Vicinae

I have tested a ton of launchers throughout the years, starting with Mac launchers like Launchbar, Quicksilver, Alfred, then then dull alternatives on Windows, until now reaching Vicinae on Linux.

I haven't tested Raycast (the inspiration for Vicinae) but to me, Launchbar has always been the pinnacle of launchers. Much because it understood the essential key features that's needed in a launcher: fuzzy finding, custom abbreviations, recency weighting, and being able to find not just programs but also files. On top of that, it's always great to have a bunch of useful operations like quick calc, web search, and extensible plugin system that won't bog down the performance. All of those are met by Launchbar - it's the perfect launcher, alas it's Mac only. Just like Raycast currently (even though Windows support was announced).

Vicinae is the only launcher that's worthy of comparison. Personally I find it slightly better, because it's noticeably faster than what I remembered LB being (admittedly that was a while back though). In all other regards, Vicinae has the same features and then some, not the very least being extensible while still being snappy as hell.

If you're on Linux, Vicinae should be an integral part of your OS, unless you're a terminal dweller who prefer text-based TUI-alternatives.