Hmm. I checked it out and didn't really like it. Autoit feels dated, like something out of the early 2000s. By contrast AHK feels modern, fresh, and slick.

Sidenote: what is it with Windows developers and releasing freware that allows for commercial use but still holding on to not being open-source or at least source-available? The fact that this is still happening in 2023 is flabbergasting.

Not being peer-pressured into open sourcing your everything is a virtue of the Windows ecosystem.

Sure, but the weirdness here is that the program is fully free to begin with, for commercial use even.

It's worth remembering that free and open source are two completely separate factors. Something could have restrictive licensing despite being open source, while another could have very free licensing despite being closed source.

Open source by itself simply means the source is readily available for reading, nothing more and nothing less.

Why _should_ they? I can think of a dozen different reasons why not, flabbergasting is a bit of hyperbole.

In the modern software world, a basic trend is that if it's free and has no path towards monetization (ads, user data, premium editions/subscriptions, etc) it's open source.

Re: "Autoit feels dated"

Being old by itself isn't bad. What's an example practical downside of its old style?

Keyboard shortcuts

This is the first I've heard of AutoIt.

Couple of reasons: x5 times smaller executable, better peformance, much friendlier commune. AHK is fork of AutoIt.

Huh, I was under impression AutoIt was the enterprise (i.e. paid) version of AutoHotKey. I'm surprised to find out it's freeware. I never touched it because I thought I had to pay.