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Best Raycast Extensions for Developers in 2026

Quick answer: The best Raycast extensions for developers in 2026 are Brew, GitHub, Visual Studio Code, Linear, Docker, Port Manager, Format JSON, Change Case, Git Repos and Search npm Packages. Each has tens of thousands of installs or more and an author commit within the last nine months. Several popular ones, including Google Drive and VS Code Project Manager, have not had a real update in over a year.

Most "best Raycast extensions" lists are a personal pick of favourites. We wanted numbers, so we pulled the whole store before ranking anything.

How we checked 3,412 extensions

On 13 October 2026 we read every listing in the Raycast Store through its public listing data: 3,412 extensions with install counts, categories, platforms and the date each was last updated. Together they have 14.6 million installs. The top 10 extensions take 24% of them, and the median extension has just 231.

The store's "updated" date is almost useless as a maintenance signal. 2,129 extensions (62%) carry one of just three dates: 11 September, 30 September or 9 October 2026. Those are repository-wide maintenance passes, such as dependency bumps run across every extension at once, not their authors shipping anything.

So for the 45 most-installed developer extensions, we went to the source. Every extension lives in the open-source raycast/extensions repository, and we read the commit history of each extension's folder through the GitHub API, skipping bulk chores (dependency updates, lint and gitignore changes, security bumps) to find the last commit that actually touched the extension's behaviour.

The best Raycast extensions for developers, ranked

Ranked by how much time they save in a typical developer day, with installs and the date of the last real commit so you can check our work.

  1. Brew (296,392 installs, last real commit 2026-10-04). Search, install, upgrade and clean up Homebrew packages without opening a terminal. The most-installed pure developer extension in the store, and still shipping weekly. macOS only, for obvious reasons.
  2. GitHub (211,259, 2026-09-24). Pull requests, issues, notifications and repository search, maintained by Raycast itself. The menu bar notification count alone replaces a browser tab.
  3. Visual Studio Code (414,333, 2026-09-28). Open recent projects, folders and workspaces in VS Code from the launcher. It also works with Cursor and other VS Code forks.
  4. Linear (404,281, 2026-10-07). Create and search issues, change status and assignee, all keyboard-first. Built by Linear, so it tracks the product closely. Jira users have an equivalent from Raycast (68,480 installs).
  5. Docker (53,533, 2026-09-22). Start, stop and inspect containers, images and Compose projects. It now respects your current Docker CLI context, which matters if you switch between local and remote engines.
  6. Port Manager (62,953, 2026-10-05). Shows what is listening on which port and kills it in one keystroke. The fix for "address already in use" that you will reach for weekly.
  7. Format JSON (101,860, 2026-01-28). Pretty-prints or minifies the JSON on your clipboard. Its last real commit was a large-file performance fix in January, and it is the kind of small tool that is finished rather than abandoned.
  8. Change Case (55,470, 2026-09-23). Converts selected text between camelCase, snake_case, kebab-case, CONSTANT_CASE and a dozen more.
  9. Git Repos (30,229, 2026-09-21). Finds every Git repository on your disk and opens it in your editor, terminal or browser. Pairs well with the VS Code extension above.
  10. Search npm Packages (24,676, 2026-08-27). Package search with versions, weekly downloads and links to the repo and changelog, without a browser round trip.

Two AI extensions are worth a mention outside the ranking. ChatGPT (261,979 installs) had a commit on the day we checked. Claude (38,429) was last fixed in August for compatibility with current models. Raycast's own built-in AI covers the same ground if you pay for it.

Which popular Raycast extensions have stopped?

All of these still install and show a recent "updated" date in the store, because of the bulk maintenance passes. The last commit by anyone working on the extension itself tells a different story:

| Extension | Installs | Last real commit | What to use instead | |---|---|---|---| | Google Drive | 33,044 | 2022-06-30 | Google Workspace, by Raycast (61,468 installs) | | VS Code Project Manager | 52,195 | 2025-07-15 | Visual Studio Code (above) | | Perplexity | 68,891 | 2025-07-16 | Raycast AI or the Perplexity app | | IP Geolocation | 27,434 | 2025-07-16 | Still works; low risk | | Unix Timestamp | 31,915 | 2025-08-04 | Still works; low risk | | Cheatsheets | 43,231 | 2025-10-16 | Still works; low risk |

Not every quiet extension is a problem. A timestamp converter does not need new features. An extension that talks to a third-party API, like Google Drive, is the one that breaks without warning when that API changes.

What about the extensions you no longer need?

Raycast now ships several former extension favourites as built-in features: clipboard history, snippets, window management, and a calculator with unit and currency conversion. If your extension list still includes a separate clipboard manager or window snapper, you can probably remove it. Our developer productivity tools ranking explains why that consolidation is Raycast's biggest win.

Is Raycast better than Alfred?

For most developers, yes. Raycast's core, including the extension store, is free, and the extensions are written in TypeScript and React, so a developer can read, fork or write one in an afternoon. Alfred is older and its workflow engine still goes further for complex automation, but the features developers want sit behind its paid Powerpack. If you already have a large set of Alfred workflows, there is no urgent reason to switch. If you are starting fresh, start with Raycast.

Raycast also runs on Windows now. Of the 3,412 extensions, 968 list Windows as a supported platform, including most of the cross-platform developer tools above. Brew and iTerm stay Mac only.

Where do Raycast extensions fit in a developer setup?

Raycast is the launcher layer. The rest of the setup is a terminal, an editor and a handful of utilities. Our best terminal for Mac guide covers the terminals that Raycast's Warp and iTerm extensions open into, and the best Mac apps for developers list ranks the native apps around it. For more tools in the same spirit, browse the productivity category and the extensions category.

Frequently asked questions

What are the best Raycast extensions?

By installs, the most popular extensions overall are Google Translate, Spotify Player, Visual Studio Code and Linear, each with over 400,000 installs. For developers specifically, Brew, GitHub, VS Code, Linear, Docker and Port Manager are the strongest, because they are both heavily used and still actively maintained.

Are Raycast extensions free?

Yes. Every extension in the Raycast Store is free to install, and the extensions themselves are open source in the raycast/extensions GitHub repository. Some extensions connect to paid services, and Raycast's own AI features need a paid plan, but the extensions do not charge.

Are Raycast extensions safe?

Every extension is open source and reviewed by the Raycast team before it is published to the store, which is a higher bar than most plugin marketplaces. Extensions still run with access to whatever services you connect, so check who maintains one before giving it a token. The author and source link are on every store page.

How do I make my own Raycast extension?

Run the "Create Extension" command inside Raycast, which scaffolds a TypeScript and React project. You build with the Raycast API and test locally with hot reload, then open a pull request to the raycast/extensions repository to publish it to the store.