Comparison · checked August 2026
Mochi vs Raycast
The launcher that replaced Spotlight for a large part of the Mac developer population, with an extension store and a strong AI product on top.
The short answer. Raycast has the better launcher and a far bigger extension ecosystem. Your launcher cannot record your screen — Mochi's can, and that is the whole argument.
Where Raycast is the better buy
- A genuinely excellent launcher, and the extension store is the moat: hundreds of integrations written by other people, for tools Mochi will never have heard of.
- A real company with a team behind it, shipping constantly.
- Window management, snippets, clipboard history and quicklinks are all there and all good. If you already have Raycast and you do not make videos, there is very little here for you.
Raycast costs $96 a year for Pro. The launcher itself is free.
Where Mochi is different
- A screen recorder with a real editor, one hotkey away from the same panel that launches your apps.
- A screenshot editor with fifteen tools and re-editable annotation history — reopen last week's screenshot and the arrows are still objects.
- Writing correction on a keystroke in any app, with no chat window and no sidebar.
- No account. Nothing to sign in to, and the launcher half touches no network at all.
Side by side
| Feature | Raycast | Mochi |
|---|---|---|
| Launcher, fuzzy search | Excellent | Yes — typo-tolerant matcher |
| Extension store | Hundreds | Not available |
| Clipboard history | Pro | Free |
| Snippets | Yes | Yes — 10 free, unlimited on Pro |
| Window management | Yes | Yes — opt-in ⌃⌥ chords |
| Screen recording | Not available | Full recorder + editor |
| Screenshot annotation | Not available | 15 tools, re-editable |
| Account required | Yes | No |
| Free tier | Launcher free | Six of seven tools free |
The arithmetic
Buying the specialists separately, at August 2026 prices:
- Raycast Pro$96
- Screen Studio$108
- Grammarly Pro$144
- CleanShot X$48
- First year$396
That is four of the seven things Mochi does. Mochi Pro is $99 a year on 3 Macs, or $12 a month. Most of it — including a two-minute recorder with the editor and cutting — is free forever.
Questions
- Should I switch from Raycast?
- Not if the extension store is what you use it for — Mochi has nothing equivalent and is not trying to. Switch if you make demo videos, screenshots or screen recordings often enough that alt-tabbing to a second app for them has started to annoy you.
- Can I run both?
- Yes, and plenty of people will. They compete for ⌥Space, so rebind one of them. Mochi's shortcuts are all remappable.