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20 years of authentic Hacker News geek endorsements.
HomeProductivity & WorkflowsLaunchers & OS TweaksRaycast

Raycast

CommercialShow HN 2020

Blazingly fast, extensible launcher for Mac and Windows

Raycast lets you control your tools with a few keystrokes. It replaced Alfred for thousands of hackers with its sleek UI and TypeScript extension ecosystem.

Official WebsiteGitHub RepositoryShow HN Launch Post ↗Latest HN discussion: 2024-01-10
96Score
Mentions
1,840
Discussers
1,120
positive
93%

Hacker News Consensus & Insights

Synthesized from developer and community discussions across multiple years.

Why Hackers Love It

  • Extremely responsive Native UI with zero input latency
  • Vibrant extension store written in standard TypeScript/React
  • Built-in clipboard manager, window management, and snippet expander

Common Concerns & Tradeoffs

  • Proprietary core and subscription required for some cloud AI sync features
  • Historically macOS only (Windows version launched later)
Ideal for: Power users looking to replace Alfred or Spotlight with a unified hotkey launcher.

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Verbatim Hacker News Discussions

Real, unfiltered comments from independent developers.

3 comments
@dr_dane•1/10/2024
Original post ↗
Thread: Raycast for Windows Beta
“I love Raycast, but the aggressive push towards their AI subscription and accounts is concerning for a local launcher.”
@nikitonsky•4/29/2022
Original post ↗
Thread: Ask HN: What tools do you use daily in 2022?
“The clipboard history in Raycast alone is worth keeping it running. It never stutters.”
@swyx•10/27/2020
Original post ↗
Thread: Show HN: Raycast – A command palette for your workflows
“Raycast completely replaced Alfred for me two years ago. The extensions ecosystem and speed are unmatched.”