Comparisons
Nobody replaces Spotlight wholesale. You replace the part that fails you.
Different products fix different rows; most disappointment is buying the wrong row.
Replace ⌘Space's launching, add clipboard history, snippets, workflows. File search rides along (Spotlight-backed) — fine for recents, not the fix for completeness.
The professional query builder over Spotlight's index. Multi-criteria, templates, refinement. Inherits the index's exclusions; multiplies its capabilities.
No index, read the disk every time: complete (packages, invisibles) and correspondingly slow. The audit tools.
The filename problem solved structurally — everything indexed including ~/Library and offline drives, keystroke-latency search, size/date filters. Content search only in the folders you choose, or after a name narrows the search; that is the trade.
Keep Spotlight for what it does well (content, launching if unlaunchered, calculator), and add exactly one tool for your actual complaint. The common pairs:
Replacing everything at once mostly replaces one set of gaps with another.
There is no single one — launchers fix launching, HoudahSpot fixes querying, indexes fix filename completeness. Match the tool to the specific complaint.
Mail and in-app search depend on it; better to leave it on and route around the weak parts.
Everywhere keeps track of every file on your Mac, including the folders Spotlight hides and drives you have unplugged. Free for a day, then $19 once.
Version 2.20.3 · macOS 13+ · 4.7 MB · notarised