With David Sparks new Alfred Field Guide, it prompts me to ask if it is worth switching from Launchbar to Alfred? It has been 4 years since any significant discussion here and 5 since it was discussed on Mac Power Users.
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It depends on what you are using it for. Launchbar user here and it is fine for me.
Iād suggest finding the five or so things you do most in launch bar and see how Alfred handles them.
I tried this with raycast not too long ago and concluded it wasnāt for me, because my most common tasks were slower or not possible.
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Itās funny youāre asking this, because I just started my usual cycle, probably spurred by mention of the Field Guide. About every three or four years, I switch from LaunchBar to another option. I use the new tool for a few months and then switch back. But I guess I never learn, because Iām trying out Alfred again. I actually hope it sticks this time because the one thing I miss with LaunchBar is a community around the app.
(For what itās worth, I have the same āswitcher diseaseā with note-taking apps, so Iām not slagging on any particular launcher).
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After briefly flirting with Launchbar, Iāve been usign Alfred for years, with occasional attempts at using Raycast.
Each person will be different, but for me Alfredās fallback behavior (showing you results of searching the various fallback categories, not just the categories themselves) keeps me coming back. I also like that itās easy to navigate the file system and add files to a buffer from different spots before pasting them all into an email.
My temptation to change to Raycast comes from a desire to consolidate lots of utilities into a single one. With Alfred, I have to rely on another utility to move windows around and to set caps-lock as a hyper-key. Raycast can do both. Alas, Raycastās lack of a single step fallback search like Alfred keeps me from switching.
I moved from Alfred to ray cast beginning of the year. Gave it a couple of weeks dedicated use. Still using it.
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Iād love to hear more about what you found slow/impossible with Raycast. I went from Quicksilver to Alfred and now a Raycast user.
Would be cool to hear your POV. Thanks.
Alfred. Hands down.
Source: ex launchbar user.
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Iām a happy Raycast user myself. (I both like the launcher, utility and AI parts.)
All of these apps are good ā so youāll probably be pretty happy with either. And which you prefer is down to preference, needs, and priorities.
Iām not the most knowledgeable about Lanuchbar and Alfred ā but Iām sure youād get even better answers for your use-case if you mention how you use Lanuchbar. 
(Iām also keeping tabs on Monarch!)
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I was a Quicksilver user but switched to Launchbar since 2008. It was the first thing I installed in any Mac and I have been renewing the license year after year. I also happen to be an Alfred paying customer, it seems I have a soft spot for this category! And yet, my day to day driver is Raycast. The UI is very nice, the automation capabilities can even overlap those of Keyboard Maestro or BetterTouchTool and the extension marketplace is very much alive and kicking. And guess what? Iām in the Raycast free tier!
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I periodically try all of these apps, but I keep coming back to Launchbar because of one essential feature, Instant Send. I deal with a lot of documents, and they all need to be properly filed. The ability to simply select a file, double click the command key, and then quickly search for the folder I want to file the document in, hit return and have it move there, is absolutely crucial. It takes me literally 2 seconds or less to put any file where I want it.
If somebody has an alternative to this in the other apps, I would be more than happy to hear it, but I have not yet found anything that served this purpose anywhere near as well as Launchbar.
I started with Launchbar. I liked it a the time. But, I can no longer type as frantically, Alfred waits for my slow input. I missed instant send. Alfred now has an equivalent. Recast - I tried this for a minute. Recast feels like a sports car with fancy tools that takes more thinking than I am willing to commit. Alfred suits my rather clunky approach to workflows. As far as tool consolidation - well I have bought clipboards, window management tools etcā¦
I was a Quicksilver user for a few years, and hadnāt experimented with Launchbar, but was annoyed when Alfred came on the scene, because I interpreted it as āstealingā from QS. I got over myself, switched to Alfred a few years later, and Iāve stayed very happy with it. I appreciate that itās a small team and labor of love. It hasnāt (yet) got the hype that Raycast got, but itās very capable.
I tried Launchbar for awhile, but it was so many years ago that I donāt remember why I switched back to Alfred. Havenāt tried Raycast.
Alfred could definitely use an improved workflow gallery and workflow update process, which I hope theyāre working on. Iāve been exploring making more complex workflows (e.g. URL Text Actions and Go to Here) as I improve my coding skills bit by bit over time.
Glad to see too that Quicksilver development seems to have picked up again, if slowly.
I started with Quicksilver on my first Mac and then went to Alfred because Quicksilver seemed to be a dead product. Iām happy with that, but did buy the Field Guide just as a refresher and perhaps find some things I didnāt know. Now if I switched to Launchbar instead Iām sure I would have been happy with that as well.
IMHO there is more pain in switching to a new app with similar functions than there would be any benefits.
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This was about 18 months ago so things may well have changed, since Raycast is developing quickly.
First there was the weird issue of no good Omnifocus plugin. There was a very basic third party plugin to quickly add tasks, but no Project or Tag search, no due dates, etc. This was odd, given that OF is such an automation friendly app.
There was the fact that you couldnāt see recent files and Urls just by typing their name. In Alfred, Iām used to just typing the name of the file and opening it. In Raycast you had to decide which search type or plugin was needed, activate the plugin and then choose the file.
Folder navigation was very limited. You could search for a folder but you couldnāt then navigate into and out of folders. In Alfred I could choose, say, our Comms folder, then press right go into the folder and see the next level down, or left to go up a level. So you can search in and around folders for what youāre after. If you know where a file is but canāt remember the exact name, or thereās several with similar names, this is a great feature.
Raycast also didnāt really have file actions. When you surface a file in Alfred, you can then run a long list of first and third party workflows on it. So I often look for a recent file via the Trickster plugin, then when I find it, add it Dropover to move it somewhere, or hook it in Hookmarks, print it to PDF, resize it, or whatever. Raycast would only let you, I think, open, move or rename a file. And even then, you couldnāt do it at all if you used a third party plugin to find the file in the first place.
Thereās other bits and pieces, like how everything seems to take more input in Raycast. But the file management was either impractical or impossible to achieve as I was used.
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Does Alfred have LaunchBarās Instant Send-like full functionality?
Havenāt used Launchbar in years, but I think Alfredās Universal Actions function is the same idea?
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I use Alfred on my home and work computers and LaunchBar on a computer at the church office which I donāt own. Itās nit-picky, but I really like the way Alfredās search results come back versus LaunchBar. When I look at Alfredās top-down search results each result is closely related to the one above it, itās pleasing to scan the results. LaunchBar looks like chaos to me, I have no idea how it came up with the results. Granted LaunchBarās top result is usually the one I want, but the way it gets there is maddening to me.
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They all have their strengths and weaknesses. Iāve tried/used LaunchBar, Alfred and Raycast.
Iām a looongtime happy user of LaunchBar, and wonāt be switching away from it unless something drastic changes, but there are some things Alfred does differently that are useful to me.
Solution? I now use both ĀÆ\_(ć)_/ĀÆ
(much like I use both Keyboard Maestro and BetterTouchTool for their strengths, plus Moom, DefaultFolder, Pastebot, Typinator, etc. which all have overlapping features. Pages, Word and Nisus Writer Pro. I guess Iām Polyapporous?)
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Alfred lets me add a custom web search and avoid the obnoxious AI summary at the top of Googleās search results.
https://www.google.com/search?q={query}&udm=14
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