Privacy-Focused, Open-Source Alternative to Alfred for macOS?

Questions
1

I’ve been looking for a privacy-respecting, open-source alternative to Alfred for macOS. While Alfred is powerful, it’s not open-source, and I prefer software that aligns with privacy and transparency principles, as recommended by Privacy Guides.

What I’m Looking For:

  • A Spotlight-like launcher that is fast and efficient
  • Privacy-friendly (minimal telemetry, local processing preferred)
  • Open-source (transparency and community-driven development)
  • Supports extensions, workflows, or plugins (if possible)

Options I’ve Found So Far:

I’ve done some research and found a few alternatives, but I’d love to hear opinions from this community:

  1. Quicksilver – Open-source, highly customizable launcher
  2. Cerebro – Open-source, modern UI, plugin support
  3. Raycast (Extensions) – While Raycast itself is proprietary, its extensions are open-source
  4. Albert – Open-source launcher similar to Alfred, but more Linux-focused
  5. ueli – Cross-platform, lightweight, and privacy-friendly

Questions for the Community:

  • Has anyone here used Cerebro, Quicksilver, or Albert on macOS? If so, what was your experience like?
  • Are there other open-source alternatives that I may have missed?
  • How do these options compare in terms of speed, features, and privacy?
1 Like
2

Yeah, this is a great question. I’d like to know the answer to this too. But I have not found anything that would satify all those requirements/wants.

I used Alfred for a long time for almost a decade but I’m now on Raycast as its free and is equally as good especially with its extensions (not that I use a lot of them).

3

In my opinion, Quicksilver is the only viable open source alternative to Alfred. However, it lacks many features, is less stable, and has poor user interface—that’s why I personally continue to use Alfred. Depending on your needs, though, Quicksilver might be sufficient.

The only alternative to Alfred that offers a similar variety of features is Raycast. Unfortunately, Raycast does not measure up in terms of privacy [1] compared to Alfred [2], so I really wouldn’t consider it a privacy-friendly replacement.

4

It hasn’t been released yet, but Monarch might be worth checking out when it exits private beta. I don’t how it compares in terms of privacy friendliness, though.

5

Thanks for sharing. Will check it out. On first glance, it does look promising.

6

Do you disable Spotlight?

7

I just remap the keys.

8

LeaderKey seems private and fast. It’s coded in Swift, which I’ve heard is more secure than Objective-C! Unfortunately, the sandbox was removed not too long ago, but as it is open source, maybe someone could work on PRs for LeaderKey to have a .dmg installation to maximize privacy and sandbox security synergy!

9

@ecureuil

From their website:
”Monarch is privacy conscious by design and does not track or transmit any of your data. There is no telemetry and it requires no login to use. Monarch does not even have automatic bug or crash reporting to minimize the opportunity for mishandling user data, which can sometimes be derived from bug context. The only external request made is to validate your license or perform up-to-date currency conversion calculations.”

10

I think that Spotlight and custom shortcuts/binding is still the best way to go unfortunately. :sweat_smile:
But depending on your exact needs, there should be a ton of FOSS tools to help out covering all of them, just not in a single package.