
Flow.Launcher
:mag: Quick file search & app launcher for Windows with community-made plugins
The Lens
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).
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License: MIT License
Use freely, including commercial. Just keep the license.
Commercial use: ✓ Yes
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