I (jokingly) spam my Windows colleagues on a private slack channel whenever unique apps appear, such as:
https://retina.studio/textbuddy/
(No affiliation. Only one is newish, but these were good examples of great Mac software.)
Or any other number of slick tools.
I eventually began building a C# launcher myself and over time it has become my daily driver - feel free to check it out at https://github.com/dkgv/pinpoint.
I personally lately leaning towards niche launchers like:
* https://blipnotes.app for note taking;
* https://shortcat.app for “clicking” interface without a mouse;
* https://dashlook.app for searching git repositories/pull requests (disclaimer: I am the creator).
It just provides better experience compared to Alfred’s community plugins (usually not maintainted).
The problem with separate apps though, is that you need to remember dedicated shortcuts for each of them. On the other hand I had the same experience with Alfred, only that you need to remember specific command/keyword.
If anyone knows more niche “launchers”, I would be very interested to learn about them.
You can still download the old versions all the way back to NeXT:
https://obdev.at/products/launchbar/download-legacy.html
I still using LaunchBar, but it's development has stagnated. I am evaluating the current version of Alfred. Alfred recently added the ability to send the selected file to the application of your choice, which is an essential feature for me.
If you are looking for a new alternative, try Raycast. It’s supposedely better than Alfred, though for my taste it had too many features (same could be said about Alfred).
I had no idea Launchbar went back so far! Thanks for this. My respect for that app has been enhanced. I was also on the beta of OS X, but didn’t run into this until many years later.