The premier and original (no shade to AHK which was an early fork) UI automation and general-purpose scripting language. Simple enough you can automate an installer with one line per window, and advanced enough you can go full Inception and write an AutoIt IDE with it... which someone did.

Despite being interpreted (the executables are encoded scripts packed with the interpreter), it's incredibly fast, and if you're used to VBscript, very easy to learn as it has a similar BASIC-like syntax. There are also 3rd-party tools — besides the official SciTE-based IDE — that support it, such as Sapien PrimalScript, a decent VS Code extension, Admin Script Editor, etc.

It also contains some very powerful abilities due to being written in C++, that being its DLL loading and struct creation support, so it can interact with the Win32 API on a low level.

The default library of user-defined functions - UDFs - provides a giant amount of additional functionality. Its one downside, in my opinion, is if you're looking to work with an object-oriented language, or need multi-threading. Even if you create an extremely nice UI that looks like it was created in Visual Studio, if you call a function like Ping(), it will lock the process up until it's released, unless you utilize asynchronous event handling, or pass off the functionality to another process that returns immediately.

However, via AutoItX — its DLL component containing the core functions — and a .NET wrapper, you can implement it into just about any language you wish. It even comes with a PowerShell module.

The default IDE, SciTE, despite its /many/ additional features, shows its limitations after you start getting to the intermediate level. The biggest lack is any true IntelliSense. It recognizes and parses keywords, but will not recognize function headers, parameters, and the like, without manually defining them in a separate file.

However, I last used it roughly 5 years ago, so it may have added that by now. AutoIt and all the automation I have loved.

Similar to AutoHotKey.. AutoHotKey is like a fork of it . The icon pictures make it look like this is more elementary than it is.. you will need to be scripting knowledgeable.

I have been using this since July 99 and it has saved me a lot of time and effort.

Please remove the linux tag, it's a windows only software

I've used AutoIt for several fairly complex automation projects in the last decade. I found it to be a powerful and stable tool, particularly for bypassing antiquated application GUIs that did not allow for any other automation method.

Since AutoIt has Long been Superseded by the Far Superior AutoHotkey, I cannot imagine why anyone would use this! PREVIOUSLY, AutoIt WAS Open-Source, but having become irrelevant, they chose to become CLOSED -- while AutoHotkey remains perfectly Open Source -- And in fact, the AutoHotkey Foundation has Welcomed Multiple Variations of that amazing program: Excellence does not fear users' enhancements. A Fascinating & Bizarre tale indeed.

AutoIt is an excellent tool for automating processes. I have used it to navigate websites and other Windows apps, as well as perform tedious data entry tasks. The IDE (SciTE) helps speed up development. You create standalone EXEs that can run without AutoIt installed.