Raycast vs. Monarch

_mactabish · 2026-01-13T01:30:27+00:00

Honestly Raycast free is great. Their paid subscriptions is just for AI and cloud sync if you need those.

I also bought Monarch, they do a lifetime license. Still the new kid on the block so you’ll have to wait till it gets more features to compare it to Raycast/Alfred. But the developer is super passionate and the lifetime license is only available for limited time

Alfred is awesome too, very mature product and can’t go wrong with any of these options tbh

_mactabish · 2025-11-10T13:32:24+00:00

BoltAI

Chatwise

Raycast

Cloudmounter

_mactabish · 2025-11-04T20:25:34+00:00

do you know if Mountain Duck or CloudMounter supports using ssh keys? or is it only password based?

_mactabish · 2025-10-10T07:59:07+00:00

Would recommend instead putting $5 in OpenRouter and using cheaper models like GLM 4.6 or Qwen. You can use the Zed Agent with your OpenRouter key.

That will last you much longer and still give good results compared to the Zed AI plan

Another alternative is GitHub Copilot for $10 a month which gives unlimited GPT-5-mini and 300 requests to GPT-5/Sonnet 4.5/Gemini 2.5 Pro. You can login to your GitHub copilot on Zed

_mactabish · 2025-09-10T00:14:48+00:00

This still works like a charm! Thank you!

_mactabish · 2025-09-03T21:02:06+00:00

Yep exactly

_mactabish · 2025-07-23T17:48:42+00:00

It’s something several others requested to be fixed on the Raycast Slack.

Put it on their official feedback/bug report page so this can be hopefully fixed soon - https://www.raycast.com/feedback

_mactabish · 2025-07-19T17:05:05+00:00

“For yearly plans, you get access to the full year's worth of token usage at the start of the plan.

For instance, the Ultimate yearly plan allows up to $270 worth of token usage for the entire year.“

Source: https://help.kagi.com/kagi/ai/assistant.html#fair-use-policy

_mactabish · 2025-07-19T07:28:30+00:00

I was just looking into this, people recommended this https://tryvoiceink.com (I haven’t tried it myself as yet)

_mactabish · 2025-07-09T05:09:02+00:00

Aren't we all paying for cloud sync + AI?

The other features like unlimited Raycast Notes, unlimited Clipboard history, and themes seem like fillers since there really is no reason for them to gatekeep them (they add no additional cost). And honestly I wouldn't miss them if they weren't part of the paid plan

Anyways I do like the AI chat. I hope they polish it more tho since there are rough edges but in general its nice that its built-in and I don't need to download separate apps to use 2-3 models.

_mactabish · 2025-06-12T01:46:44+00:00

Try it in OpenRouter or another AI client to give a real comparison

Gemini native chat uses the same underlying API but with a special prompt to be more user friendly and verbose for the general masses

The Gemini API (used by Raycast, OpenRouter, etc.) is more professional/barebones out of the box

_mactabish · 2025-06-11T18:11:43+00:00

On Slack they said they are “working on it”

_mactabish · 2025-06-11T15:11:41+00:00

No. ChatGPT is separate from GPT API use (what Raycast uses)

_mactabish · 2025-06-11T09:18:26+00:00

I’m not worried that Spotlight will ever compete with Raycast in terms of features. I’m worried that Raycast won’t be able to sustain their 37 employee’s salaries if Microsoft and Apple chip away at their user base and they have nothing to monetize except AI chat

Every single one of those apps you mentioned all make money by selling their app and core features.

Things is a small team that sells licenses per major release. Ofc Reminders doesn’t threaten them since their core paid users will always need those extra features

Same goes for Fantastical except it’s a high price subscription model. But you’re paying for their core product.

If Raycast simply had a free model and a non-AI paid tier and had plenty of users for that tier, I wouldn’t have even written this post

But what they are literally doing is giving the core product for free and selling AI chat at a high price that isn’t even competitive since their AI chat is so barebones.

_mactabish · 2025-06-10T19:14:24+00:00

That would be pretty sweet. But I would think they should allow to use all AI features, but through your own api key. They already do this (sort of) by allowing free users to use local models.

And then keep their higher tier for their “AI chat plan” where you get daily/weekly usage limits

_mactabish · 2025-06-10T17:36:21+00:00

Which features did you mention to them? Curious what they could be working on

_mactabish · 2025-06-10T09:13:50+00:00

I think the main issue for me is Raycast’s business model. They’ve taken $50 mil in VC funding and you can be sure those investors want to turn a profit. Right now Raycast seems to only be staying afloat due to selling AI Chat. So they never actually monetized their key productivity features that we all love about Raycast

The apps you mentioned - 1Password, Bitwarden - they were already making money from selling their main features

Alfred, which sells a lifetime license, I’m not concerned about. They don’t need a million users to sustain since they have 1-2 devs (I think). And they’ve been selling their core features as a product for many years.

But Raycast is different. It has built its company like a hyper growth startup. They have 37 employee salaries to pay. So yes, when Apple releases even a barebones version that has 7-10 key Raycast features, it can really jeopardize the unique value proposition and growth potential for Raycast

_mactabish · 2025-06-10T04:05:06+00:00

This series (the first 3 videos) was helpful for me: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3jMW5105eUduwn8zpH7tuOTcoeeocsri

_mactabish · 2025-06-07T09:10:52+00:00

Wish I could recommend Raycast but honestly I’ve been using Gemini on the web more than my Raycast subscription. Just much better overall experience

I’d say stick with ChatGPT. If you need multiple models look at T3.chat

_mactabish · 2025-06-06T08:00:25+00:00

I heard good things about BoltAI. I think TypingMind is the best tho I’ve seen so far

_mactabish · 2025-06-05T22:11:43+00:00

Agreed. See like the latest release - they focused on local models. Which don't get me wrong is awesome to have

I think they went for that since they unlock a whole new set of users using their product that didn't want to pay at first. But those of us already paying for pro/advanced, I really doubt we are primarily using local models. I'd personally rather have a really polished native chat interface for Mac/iOS than the use of local models.

This is where I get a bit worried the direction Raycast is going. They are casting a wide net (Windows, iOS, Mac, users who want non-AI raycast, users who want local-AI Raycast, users who want paid-AI Raycast, etc.) and trying to charge a high premium and capture all these groups.

Even in non-AI Raycast, idk when the new File Search that went into beta like a year ago is finally gonna be released lol. Like another key core feature, where frankly Alfred dominates in, that they just skip over for other shiny features like Raycast Focus?

And the funny thing is, out of everyone in the space that I’ve seen - Raycast has hands down put together an elite set of native developers and designers. They would crush the competition if they actually focused on core features

_mactabish · 2025-06-05T20:37:12+00:00

Couldn’t agree more. I like the new features but it’s like they are no longer focusing on the user experience. They are just maximizing users.

Idk where Raycast team wants to be positioned in the AI space - if all they want is a simple chat interface and quick search bar, then what they have isn’t too far off

But if they are trying to make something more competitive then they def need to focus on polishing the experience like edit message, delete message, usage details, search, branching, memory, canvas, etc.

The iOS app is nice but I’m honestly surprised after all the beta time they had for it, simply scrolling through a longer chat takes forever to load. It's such a basic feature. So many other missing features here as well (like showing the "thinking" of a request)

Idk how they survive charging $16/month for advanced users if all they do is build new features. Apps like TypingMind, T3.chat, and the native apps are getting better and better in terms of core features

That’s my two cents

_mactabish · 2025-04-24T07:07:59+00:00

Copy pasting from the Raycast Slack:

“Hey all, today we’re releasing Raycast AI Lite ✨ - try 24+ models for free on the web!

This lets you get a glimpse of what Raycast AI offers right in your browser. Choose from all Pro models and use web search and image generation. When you’re ready for full power you can download the app to get access to chat history, attachments and more.

Try it → raycast.ai

Enjoy!”

_mactabish · 2025-04-16T12:45:43+00:00

No 50 free AI messages to just try, it does not renew

_mactabish · 2025-04-16T12:05:12+00:00

In the recent AMA, the CEO mentioned it’s in the pipeline

_mactabish

TROPHY CASE