
Flow.Launcher
:mag: Quick file search & app launcher for Windows with community-made plugins
The Lens
By Erik Loyd, SaaS CEO and former COO/CFO of an AWS Premier Partner.
Updated Jun 2026
Flow Launcher is a keyboard-driven search bar for Windows. Hit a hotkey, type, and instantly open apps, find files, run web searches, or do quick calculations without ever touching the mouse. It's MIT licensed and completely free, with a plugin store for extending it.
Under the hood it taps the Everything search engine and the Windows index for fast file search, and the plugin API (Python, C#, JavaScript, F#) lets the community add things like Spotify control, Steam game launching, and window switching. Install is trivial through the installer, Winget, Scoop, or Chocolatey. No server, no config.
Anyone who used Alfred or Raycast on a Mac and missed that speed on Windows will feel right at home. It's the spiritual Windows equivalent, though not a literal swap, since those tools are macOS-only. Anyone on Windows who lives on the keyboard should install it. No team-size calculus here, it's free for everyone.
Two catches. It's Windows-only, so there's nothing here for Mac or Linux users. And because plugins are community-made, quality and maintenance vary, so a plugin you rely on might go stale.
Free vs Self-Hosted vs Paid
fully freeFree: All of it. MIT licensed, no paid tier, no accounts, no cloud.
Self-hosted: Not applicable. It's a desktop app you install on Windows via the installer, Winget, Scoop, or Chocolatey.
Paid: None. The closest paid comparisons are macOS-only (Alfred's Powerpack, Raycast Pro), so on Windows there's nothing to pay for here.
Completely free and open source (MIT).
Get tools like this every Wednesday
One featured tool, three on the radar. No fluff.
A low score is not a verdict on quality. Young and niche tools start low by design. How we calculate scores
Trust Signals
License: MIT License
Use freely, including commercial. Just keep the license.
Commercial use: ✓ Yes
About
- Owner
- Flow-Launcher (Organization)
- Stars
- 15,244
- Forks
- 625
Explore Further
More tools in the directory
everything-claude-code
The agent harness performance optimization system. Skills, instincts, memory, security, and research-first development for Claude Code, Codex, Opencode, Cursor and beyond.
233.4k ★gstack
Use Garry Tan's exact Claude Code setup: 15 opinionated tools that serve as CEO, Designer, Eng Manager, Release Manager, Doc Engineer, and QA
124.4k ★tldr
Collaborative cheatsheets for console commands 📚.
63.2k ★