Comparison · checked August 2026
Mochi vs TextExpander
The snippet tool that has been expanding abbreviations into paragraphs for twenty years, across every device a person types on.
The short answer. TextExpander syncs and shares; Mochi does neither. If you type the same snippets on a phone or share a library with colleagues, buy theirs. If your snippets live on one Mac, Mochi expands them for free and brings seven other tools with it.
Where TextExpander is the better buy
- Sync, which is the whole product: the same snippets on every Mac, iPhone, iPad and Windows machine you own. Mochi has no sync and no phone app, and this is the single biggest reason to stay.
- Shared libraries with permissions, so a support team types the same answers. Nothing in Mochi does this.
- Fill-in fields, forms, and snippets that run JavaScript or AppleScript — far past Mochi's fixed token list.
- Twenty years of edge cases in other people's text fields. That is not nothing in a feature that types on your behalf.
TextExpander costs $6 per user per month for Pro, billed annually at $60 a year. The free tier holds five active snippets.
Where Mochi is different
- Snippets are one of eight tools on one keyboard rather than a subscription of their own — and the first five are free.
- The keystroke tap is listen-only and can never swallow or rewrite what you type; a bug in it can cost latency, not input.
- Nothing is buffered while macOS reports secure input, so a password field is never observed — checked per keystroke, not per session.
- An unknown {token} is emitted verbatim, braces included, so a snippet holding JSON, a shell ${HOME} or a handlebars template survives unharmed.
- Nothing leaves the Mac: no account, no sync service, and no copy of your snippets on anybody's server.
Side by side
| Feature | TextExpander | Mochi |
|---|---|---|
| Snippets included | 5 free, unlimited on Pro | 5 free, unlimited on Pro |
| Sync across your devices | Mac, iOS, Windows, web | Not available |
| Shared team libraries | Yes | Not available |
| Scripting inside a snippet | JavaScript, AppleScript | Dates, clipboard, UUID, cursor position |
| Expands in any app | Yes | Yes — needs Accessibility |
| Account required | Yes | No |
| Screen recording | Not available | Full recorder + editor |
| Launcher, clipboard, screenshots | Not available | Included |
| Price | $60 a year, per user | Free for five, Pro for everything |
The arithmetic
Buying the specialists separately, at August 2026 prices:
- Raycast Pro$96
- Screen Studio$108
- Grammarly Pro$144
- CleanShot X$54
- First year$402
That is four of the eight 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
- Can Mochi sync my snippets to my iPhone?
- No. There is no sync, no iOS app and no web version — snippets live on the Mac you made them on. If you type the same abbreviations on a phone, TextExpander is the answer and this page will not try to talk you out of it.
- Is five free snippets actually useful?
- It is a signature, an address, an email reply and two odds and ends — genuinely useful, and genuinely a limit. If you live in snippets, that is what Pro is for, and Pro is also the recorder and the writing tools rather than snippets alone.