What are some alternatives to Quicksilver?

Question

I'm an avid fan of QuickSilver, and I had been using it for several years already. But then development of the application seemed to have stagnated for a while, and many bugs (specially with plugins and advanced features) were never fixed. I then moved to QSB, which seemed to be where the efforts were being concentrated in order to produce such an application. But then again, development seems to have stopped and several features I still miss (like AppleScript launching) were never properly implemented.

I'm aware of a few alternatives out there, notably AlfredApp and LaunchBar, but I wanted to ask here for your opinion and recommendations before trying them out.

So my question is, as of today, which would be the best replacement for QuickSilver? Ideally I would like support for the following features:

• Launching applications, preference panels and apple scripts.
• Web search, and search within bookmarks of my favorite browser.
• Able to perform actions or operations on files (copy, move, reveal in Finder).
• Custom web searches are a plus. I would love if it could index, e.g., my delicious bookmarks.
• Free. Open-sourced is a plus.
• Some plugin infrastructure.
• A healthy community of developers actively maintaining the application.
• Not too many bugs.

In your answer, please do let me know about the features of your suggested application, and note if there are any missing features from my desired “ wish list”.

Answer 1

Alfred is the one that meets pretty much all your needs.

• Launching applications, preference panels and apple scripts.
• Web search, and search within bookmarks of my favorite browser.
• Able to perform actions or operations on files (copy, move, reveal in Finder). paid version only
• Custom web searches.
• Free.
• Plugin infrastructure.
• A healthy community of developers actively maintaining the application.
• Not too many bugs

Answer 2

In my experience, LaunchBar (which I'm using now) has been the best replacement for QuickSilver. Right after the switch (I used QS too), I missed a few things here and there and had to adjust to others. Truth is, Launchbar ends up being a perfect replacement for most tasks. Perhaps not as "open" as quicksilver but very mature and stable.

Alfred (which is newer) is ok and it delivers (been using it for a couple of weeks). It lacks certain things (I didn't have the powerpack). Clearly the power pack brings it to the level of LB.

Pros of LB? It's stable, been working for years and it delivers. Relatively easy to configure and expand (e.g.: to add a search and/or modify the catalog). Cons of LB? Development is not what you'd call a fast thing. Other than the ocasional bug-fix, the program hasn't really been updated in a few months. No new features in more than a year. Not that it really "needs" more, but… new ideas would be welcomed too. It's also not free.

Pros of Alfred? It's free for basic stuff, works ok and has a nice community. You can change more things and it's more prone to be configurable in the future. Some actions are better implemented than LB. Can't recall now an example but I remember smiling at certain details.

Cons of Alfred? If the features you want are not in the free package, you will have to pay. Has less features than LB at the moment and is somewhat slower in certain things. Some things you cannot do and I believe LB has better "file" management. But it's probably because I'm used to it.

Of course, if you want Free… you don't have much choice.

Answer 3

Despite a period where it looked like the program would languish, Quicksilver is very much alive and being developed in 2013.

I'd propose an alternative to the Quicksilver from 2011 to be Quicksilver now at http://qsapp.com

The open source development is quite active and most of the big problems have been fixed. In fact, it works so well that the developers have finally released the 1.0 version. You can even participate in the development as the code base is hosted on GitHub - Quicksilver.

Answer 4

I'm also a fan of Quicksilver, and having tried LB and Alfred, I'd say that Alfred feels more "quicksilver-ish" so it was easier for me to understand.

For whatever it's worth, Quicksilver has been open-sourced, and some work is still being done on it, although it's not as active as it once was. It runs fine under Lion.