel. The core app is free. The paid add-on unlocks workflows: chained actions, keyword triggers, custom themes, file actions. A workflow can take a selected file, run a shell command and paste the result, and the community has built thousands of them.
Alfred’s file search and clipboard history are fast and predictable, and it stays out of the way. The interface looks like software from a decade ago, because it largely is, and there are people who consider that a feature.
Raycast
Newer, modern interface, extension store, and a strong built-in set: window management, clipboard history, snippets, calendar. Extensions are written in TypeScript and installed in one click, which is why the catalogue grew quickly.
Parts of it sit behind a subscription, and the app expects an account for sync and some features. That is a different model from Alfred’s one-time purchase, and it is worth reading the current pricing before you standardise a team on it.
The honest comparison
| Need | Choice |
|---|---|
| Launch apps, do maths, find files | Spotlight |
| Text expansion, custom workflows, one-time purchase | Alfred |
| Extensions, window snapping, modern UI | Raycast |
Two rules keep this decision from becoming a hobby. Use exactly one launcher, so
that ⌘Space is never ambiguous. And define the shortcut for the one you keep
before installing it, because the muscle memory takes a week to retrain and
twice as long to unlearn.
None of the three will make you faster than knowing where your files are. They remove the small friction of reaching for a Dock icon, and that is worth about five seconds a dozen times a day, which is a real amount of time and not a transformation.
Keep reading
Four built-in apps that quietly replaced paid software
Preview, Notes, Shortcuts and Freeform do more than they look like they do. The limits are real, but they are narrower than most people assume.
Preview is the PDF editor you already have
Merging, splitting, signing and shrinking a PDF takes no new software. The tools are in the app you open files with by default.