A Raycast alternative for Mac
Superhound is a native Mac launcher for apps, files, math, emoji, and clipboard history. It costs $15 once, with no subscription, and has no extensions or AI.
Pick Raycast if you want extensions, AI chat, snippets, or window management. Pick Superhound if you want a small, fast launcher that does search well, works offline, and is paid for once.
Superhound and Raycast compared
| Superhound | Raycast | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $15 once, for 3 Macs. Free to evaluate with every feature. | Free plan. Pro $10/month or $96/year; Plus $20/month; Max $50/month. |
| Apps and files | Yes, with typo tolerance and learned ranking | Yes (File Search) |
| Calculator and units | Yes | Yes |
| Clipboard history | Last 500 text copies | 3 months on Free; unlimited on Pro |
| Emoji | Yes | Yes |
| Extensions | No | Thousands, in the Raycast Store |
| AI chat | No | Pro and higher plans |
| Snippets | No | Yes |
| Window management | No | Yes; custom commands on Pro |
| Notes | No | 5 notes on Free; unlimited on Pro |
| Platforms | macOS 15 or later, Apple Silicon | macOS and Windows; an iOS app |
Raycast facts as of 2026-10-20, from raycast.com/pricing and raycast.com. Prices are in US dollars. Teams plans are not listed.
Where Raycast is better
- It does far more. Thousands of extensions connect it to tools such as Linear, Spotify, and Notion. Superhound has no extensions.
- AI, snippets, and window management. Superhound has none of these.
- Its core is free. Raycast’s Free plan costs nothing. Superhound costs $15 after evaluation.
- Windows. Raycast also runs on Windows. Superhound runs only on Macs with Apple Silicon.
Where Superhound is better
- Small and light. The whole app is about 1 MB. It uses less than 45 MB of RAM and under 0.2% CPU when idle, measured on an Apple M1.
- Fast search. It ranks 100,000 names in about 10 ms. It forgives typos (
safrifinds Safari) and learns what you open. See Apps and files. - Native code. Objective-C and C on AppKit, with SQLite and FSEvents. No Electron, no web views, no JavaScript runtime.
- Paid once. $15 for 3 Macs, with no subscription. Raycast Pro is $96 a year.
- Private and offline. No account. Search, the catalog, and clipboard history stay on your Mac. See Privacy.
- Open source. The code is on GitHub under AGPL-3.0.
We have not measured Raycast’s size, RAM, or speed, so this page gives no numbers for them.
Switch from Raycast
- Install Superhound with one Terminal command. See Install.
- Quit Raycast, or give its hotkey a new key.
- Turn on Use ⌘Space in place of Spotlight in Superhound’s Settings, or pick another shortcut. See Open with ⌘Space.
- Press ⌥⌘V for clipboard history. Superhound starts a new history; it does not import Raycast’s.
Questions
Is Superhound free?
It is free to evaluate with every feature, and shows a reminder every tenth time you open it. A license is $15 once, for 3 Macs, with a 14-day refund.
Does Superhound have extensions like Raycast?
No. Superhound has a fixed set of features: apps and files, calculator and units, colours, clipboard history, emoji, web search, system commands, and System Settings panes.
Can Superhound replace Spotlight on ⌘Space?
Yes. One switch in Settings takes ⌘Space from Spotlight, and turning it off gives it back.
Does Superhound need an account or the internet?
No account. Search works offline. The app contacts superhound.app only to activate a license and to check for updates once a day.