Vicinae – A native, Raycast-compatible launcher for Linux
Hi HN! I’ve always been a fan of application launchers, and I was impressed by the approach the Raycast team took — especially their extension system. About six months ago I started building something similar for Linux, aiming to integrate deeply at the OS level and give extensions a lot of power. Vicinae is written in C++ with Qt Widgets. I chose Widgets over QML for more imperative control of the UI, especially around extension handling. So far that’s worked well — modern C++ is great. To support my goals I built a number of custom widgets, including a fully virtualized list that can…
Vicinae – A native, Raycast-compatible launcher for Linux launched on September 9, 2025 with 181 votes, #165 of 8,160 launches that month and more than 95% of that year's launches. The site was still online in September 2026, 1 year on.
In plain words
Vicinae is a Linux application launcher inspired by Raycast that integrates deeply with the operating system. Built in C++ with Qt Widgets, it supports Raycast extensions written in React and TypeScript, allowing users to extend functionality directly within the launcher. The tool features a virtualized list interface capable of efficiently rendering large datasets and prioritizes giving extensions significant system-level power and control.
written from the facts on this page · September 2026
From the sources
A focused launcher for your desktop - native, fast, extensible - vicinaehq/vicinae
Vicinae (pronounced "vee-CHEE-nay" ) is a high-performance, native command palette for your desktop. Everything you need to know to get started with Vicinae is at vicinae.com . If you have any question, please feel free to come ask it on discordfrom github.com
In the maker’s words, at launch
Hi HN! I’ve always been a fan of application launchers, and I was impressed by the approach the Raycast team took — especially their extension system. About six months ago I started building something similar for Linux, aiming to integrate deeply at the OS level and give extensions a lot of power. Vicinae is written…
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