HoudahSpot alternative: Peekaboo vs HoudahSpot
By Vishva Variya · Updated
HoudahSpot is the search tool for people who think in criteria: name contains this, modified after that, none of these tags. It’s precise and it’s been refined for years. Peekaboo takes the opposite route: you type what you remember, in your own words, and it shows the criteria it heard as chips you can correct.
Looking for HoudahSpot itself? It’s at www.houdah.com.
- HoudahSpot price
- Not listed, see www.houdah.com
- HoudahSpot requires
- macOS 10.14 or later
- Peekaboo
- $24.99 one-time, 14-day trial, macOS 14+
HoudahSpot figures from houdah.com/houdahSpot and /store, verified 2026-10-31 (full price not shown).
Why pick Peekaboo over HoudahSpot?
No query builder
“zips bigger than 1 GB older than 6 months” is the whole search. The chips under “Understood as …” show exactly how it was read.
Its own text recognition
HoudahSpot searches what Spotlight has indexed. Peekaboo runs Apple Vision over your screenshots and PDFs itself, so the words in images become searchable.
Search is only the start
Group downloads by the site they came from, find duplicates, see the disk as a map, and clean up with undo, in the same app.
Peekaboo vs HoudahSpot, job by job
| Job | HoudahSpot | Peekaboo |
|---|---|---|
| Building a precise query | Boolean criteria groups, regex, templates | Plain English with editable chips |
| Text inside images | Whatever Spotlight has indexed | On-device OCR of screenshots, photos and PDFs |
| Automation | AppleScript, Alfred and LaunchBar hooks | Shortcuts actions: Find Files, Get Latest Download |
| Duplicates, disk map, cleanup | Not offered | Built in, with one-click undo |
| Runs on | macOS 10.14 or later | macOS 14 or later |
The honest verdict
If you write complex searches daily and want boolean logic and AppleScript, HoudahSpot is more powerful and Peekaboo won’t replace it. If you want to type a sentence and get the file, and also want the text in your screenshots and a tidier disk, Peekaboo covers more ground with less setup.
HoudahSpot vs Peekaboo: questions
Does Peekaboo use Spotlight?
- It uses the same file index, so it’s just as fast, and adds its own on-device text recognition for images and PDFs. The plain-English parser is plain code on your Mac, not an AI service.
Can Peekaboo do boolean searches like HoudahSpot?
- Partly. Each chip is a filter and they combine, and you can save a search to the sidebar. There’s no any/none grouping or regex.
How much does HoudahSpot cost?
- Houdah’s store showed upgrade prices but not a full new-licence price when we checked on October 31, 2026. See houdah.com for the current price.