espanso Reviews

1. Tomas

   · Customer Service at HPA · over 3 years ago
   SO much better than PhraseExpress!

   This setup is a little more hands on to install and setup, but it is worth it. No weird glitches, crashing or other issues, it just a simple system works as it should.

   It doesn't have all the same features as PhraseExpress, but if you are like me and just want a text expander, they are features you will never need or use anyway.

   The setup instructions are clear and concise. They do take a minute to get your head around compared to other software installs that I am used to, but as the instructions are on point, it is not difficult.

   I am using this on macOS and will be trying it on Windows soon too.

   Competitors: PhraseExpress

   Pros:    Works perfectly|Cost effective|Great, clear setup instructions

   Cons:    Requries some more setup beyond the usual 'double click' and done

Apse Reviews

espanso mentions (104)

• Life after the merge: why publishing an Obsidian plugin is just the beginning

  Espanso is the dominant system-wide text expander — the one you reach for when you want expansion to work in any app, not just the editor you're in. It also has something Obsidian plugins almost never have: a packages ecosystem. Espanso users share package.yml files publicly, and the community has been growing that catalog for years now. Every text-expansion plugin I tried in Obsidian treated snippets as something... - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago

• TextExpander Alternatives for Mac in 2026: An Honest Comparison

  If you have a few dozen frequently-used phrases and you're tired of paying TextExpander's subscription, you can probably leave. QUICOPY ($9.99 lifetime) and Espanso (free) cover most personal use cases. - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago

• When espanso breaks on long replacement strings (and how to fix it)

  I’ve been using espanso for a while now (it’s a neat little open-source text expander that makes typing repetitive stuff a breeze). All was fine and dandy—until I tried adding a longer replacement string, something like:. - Source: dev.to / 7 months ago

• KiCad and Wayland Support

  The first google result for 'autokey wayland' is someone recommending https://espanso.org/ , that looks like it has good Wayland support. And you only need look at OBS to see screen video capture is perfectly possible on Wayland. Who is saying those are impossible use cases? I think those two apps are just not updated, that happens often with software. - Source: Hacker News / about 1 year ago

• macOS Tips and Tricks

  A shout-out for https://espanso.org a wonderful and free text expander configurable in a YAML file. - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago

Apse mentions (7)

• Unbundling Tools for Thought

  Hey, I’ve been building that. It’s called A Personal Search Engine: https://apse.io. - Source: Hacker News / over 3 years ago

• Take More Screenshots

  A paid tool in this direction is APSE (https://apse.io) which bills itself as a personal search engine that OCRs intermittent screencaps. I loved the idea, but in practice it lacked polish. I agree that additional metadata like foremost application filepath/url would take this to another level. - Source: Hacker News / about 4 years ago

• Project Naptha

  I’ve been working on exactly that! [0] My info is in my hn profile, if you (or anyone reading) would like to chat about it. [0] https://apse.io. - Source: Hacker News / about 4 years ago

• Websites Die

  I’ve been working on a very similar thing which runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux: https://apse.io. - Source: Hacker News / about 4 years ago

• Gains I'm Seeing from My Second Brain Tool

  Maybe APSE is what you're looking for [1]. A while back the founder sent me a link after one of my blog posts hit HN. It's a tool that continuously records your desktop and offers text search of everything through OCR. I personally found the idea interesting, but I was too afraid to ever try it out. The mere idea of a video record existing of everything that's going on on my computer, even if it's never... - Source: Hacker News / over 4 years ago