Keyboard Maestro vs Alfred

Alfred's Workflows provide a solid visual automation system with triggers, inputs, actions, and outputs connected by wires. While it supports scripts (Python, Bash, PHP), it lacks native variables, conditionals, and loops at the visual level—those must be handled in scripts. It's excellent for focused tasks but less suited for complex multi-step automation.

Keyboard Maestro can trigger macros via a search palette, but it's not designed as a launcher. File search, app launching, and web searching are possible through macros but require manual setup and lack the speed and polish of a dedicated launcher.

Alfred Workflows primarily support keyword triggers (typed in Alfred), hotkeys, file actions, contact actions, and external triggers. While sufficient for most use cases, the trigger variety is more limited compared to Keyboard Maestro's event-driven system.

KM includes a clipboard history and named clipboards (persistent storage). While functional, the clipboard viewer is utilitarian and lacks the visual polish of dedicated clipboard managers.

KM's text expansion supports typed string triggers with variables, date/time stamps, clipboard contents, calculations, and interactive prompts. Snippets can include complex logic and conditional text, making them extremely powerful for templates and form letters.

Alfred's snippets are fast and reliable with support for dynamic placeholders like date, time, clipboard, and cursor positioning. The collection-based organization and auto-expansion make managing large snippet libraries easy. It's slightly simpler than KM but covers most needs.

KM has a dedicated forum with an active, helpful community. Users share macros and solutions, though there's no centralized 'store' for discovering macros. The forum is the primary place for support and sharing.