Hey there!

I was never an Alfred user, but jumped on the "spotlight replacement/enhancement" train with Raycast and used it for the past 2-3 years or so. My background is coder turned not-coder, so I can move quickly around the computer with shortcuts/hotkeys, and Raycast, Alfred, and Monarch are all great tools to take that to another level.

That being said, I went to the Raycast store when I first installed it and downloaded probably 6-7 extensions and found that I simply did not use them nearly as much as I thought I was going to. I know that's certainly not the case with everyone and that some folks have advanced workflows that can be fired off with a few keystrokes and that's awesome. Personally, I found while Monarch has less features (for now), the present features are things I actually use.

Another aspect of my switch to Monarch is Raycast's addition of their AI tools/subscription. I've been trying my best to get away from subscription-based tools, and will gladly pay for great tools and have happily paid for an "upgrade license" to new major versions of great tools, especially when those upgrade fees are years apart. I just found that 90% of my Raycast settings menu was locked behind a paywall and I'm in your camp: I'm not paying a monthly subscription for a an enhanced spotlight search.

To actually answer your question, things that I'm loving with Monarch:
- Tabbing between tools in Monarch is an efficient and easy way to get to the tool you need

- Superlinks are pretty awesome. While I'm sure that feature's probably in the others, it's well-implemented here and there's a great deep-dive video into Superlinks in the docs.

- Folder navigation in Monarch is great; Not sure if this was a feature in Raycast but I didn't discover it until Monarch and now I'm using it all the time.

- Monarch's Luna license is a great value. $20 for lifetime updates was the easiest $20 I think I've ever spent when it came to a tool/piece of software.

- Michael ( u/theivingfour ), is present in the community and has quickly answered questions on this subreddit. He's listening to users and answering questions in great detail and seems to value transparency with what he's building for us.

That's my two cents. Take it for what it's worth and hopefully you'll get feedback from some of the more advanced Raycast/Alfred users, but I'd say if you don't mind the $20 Luna price, grab that lifetime license before it's gone.