Linux

Arch is just a distro. What DE or Window manager are you on, Wayland or still XOrg?

rofi and wofi are a good example how this question makes no sense.

I just use whatever is included with the desktop environment. On KDE and GNOME launching an application involves pressing the Super ("Windows") key, typing the first couple of letters of the application I want to launch and pressing the return key.

I might be missing something here but I don't know how other launchers could possibly make this a simpler process.

Krunner in KDE Plasma. Fast, customisable and reliable.

What's an app launcher?

If you’re on Wayland, fuzzel just keeps getting better each release.

Launch your apps from terminal like a real Arch gangsta

I use dmenu_run because it's ridiculously minimal, has zero dependencies, is very fast, and fits with the i3 aesthetic well.

bemenu. Type stuff in popup, press enter, no confettis thrown on your face.

dmenu is iconic for a reason, although manually patching it to meet your preferences is a bit too much of a project for people who just want something to work. not wanting to learn C is valid.

I ended up coding my own.

Lots of stuff I'd want in an applications launcher on hyperland. I'd need it to have all the functions of the important system indicators and essentially take the role of the top panel in gnome.

I like fuzzel, had a few issues with dpi scaling on wofi out of the box.

Easy to integrate clipboard/window select/dmenu binds and a way to distinguish indexed entries from straight text was a plus.

Honestly unless you're going out of the box to something new (Walker and anyrun caught my eye) dmenu has had everything I needed for years... But I don't want to set it up again. Not again.

I use rofi as my app launcher and more. I've share my old script here.

I have now extended this script to support the following:

• execute a command if the input text belongs to /bin or /usr/local/bin
• do some basic maths (using menu-calc)
• open url in my web browser if the input text starts starts with http(s) or ends with .xxx (where x is any letter)
• translate the input text in English/French using the deepl website if the input text starts with dpen/dpfr
• search the input text with searx (if all the above failed)
• manage my web bookmarks (using buku)
• manage my clipboard (using copyq)
• manage my passwords and autofill fields (using pass)
• manage bluetooth devices
• manage audio sinks and sources
• manage my wifi and vpn
• manage my tmux sessions

I use fzf with a popup terminal:

# example for i3
bindsym $mod+Return exec --no-startup-id kitty -T _menu_ -e bash -c 'ls $HOME/.local/bin/ | fzf | xargs -r -I{} i3-msg -t command exec $HOME/.local/bin/{}'
for_window [title="_menu_"] floating enable
for_window [title="_menu_"] resize set 600 800

I like this approach because it's simple and configurable. I prefer to see only the symlinks/scripts that I put in my local bin folder, but it can easily be extended to support .desktop files, multiple folders, filtering, etc.

I use rofi with these themes and scripts. Never needed anything else.

Very comfortable with Rofi. It's especially nice in a window manager as it also works as a switcher or shortcut to your open programs.

I've been using ULauncher for a while and I'm quite happy with it, it has plugin support too.

@gwilikers dmenu is suckles app launcher. it's super minimalistic and can be used for choosing things with other things as well, for example pass_menu

I'm fine with Rofi. I've used xfce4-appfinder also, it's less minimal, not configurable (good graphical defaults, might be what you want).

PieDock

I wish raycast was available!

if you come from Windows, liked the 10 start menu, and you want to use KDE, there's a pretty similar launcher you can use: https://store.kde.org/p/2142716

it does not have collapsible groups and live tiles, but otherwise it's pretty good I think

Krunner is great.

Playing along for Mint/Cinnamon suggestions. Already using the Cinimenu (or whatever it is) but its still not "it".

I like rofi because of how many different modes people have made for it, e.g. rofi-calc, and the customisability is great too. Unfortunately it can be slow to start, but if speed is of utmost importance to you and you're on Wayland, you might want to look into tofi

Big fan of bash. Pretty sure it's already installed for you.

anyrun