Anyone here using FLUENT?

I use Fluent a lot myself and really like it. If your goal is all apps, your own prompts, and a choice of APIs, it’s one of the closest matches I’ve seen. Accessibility permission is basically unavoidable for this kind of app if it needs to read or replace selected text across arbitrary apps, so that part is normal. As with any high-trust Mac utility, you still need to decide whether you’re comfortable giving it that level of access. In practice, the main question is reliability across apps. Some apps handle selected-text replacement well, while others can be inconsistent, especially Electron apps, browsers, password fields, and sandboxed editors. The developer also said dictation is planned, which would make it even more useful for this kind of workflow. There’s also an even stronger option worth looking at: Alter https://alterhq.com. If your primary need is "all apps + my own prompts + choice of API," I would also compare it with tools like Kerlig, RewriteBar, PopClip extensions, Raycast AI, BoltAI, and possibly Superwhisper/VoiceInk if dictation is part of your workflow. None of them is a perfect 1:1 replacement, but they cover parts of the same space.

Kerlig is somewhat limited in its capabilities when it comes to working across various applications. Fluent is much more versatile and works with all Mac apps. The developer has recently added many new features, and the application has become significantly more stable.

Refine looks great. I appreciate tools with a deep focus on one or two core features. Fluent's initially was heading in that way, now it's more like a Swiss Army knife. I try to keep all the complexity hidden, and guard the UI and handling behind minimalistic approaches. Maybe you'll find the upcoming Voice feature interesting, as it brings back some of the attention to writing use cases. I wasn't a voice user ever. But with the way it works in Fluent, I find it tempting to speak more now 😂

In academic writing, so much of what is done is editing, that diffs and per-segment replacement are crucial to me, but I realize that most people just want their email to sound better. I have Superwhisper, MacWhisper, and Alter all at lifetime too for dictation, but there are so many options out there for this now, that it's often easiest to just pick the best all in one solution. So, glad to hear you are bundling that in.

Limited how and what way? Genuinely curious.

It's a great question. And the answer is – no, definitely not. Very shortly, Fluent's aimed at power users, and even in the current state, offers way more features than the upcoming Apple AI – easy setup for local & cloud providers and models, custom actions, MCP support, built-in RAG database, background and scheduled actions, power-user configurations and many other unique features. And there will be more coming. Will later create a comparison table on the website, stay tuned.

The developers from Alter are very active in responding to all feedback and requests on their Discord channel. You should try reaching out to them there. Alter is actually a great tool, and the developers are constantly improving it and listening to their users.

It is a brilliant app; I have been using it for about a year. I primarily use it for paraphrasing, checking grammar and spelling, and editing text. It is very intuitive and well-designed. It replaced Highlight AI on my Mac, as I was looking for something native. I have not encountered any noteworthy issues with it. It receives updates regularly and the dev is quite responsive and listens to user feedback. Closest alternatives that come to mind are Kerlig and RewriteBar, but they are not as powerful. Alter and BoltAI could also be options to consider.

Is your app going to be obsoleted once Apple brings AI with a choice of AI models into the Mac OS? Sorry, gotta ask, I suspect it's not the first time you've heard the question. Thanks

I wanted to try alter but the trial wouldn’t work and I couldn’t even get help from the dev. That killed any interest from me.

Hey there! Fluent developer here. I'm also using it, and happy to hear from a fellow dev :) Let me know if you have any questions I can answer. I just think people here already answered your core questions in full, got nothing special to add. Except, if you are the "voice user", you'll probably be interested to know that next week a new release is coming with Voice control and dictation features. These organically expand Fluent's core features such as writing and quick in-context tasks, and there are plenty of unique little things.

I use it, it does the job. It was a bit buggy, but it's less buggy now. For a free app, it's amazing. There's also a lot of effort being put into its development, so I think it's going to get a lot better. The only other one I've used is utter. I found out about it on Reddit as well, and it's nice, but it was freezing for me from time to time. I feel like the market is flooded with these kinds of apps, so I'll just use Fluent for now because I just can't keep up.

I really want to, but the price of it is steep, and after I missed the sale on bundle hunt last month, I can’t palate the full price right now, so I’ll probably see if there are any sales and pick it up down the road. FWIW, I liked it when I was using the trial. One negative that I felt was even though it is a native app, the interactions in it feel non-native For some reason.

Fluent is great! Well worth the money if you can afford it.

Fluent is seriously the best money I have ever spent on an app. It is pretty much the only thing I use every single day besides the microsoft apps.The app is super awesome but the developer is also very active and responsive to user requests. I got it for $29 but would say $49 for a lifetime purchase is still very much worth it.

I used it for the free trial and ended up going with Kerlig. Been around longer and very polished imo. So far no regrets.

Wish they would adopt more of the approach refine.sh is taking.

hey, ive build smth similar to it but it has a lot of other extra to utilize the local model. its free and local only and all its features are free. you can check it out at https://heyhalo.app