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Raycast reviewed, with a quarter of the runtime spent on Alfred
It’s Annoying How Good Raycast is
About this video
Fourteen minutes, and the last four are not about Raycast: from 9:51 the video runs a head-to-head with Alfred, splits it into where each is better, and gives a verdict at 12:59. Before that, a fast tour of what one launcher replaces — clipboard history, snippets, the hyperkey, screenshot text search, a command palette in every app.
A review that gives a quarter of its runtime to a competitor is doing something more useful than a review that does not. From 9:51 this one compares Raycast with Alfred, and the structure of the comparison is the honest part: it argues where Raycast is better, then where Alfred is better, and only then picks a winner. That is a more expensive way to reach a verdict and a more credible one.
The first nine minutes are a tour of consolidation. Clipboard history at 0:21, snippet expansion at 0:37, launching at 1:08, the hyperkey at 1:40, a calculator at 2:08, a command palette in every app at 2:31, text search inside screenshots at 3:06. The chapter at 5:10 states the argument explicitly — that this is one app instead of a pile of small utilities — and by that point the case has already been made by demonstration.
Two things on this page should be read with the disclosure in mind. The video is sponsored, and the description carries an affiliate link for the Pro plan, so the section from 7:38 is the part with a commercial interest behind it. That does not make it wrong; it does mean the free-tier argument, which is the stronger one, gets less time than the paid one.
The verdict at 12:59 is one person’s, from May 2025, and worth exactly that. What travels better is the comparison itself: if you are choosing between these two, the four minutes from 9:51 are the part to watch, because they are the part that would still be informative if you disagreed with the conclusion.
What it covers
- The Alfred comparison is 9:51 to 12:59, nearly a quarter of the video, and it names where Alfred wins before naming a winner.
- The consolidating argument is at 5:10: one launcher instead of a clipboard manager, a snippet expander and a calculator, each of which gets its own chapter earlier.
- The Pro section starts at 7:38 and is the only part of the video with a commercial interest behind it — the description carries an affiliate link for the Pro plan.
- Searching inside screenshots at 3:06 and the command palette at 2:31 are the two features that are hardest to replace with anything else on macOS.
Chapters
Chapter times are the creator's own list, published in the video description.
