Raycast for Windows

[mrkwse]

I'm not sure I see the benefit of this over PowerToys beyond system-wide indexing for file search (which I'd want in Explorer, not a separate launcher app). Let alone the premium tiers.

- AI? What's the benefit beyond agents in more domain-specific environments (or gen-purpose site) vs native to a launcher app?

- Custom window management is available with PowerToys

- Unlimited clipboard history - I'm not sure I want or need this over PowerToys retaining it for system uptime.

- (Free?) Extension library looks a step beyond what's currently available for PowerToys' Command Palette, but will Raycast gain more Windows-focused extensions faster than Command Palette does?

Competition is good, but I don't see how this adds value as a premium service beyond PowerToys

[malnourish]

Ditto is the best tool for clipboard history I've found. One of my first installs on any Windows machine.

I agree with you on PowerToys - that's also a first install. Raycast is really PowerToys for Mac... But now on Windows, perhaps for the people that started on Mac and have to use Windows, rather than the other way around.

[stronglikedan]

> which I'd want in Explorer, not a separate launcher app

Not even if it's Everything? IMHO the best file search for Windows. Does one thing and does it perfectly.

[thomaspaulmann]

We already have hundreds of extensions to integrate with Notion, GitHub, Slack and many other services. They all work on Windows as well. A whole community builds those extensions. And there is pretty much something new every day.

While we don’t have all features on Windows yet, we see this a nice uplift.

[oezi]

I am happy with Listary (ancient version) for file-search.

And I forked Switcheroo to accommodate how I want Alt+Tab yo behave: https://github.com/coezbek/switcheroo

[Adrig]

I'm currently trying both Raycast windows (beta) and Flow Launcher. I've never really used this kind of launcher before (just the highly frustrating Windows main search feature).

- Raycast has a nice UI that can expand to work well with extensions

- Flow is faster to use. With Raycast you often need to enter an extension to finish your action. To launch a scrip on Flow I just type "r [shortcut] -> enter" while Raycast is "quicklinks -> enter -> [shortcut] -> enter. [edit, with minimal setup using aliases, you can have similar speed. See __jonas comment below]

- Performance-wise, Raycast was often eating my RAM, but a dev mentioned it's expected in the beta, they'll fix it for the launch. Otherwise, both feel snappy

- Both seem to have enough community support and extensions

- I never really tried the AI features, I don't know if it's the right place for me to augment my workflow w/ it

Curious about the experience of others with these tools or similar ones

[__jonas]

> Flow is faster to use. With Raycast you often need to enter an extension to finish your action. To launch a scrip on Flow I just type "r [shortcut] -> enter" while Raycast is "quicklinks -> enter -> [shortcut] -> enter

That’s surprising to me, since it’s not how it works in the mac version of Raycast.

There you just type the extension name to trigger it, which you can also set an alias for, so I have it set so that if I type “c” then press space I see my list of vscode projects which I can search. “f” goes into file search (I think that’s the default even)

[illnewsthat]

Have you tried Everything by Voidtools? I’m curious how these tools compare with that. I like how fast and simple it is.

https://www.voidtools.com/

[pshirshov]

I'm wondering why does it cost $8..16 per month if I run it locally? What are the costs of having me as a customer justifying the subscription price?

[thomaspaulmann]

Most stuff is for free exactly for the reasons you mentioned.

raycast.com/pricing

[nalekberov]

A little bit irrelevant, but as a Mac user I couldn't prevent Raycast from phoning home even though I disabled AI, telemetry etc. Finally I blocked all connections from Little Snitch.

As a tool I think it's superior to Spotlight, but I still have concerns about privacy, specifically why their developers think that it's okay to send requests without user's knowledge.

[jauntywundrkind]

For the Linux users, there is Vicinae, which is mostly API compatible with the Raycast API. https://github.com/vicinaehq/vicinae https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45188116

[mario_lopez]

The biggest feature that was missing when I was testing the closed beta was Window Management! Hope that made / makes it into this version of the app soon.

Great piece of software and proud to advocate for its use on macOS to anyone willing to listen.

[treetalker]

Alfred (https://www.alfredapp.com/) has been an indispensable part of my computing since it debuted. It's excellent.

Because of that, I've found it difficult to even give Raycast a try, let alone switch over to it.

Perhaps you could offer your best argument to persuade me why it would be worthwhile.

[thomaspaulmann]

We have basic window management now available like Left Half, Center, and so on. More to come!

[howmayiannoyyou]

Raycast was too expensive. Dumped it for Alfred. Took a few weeks, but I'm happy.

[rane]

Have used Alfred for 10+ years at this point. Some colleagues are hyped about Raycast, but to me the pricing model is a joke. Pay (monthly) for AI - how about I bring my own API key? Pay (again, monthly) for unlimited clipboard history - lol. Free plan, "Free, forever". Yeah, until it isn't.

Alfred isn't the shiniest thing anymore but it's stood the time remarkably well, something I value very highly for tools as central to my workflow as Alfred.

[DiabloD3]

But doesn't Powertoys already include something like this for free?

[thomaspaulmann]

The beta for Window is free. And well even on Mac most features are free: raycast.com/pricing

[DoctorOW]

Hooray! Finally someone is trying to bring paid subscriptions, AI slop, and proprietary ripoffs of popular FOSS tools to Windows. Why didn't Microsoft ever think of this?

[weebao]

feel like it's still not as smooth as powertoys

[illwrks]

Finder for Windows.

[lousken]

so it's like Keypirinha but with AI?

[anaisbetts]

Why can Mac developers absolutely never resist making dated Win9x / Windows XP / BSOD references every time they make a port of their software to Windows? Zed did the same thing recently and it was just as overplayed.

Developers please, when you do this, you are telling your audience, the people you want to pay you money for your work, "Yeah, we think you suck, but here's some thing we finally got around to porting over" - why would you do that?

[vintagedave]

I agree this is in poor taste. It feels a little insulting -- and I get why they didn't think that, but, I can read that into it, a 'you're still using Windows, never getting yourself out of that rut' sort of vibe.

I think people who do this think that people who use Windows perceive that the Mac experience is smoother, and may have some sort of Mac envy.

The end of the video gives this away: it's the Think Different font. It's a direct callback to the _idea_ of Apple vs Microsoft, not the reality today of Apple vs Microsoft.

I know many devs who use Windows exclusively, but they are in two camps:

a) Super old-school: still maintaining Windows desktop apps; that's what their career has been and there's no need for anything else.

b) WSL-based, VSCode-using devs who are one step away from just using Linux. These are the folk who fifteen years ago would have been using what was then still OSX. But these folk don't use Windows as Windows: they use it as a semi-Unix.

[JosephRedfern]

I think you're being oversensitive, especially in the context Raycast adding support for Windows.

The whole purpose of Raycast is to improve productivity and UX, be that under macOS or Windows. It'd be a pretty shitty launch announcement if the blog post didn't mention the problem that they're trying to solve.

Edit: I'm not sure if the post was edited after my reply, but ATM there's no mention of BSODs - the closest I can see to a dig at Windows is:

> You know the feeling. Search that can't find your files. Apps buried in menus. Simple tasks that take too many clicks. Your computer should be faster than this. It should feel like everything is at your fingertips. That’s why we built Raycast.

[thomaspaulmann]

Fair and point taken. If you want to know a bit more about the video, we shared a bit more here: https://x.com/peduarte/status/1991510075505070260

[perching_aix]

On some level I understand. These products are solutions, implying that there exist problems that they're thus solving. How they go about presenting these is a matter of taste, and apparently this is just the taste these people tend to have.

[microtonal]

Windows had a good run from Windows 2000/XP-ish [1] to Windows 7, maybe 8.1. Any tech person who lived through the 90ies knows that 95/98/ME was a tire fire. With Windows 10 and 11 the enshittification started in a big way and it became a vehicle for analytics, pushing ads and Microsoft stuff, and now forcing their on AI on users.

All the ridicule is well-deserved IMO. There is an alternate universe where Microsoft would have continued Windows in the 2000/XP/7 tradition and it would be a solid operating system, serving the user, underpinned by a very good foundation (after all, the original NT people were stellar engineers that worked on VMS before).

[1] Earlier NT versions were also quite good, but most consumers didn't encounter it.

[RicoElectrico]

Exactly, at least dunk on something relevant in 2025, otherwise you come over as someone out of touch.

[blackcatsec]

Yeah. This is generally the type of thing that turns me off to working in the Linux/MacOS world. It's just a near constant "We're living in the 90s" attitude towards everything Microsoft does or has done. It's just absolutely insufferable.

I know more about both Windows AND Linux than most Linux Systems Administrators that I encounter. I know more about how making them work together in an enterprise than any Linux Administrator. I understand more about literally every underlying protocol AND how to manage those items on Linux and Windows, from DHCP, DNS, Networking, etc.

For all intents, I could be a pretty bad ass "Linux guru"--and for the most part, I hold my own quite well. I know how to manage SSSD, understand integrating Linux and Windows environments into harmony with each other. But my peers often see something in Windows they dislike, or a single thing that Microsoft hasn't really bothered to improve, and holy fuck in their minds the sky is falling and it's the absolutely worse thing they've ever had to do with a computer.

So I keep one foot outside of that world because these people are just fucking insufferable to work with and around.

[dustbunny]

It's "we think windows sucks"

And they are right.

The enshittification of windows is by far the most egregious example in modern software.

Windows is disgusting. The start menu is disgusting. The bloat, slowness, lack of design cohesion and flakiness has real consequences.

Its not "you suck" it's "windows used to be better" and to me it seems objectively true that it used to be better

[theoldgreybeard]

Nah man. Windows 10 and on are hot garbage and everyone knows it.

XP was the golden age and this is just a play on nostalgia to when Windows was actually useful.

I’ve been off of Windows for a few years now and any time I need to use a Windows system it’s just a constant reminder of how terrible everything is.

[ls-a]

Raycast is built using Rust. So the rust toxicity has to be there in their community

[lomase]

Why would you call it Raycast? Does cast rays in any way?

[thomaspaulmann]

It’s a bit of a metaphor. It’s one app to control all your tools. A bit part of that is searching. So the app “casts rays” to find content.

Though yeah, bit farfetched maybe but also somewhat fitting.

[esafak]

I assumed it was something to do with ray tracing or video casting (Miracast, Chromecast).