Minne and Raycast AI — which one is for you?

This is not a fair fight in either direction. Raycast is a launcher — one of the best pieces of Mac software of its generation — that has grown a serious AI layer. Minne is a small, single-purpose tool: a memory of your work that writes from it. They overlap on exactly one thing, AI-assisted writing on a Mac, and they come at it from opposite ends.

The short version: Raycast AI gives you many models and many AI features inside Raycast's own windows. Minne gives you one thing — drafts grounded in a memory of your work — inside whatever window you were already in.

What Raycast AI does well

From Raycast's own site, checked at the date in the footer:

• Quick AI — a hotkey away, anywhere, with web search and inline references for current answers.
• AI Chat — 50+ models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Mistral and others in one interface, with file attachments and screen context.
• AI Commands and Extensions — natural language that becomes actions: rename files, check Linear tickets, run your tools.
• Pro features including Screen Awareness and a Memory feature, per Raycast's published feature list.
• Polished, actively developed, with iOS and Windows versions.

Pricing at time of checking: AI arrives with Raycast Pro at $8/month billed annually ($10 monthly), with an Advanced AI add-on at a further $8/month for the premium models. Data is stored locally by default, with optional encrypted cloud sync.

Where Minne differs

• The context is your accumulated work, not your current screen. Minne keeps a wiki of the people, projects and decisions it has watched you work on — distilled every half hour, as plain markdown in ~/Minne — and every draft consults it. The reply to Ingrid knows what you promised Ingrid.
• It writes in your field, not in a panel you paste from. Tap right-Option in the reply itself; press Insert and the draft lands where the caret was. One key, everywhere you type.
• In your tone. Minne learns how you write per app and per person, from your own sent writing, and your repeated corrections become standing rules.
• Free, MIT-licensed, no account. The memory is files you own, from code you can read. You bring the model: an API key, Ollama locally, or a subscription sign-in.

Choose Raycast if…

• You want a launcher — that is the product, and it is excellent.
• You want many models, web-connected answers, and AI that does things (commands, extensions, automations).
• You want mature, supported software across Mac, iOS and Windows.

Choose Minne if…

• Your bottleneck is specifically the writing you repeat all day — replies, status updates, answers you half-know — and you want it grounded in what you actually did.
• You want the memory itself on disk, in markdown, yours.
• You are happy running early, open-source software.

They also simply coexist: nothing about a launcher conflicts with a memory. If the memory half is the gap in your setup, Minne is a free download for macOS 14+. See also Minne and Goldfish — the closest comparison there is — Minne and Elephas, and, if you came from a screen-recording tool, the Rewind alternative page.

Product facts on this page were checked against each product's own published material on 2026-08-26. Something outdated? Say so and it will be fixed.

Free, open source, and yours to read. macOS 14 and later.