Raycast Review 2025: The Productivity Launcher That Replaced Spotlight

Spotlight Was Fine. Alfred Was Better. Then I Found Raycast.

I used Spotlight for years. It was fine. You hit Cmd+Space, type an app name, hit enter. That workflow covers maybe 40% of what I actually do when switching context on my Mac. The other 60% -- looking up a Jira ticket, checking my calendar, converting a hex color, managing windows, grabbing something from my clipboard from twenty minutes ago -- Spotlight has absolutely zero answers for any of that.

So like a lot of devs around 2017, I switched to Alfred. Paid the Powerpack license. Built some workflows. Had a good run. Alfred is a solid tool made by people who clearly care about their craft. But Alfred always felt a little... static? The workflow builder is visual and node-based, which sounds cool until you realize you're essentially programming in a flowchart. I spent more time wiring up nodes than I would have spent writing a quick script. And the extension ecosystem, while dedicated, was never huge.

Then a coworker screen-shared during a pairing session in late 2022, and I watched him pull up a Raycast command bar, search a GitHub repo, check a PR's CI status, and create a Linear issue -- all without his hands leaving the keyboard, all inside one floating panel. I downloaded Raycast that afternoon. I have not opened Alfred or Spotlight since. Not once. That was over two years ago.

What Raycast Actually Is (And Why It Sticks)

At first glance Raycast looks like another Spotlight clone. You press a hotkey, a text input appears, you type something. But the similarity ends there. Raycast is really a command palette for your entire operating system. If you've ever used Cmd+Shift+P in VS Code, it's that energy -- except it reaches into every app, service, and system function on your Mac.

The architecture is built on three things: commands, extensions, and quicklinks. Commands are actions -- "Search Files," "Toggle Dark Mode," "Empty Trash." Extensions bundle related commands together and connect Raycast to external services. Quicklinks let you create parameterized URL shortcuts so you can search any website from the launcher. Type "npm react-query" and it opens the npmjs.com search results. Type "gh my-repo" and it opens the GitHub page. You define the patterns once and they just work forever.

On top of that base, Raycast packs in a clipboard manager (with search, pinning, and image support), a text snippet expander (like TextExpander but free), a window manager (like Rectangle but built-in), floating notes, a calculator, and a color picker. Each one of these would be a separate paid utility. Raycast rolls them all into the free tier.

I want to be clear about something: the free version of Raycast is absurdly generous. The clipboard history alone replaced Paste (which I was paying for). The window management replaced Rectangle Pro. The snippets replaced a TextExpander subscription I'd had for years. That's easily a hundred bucks a year in apps I no longer need -- and Raycast charges nothing for any of it.

Living Inside the Command Bar: My Daily Workflow

Let me walk through what a typical morning looks like with Raycast, because it's the daily integration that sells the tool, not feature lists.

I wake up, open my laptop. Hit the Raycast hotkey. Type "cal" -- my upcoming meetings appear inline. I see a standup in 20 minutes and a design review at 11. I don't open Calendar. I type "gh" and my recent pull requests show up. One has a failing check. I hit Enter and the PR opens in my browser. Total time: maybe four seconds.

Before standup, I type "lin" and search my Linear issues. I can see my current sprint, check what's in progress, even create a new issue from right there. After standup, someone mentions a Slack thread. I type "sl" and search Slack messages from inside Raycast. Find the thread, jump directly to it. No hunting through channels.

Throughout the day, the clipboard manager is probably the feature I use most unconsciously. I copy a variable name from one file, a URL from Slack, an API key from 1Password, a snippet of JSON from Postman. Later I need that JSON again -- I hit the clipboard hotkey, type "json," and it's right there. It stores text, images, links, colors, files. Everything is searchable. I have items pinned that I use daily: my standard PR description template, a boilerplate commit message, the SSH command to my staging server.

Window management is the other constant. I have hotkeys bound for left-half, right-half, and maximize. But the underrated command is "Reasonable Size" -- it guesses a sensible window size based on the app type. For iTerm it gives you about 70% width. For Slack it goes narrow. For Figma it maximizes. It's weirdly smart about this.

The Extension Ecosystem: This Is Where It Gets Dangerous

The Raycast store has over 1,000 extensions now, and honestly this is where I lost an entire Saturday configuring things. There's an extension for everything. GitHub, Linear, Jira, Notion, Figma, Slack, Spotify, Homebrew, Docker, Vercel, AWS, Todoist, Bear, Obsidian -- the list goes on. Each extension is reviewed by the Raycast team before listing, and the quality is generally high.

The extensions that changed my workflow the most:

GitHub -- Search repos, view PRs, check CI status, browse issues. I can review a PR's diff summary without opening a browser tab. For someone who lives in GitHub, this extension alone justifies the switch from any other launcher.

Brew -- Search and install Homebrew packages from the command bar. Sounds small but it means I never have to context-switch to a terminal for "was it imagemagick or image-magick?"

Color Picker -- A system-wide color picker invoked from the launcher. Pick any pixel on screen, get the hex, RGB, HSL values. Automatically copies to clipboard. I used to have a separate app for this.

Spotify / Apple Music -- Play, pause, skip, search, all from the command bar. Never need to find the Spotify window again.

For devs who want to build their own extensions, the API is TypeScript-based with React-like components. If you can write a React component, you can write a Raycast extension. The documentation is good, the dev tooling is good, and you can publish to the store. Compared to Alfred's node-based workflow editor, this is night and day in terms of developer experience.

Raycast AI: The Reason I Cancelled ChatGPT Plus

The AI integration is the headline Pro feature, and after using it for two months I cancelled my ChatGPT Plus subscription. Not because Raycast AI is better than ChatGPT -- it uses the same models (GPT-4o, Claude, etc.). It's because the interface is better for how I actually use AI during work.

The killer feature is AI Commands. You select text anywhere on your Mac, hit a hotkey, and run a predefined AI prompt against that text. I have commands set up for: "Explain this code," "Find bugs in this," "Write a commit message for this diff," "Translate to Spanish," "Make this email more concise," and "Summarize this page." Each one is a single keyboard shortcut.

The workflow difference is huge. With ChatGPT, I'd copy text, switch to the browser, paste it, write a prompt, wait, copy the result, switch back. With Raycast AI, I select the text, press a hotkey, and the result appears in a floating panel that stays on top. I can paste it back with another hotkey. The whole loop takes maybe three seconds instead of thirty.

For code review it's been transformative. I select a function I'm reviewing, hit my "explain" hotkey, and get a plain-English summary of what it does. For someone who reads code in unfamiliar codebases regularly, this is worth the Pro subscription by itself.

The conversational AI chat is there too, and it's fine. But the context-aware AI Commands on selected text -- that's the actual innovation. Nobody else does this as well.

The Small Things That Add Up

Snippets are simple but I use them constantly. I have "!email" mapped to my work email, "!zoom" to my personal Zoom link, "!pr" to a pull request template with dynamic date insertion, and "!addr" to my mailing address. They expand in any text field across the entire OS. Saves maybe five minutes a day, which doesn't sound like much until you multiply it across a year.

The floating notes feature is one I didn't expect to use but now can't give up. It's a scratchpad that hovers over everything. I dump thoughts there during meetings, temp values during debugging, quick TODO items. It's not a notes app and it's not trying to be. It's a sticky note. That's exactly what I needed.

Calculator is built in and handles unit conversions. "5 inches in cm" just works. "150 USD in EUR" just works. Timezone conversions too. These tiny friction removals stack up across a workday in ways that are hard to quantify but easy to feel.

Downsides. Yeah, There Are Some.

Mac only. Full stop. If you're on Windows or Linux, Raycast does not exist for you and there are no announced plans to change that. For teams with mixed OS environments, this is a genuine problem. You can't standardize on a tool that a third of your team literally can't run.

The learning curve is real. Not because Raycast is hard to use -- the basics are obvious. But discovering what's possible takes weeks. I'm still finding features I didn't know existed after two years. There's a "Tips" command built into Raycast that surfaces random features, which tells you something about the discoverability problem.

Extension quality varies. The popular ones (GitHub, Linear, Slack) are rock solid. Some of the more niche community extensions break after OS updates or API changes and might not get fixed for weeks. It's the usual open-source maintenance story.

And look, the Pro plan at $8/month for AI is fair pricing. But if you don't care about AI and just want the launcher features, you're already getting everything for free. The question is really: is the AI integration worth $96/year? For me, absolutely yes. For someone who doesn't use AI in their daily workflow, the free tier is more than enough and there's no pressure to upgrade.

What It Costs (And What You Get for Free)

Here's the thing that still surprises me about Raycast's pricing: the free tier would be a paid product at most companies.

Free ($0/forever): Full launcher, all 1,000+ extensions, clipboard history with search and pins, snippet expansion, window management with hotkeys, floating notes, calculator, quicklinks, script commands. This tier replaces Alfred Powerpack ($34+), Rectangle Pro ($10), Paste ($15/yr), and a text expander ($40/yr). You're looking at $100+ in annual savings from a free product.

Pro ($8/month billed yearly, $12 month-to-month): Everything free plus Raycast AI with GPT-4o and Claude, AI Commands on selected text, cloud sync across devices, custom themes, and Pro-exclusive extensions. If you're paying $20/month for ChatGPT Plus, this is less than half the price with tighter OS integration.

Teams ($12/user/month): Pro features plus shared extensions, team snippets, shared quicklinks, centralized admin. Makes sense for engineering teams that want to standardize tooling.

Enterprise (custom pricing): SSO/SAML, custom deployment, compliance stuff. The usual enterprise add-ons.

How It Compares To What You're Probably Using Now

If you're coming from Spotlight: switching to Raycast is like going from Notepad to VS Code. Spotlight searches files and launches apps. Raycast does that plus roughly 500 other things. If you spend more than a couple hours a day on your Mac, Spotlight is leaving enormous productivity on the table.

If you're coming from Alfred: this is a harder call. Alfred is a great tool with a loyal community. Its workflow system is more mature for certain complex automations, and the one-time Powerpack license is cheaper long-term than a Raycast Pro subscription. But Raycast's TypeScript extension API attracts more developers, the extension store grows faster, and the AI integration is something Alfred simply doesn't offer. If you have deeply customized Alfred workflows that took years to build, the migration cost is real. If you're evaluating fresh, Raycast is the obvious pick in 2025.

If you're coming from LaunchBar: respect for the old guard. LaunchBar has been around since 1996 and its "Instant Send" feature is still faster than Raycast for certain grab-and-route actions. But the extension ecosystem is tiny, the UI feels dated, and development has slowed considerably. It's a tool for its existing users, not for new ones.

The Setup I'd Recommend If You're Starting Today

Here's what I'd tell a new user: install it, set it as your Spotlight replacement (there's a toggle in settings), and just use it as a launcher for the first week. Don't install a bunch of extensions yet. Let it learn your patterns. After a week, install the extensions for whatever tools dominate your workflow -- GitHub, Slack, your project tracker. Week three, set up clipboard history and a few snippets. Week four, look at the AI features if you're on Pro.

Don't try to configure everything on day one. That's how you get overwhelmed and bounce off it. Let it gradually take over your workflow, and one day you'll realize you haven't opened Spotlight in months and you have no idea how you worked without this thing.

Where I Landed