Software Alternatives & Reviews

PowerToys VS Alfred

Compare PowerToys VS Alfred and see what are their differences

PowerToys logo PowerToys

Windows system utilities to maximize productivity. Contribute to microsoft/PowerToys development by creating an account on GitHub.

Alfred logo Alfred

Alfred is an award-winning app for macOS which boosts your efficiency with hotkeys, keywords, text expansion and more. Search your Mac and the web, and be more productive with custom actions to control your Mac.
  • PowerToys Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-08-27
  • Alfred Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-09-19

PowerToys videos

Hands-on with PowerToys for Windows 10 – Windows Enhanced!

More videos:

  • Review - Windows 10 PowerToys (Beginners Guide)
  • Demo - Microsoft PowerToys for Windows 10 - Overview & Demo

Alfred videos

Alfred for Mac [Tutorial] Basics

More videos:

  • Review - Alfred app review is Alfred worth your time?
  • Review - Alfred’s Basic Adult Piano Course [Method Guide + Review]

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to PowerToys and Alfred)
Productivity
5 5%
95% 95
App Launcher
6 6%
94% 94
Mac
4 4%
96% 96
Windows Tools
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare PowerToys and Alfred

PowerToys Reviews

15 Best AutoHotkey Alternatives 2022
If you are looking for an AutoHotkey alternative that can help you customize Windows operating system functions and make customizations, Microsoft’s official PowerToys tool is great.
6 Best Alfred App Alternatives for Windows to Be More Productive
PowerToys has been brought back from the dead and turned into an open-source project that you can download and use for free. It comes with a growing number of utility tools like Color Picker to help find hash codes of any color in an image, Awake to keep the screen awake without having to mess with power settings, Keyboard Manager to remap keys, Run that mimics macOS’s...
Source: techwiser.com

Alfred Reviews

7 Best Alfred Alternatives To Maximize Your Productivity
While Alfred is a great app, it works solely for macOS. If you get a new computer that doesn’t run on macOS, you won’t be able to use Alfred. There are many other options available that work on other operating systems.
Source: blaze.today
4 Best Spotlight Alternatives to Increase Your Mac’s Functionality
Raycast is a free application launcher for Mac. If you’re overwhelmed with Alfred and don’t want to spend on its powerpack to unlock all its features, Raycast is the best alternative to Spotlight and Alfred—albeit with a limited feature set—you must check out.
Source: techpp.com
6 Best Alfred App Alternatives for Windows to Be More Productive
Alfred app is like the swiss army knife for the macOS ecosystem. But what about Windows? Well, there is Windows Search but it’s not good enough. There are, however, a few Windows apps that can help ease your day-to-day workflows. Let’s see if we can replace Alfred on Windows using a combination of apps. Presenting some Alfred alternatives for Windows users.
Source: techwiser.com
Best Text Expander apps for MacOS
Earlier on I had heard a lot about Alfred, an award-winning Text expander app for the Mac. I tried it for a couple of days and I must say it does deserve the attention it is getting. Before we begin let me clear this up, the Alfred offers a ton of nontext expander features and yet it manages to deliver on its promise. With the Alfred, Mac users can search and browse...
Source: techwiser.com
What's a good alternative to Textexpander for Mac?
14Alfred 3View ProductRogin FarrerDesign Systems Engineer @Wayfair · Written 3y agoI used to use aText and Dash, and Alfred replaced both for me. The snippets have gotten a lot smarter over time, with support for smart variables, like date, time and cursor.🙏 helpful 2CommentsShare

Social recommendations and mentions

PowerToys might be a bit more popular than Alfred. We know about 6 links to it since March 2021 and only 5 links to Alfred. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

PowerToys mentions (6)

  • Keypirinha: A fast launcher for keyboard ninjas on Windows
    Powertoys Run (https://github.com/microsoft/powertoys) can do this. There are not that many plugins as Alfred but Window Switcher is built-in. - Source: Hacker News / 4 months ago
  • The surprisingly subtle ways Microsoft Word has changed how we use language
    But most of the people that make this error are non-tachsavy Windows users. And while there is Microsoft's PowerToys[0] with the Quick Accent tool that does the same thing, I doubt many people know about it. > on iOS I think this works for any mobile keyboard (for example, AOSP's default keyboard supports that). In my language at least, the use of a capital letter with an accent is pretty rare, especially when... - Source: Hacker News / 6 months ago
  • Microsoft Powertoys - How to auto enable powertoys run (spotlight search) everytime you start your pc
    We'd love to deep dive into the issue but best spot for this would be the powertoys GitHub. https://github.com/microsoft/powertoys. Source: about 1 year ago
  • Tried to reinstall it, but the MS Store says it's installed but it's not anywhere ona computer
    Download it from the official github Https://github.com/microsoft/powertoys. Source: about 1 year ago
  • This shows how to preview SVG files directly in your Windows files explorer (link in the comment)
    Not sure if it's the same codebase, but SVG preview is included in Microsoft's PowerToys (open source), along with a ton of other quality-of-life improvements for Windows. Source: over 1 year ago
View more

Alfred mentions (5)

  • Keyboard tricks from a macOS app dev
    Alfred (https://alfredapp.com) has a snippet manager (and a _whole_ lot more kbd goodies). - Source: Hacker News / about 1 year ago
  • Need help switching from Windows to Mac
    I assume you mean Windows + R, right? Use alfredapp.com or spotlight. Alfred can do: Find apps & files. Source: over 1 year ago
  • .app vs .com?
    Like spectacleapp.com or alfredapp.com for example. Source: almost 2 years ago
  • Here's my Alfred Workflow (Mac spotlight replacement) for navigating Perseus quickly
    I'm using Alfredapp.com's Mac Spotlight replacement to do this. Source: almost 2 years ago
  • How I qualifed + worked as a doctor while running a business + maintaining a social life and (most of) my sanity: Key principles
    Once you've got your mac set up, Alfred is essential. I've got a full list of app recommendations here but don't get bogged down in it, just set and forget. Source: about 2 years ago

What are some alternatives?

When comparing PowerToys and Alfred, you can also consider the following products

DisplayFusion - DisplayFusion will make your multi-monitor life much easier.

Keypirinha - A lightning fast and flexible keystroke launcher for Windows. No installation required (portable).

Listary - Listary is a revolutionary search utility for Windows

AquaSnap - Too many windows on your screen? Stop wasting your productivity.

Wox - An effective launcher for windows. A full-featured launcher, access programs and web contents as you type. Be more productive ever since. Wox is free for use and open-sourced at Github, Try it now! Download .

ueli - This is a keystroke launcher for Windows and macOS.