Sol is a free, MIT-licensed macOS launcher and command palette built by Oscar Franco (ospfranco). Designed as a no-subscription alternative to Raycast and Alfred, it focuses on simplicity, speed, and full developer ownership — no paywall, no telemetry, no lock-in. Install via brew install --cask sol.
Features
App and file search, emoji picker, inline calculator, clipboard history, calendar integration, browser bookmarks, window manager, media key forwarding to Spotify, quick notes, process manager, custom global shortcuts, multi-language translation, notch hider, and developer commands like clearing Xcode derived data.
Who It's For
Developers and power users who want a capable launcher they can hack on. Being MIT-licensed and built with React Native for macOS, the codebase is approachable for anyone who wants to extend or self-host it — something neither Raycast nor Alfred offers.
Considerations
Requires macOS 14 (Sonoma) or newer. The extension ecosystem is smaller than Raycast's, and customization is bash-script-based rather than a polished plugin store. A worthwhile trade-off if ownership and zero cost matter more than a rich marketplace.
Platform & Compatibility
Architecture
Minimum macOS
macOS Sonoma 14Public Opinion
Curated highlights from Reddit and other communities, not user-submitted reviews.
“Users praise Sol for being fast, lightweight, and open source — a no-subscription alternative to Raycast with extendability via bash scripts.”
AlternativeTo
“Appreciated by developers who want to own and tweak their launcher without being locked into a proprietary ecosystem.”
“The MIT license and React Native codebase make it easy for developers to fork and customize”
GitHub
“Sol is nice and then again it seems young and a bit lacking.”
Hacker News
“Smaller community and extension ecosystem compared to Raycast or Alfred — fewer ready-made plugins.”
“Being built on React Native rather than native Swift/AppKit raises concerns about performance and memory usage among some macOS purists.”
Community
