Head-to-head

Better by every measure
that actually matters.

A fair look at how Makro stacks up against the other text expanders you are considering. More features on the free tier, stronger privacy, lower price. No cherry-picked matrix cells - the honest breakdown is below.

TextExpander Text Blaze Espanso Magical AutoHotkey PhraseExpress Briskine

KEYSTROKES SAVED Example: one typical reply

Manual

87chars

With Makro

5chars

82 fewer keystrokes

17.4×shorter per send

The matrix

Makro versus everyone else.

Four common alternatives, consistent criteria, no marketing hedge-words. Where a competitor does something well, we say so. The only reason to fudge a comparison is when the facts are not on your side.

Makro

$0free forever

Browser extension. Zero-knowledge E2E, local AI, unlimited free macros.

TextExpander

$4.16/mobilled annually, no free tier

The incumbent. Desktop app, subscription-only, no free tier.

Text Blaze

$3.49/moPro plan; free tier is 20-snippet capped

Browser extension with dynamic forms. Free tier capped at 20 snippets.

Espanso

Freeopen-source; local only, no sync

Open-source, free, CLI-driven. YAML configuration, no GUI.

Briskine

$7/moPro plan; limited free tier

Gmail-first templating extension. Narrow by design.

Pricing & access

Free tierWithout an account

Yes

Capped

Yes

Capped

Unlimited free macros

Yes

20 max

Yes

Lowest paid tier

$2.99/ month

$4.16/ month

$3.49/ month

-free only

$7.00/ month

Privacy & security

End-to-end encrypted syncProvider cannot read your content

Yes

Local only

Zero-knowledge architecture

Yes

Local only

Encryption at restLocally stored macros encrypted

AES-256-GCM

Server-side

VerificationTest or audit evidence you can check

2,495 tests

Not public

Open source

Not public

AI & assist

Local AI (Ollama, LM Studio)Zero-cost, zero-network rewriting

Yes

Cloud AI rewriteWhen you want frontier-quality

Yes

Add-on

Semantic searchFind macros by meaning

Yes

On-device OCR (Smart Copy)tesseract-wasm, runs locally

Yes

Platform

Works in browsersChrome, Edge, Firefox, Brave

All four

Desktop app

All four

System-wide

Chrome only

Dynamic placeholdersDates, clipboard, counters, prompts

Yes

Regex-based

Limited

Import from competitorsOne-click migration

10 formats

Yes Included Capped Partial / with caveats - Not available Pricing as of April 2026 · US region

Why these differences matter

Three differences you will feel in a day.

01 / Privacy

Your macros are outside our reach.

TextExpander, Text Blaze, Magical, and Briskine all hold the keys to your synced content. Under a court order, they can hand it over. Makro cannot, because the server never has the key.

Real receipt: AES-256-GCM, PBKDF2-SHA256 at 600,000 iterations, keys non-extractable, servers store ciphertext only.

02 / AI

Local AI that stays local.

Only Makro supports routing AI rewrites entirely to a local Ollama or LM Studio instance. No network, no credits, no external model vendor reading your drafts. For healthcare, legal, and financial work, this is the only safe option.

Real receipt: 12 built-in rewrite actions, auto-detects localhost:11434 and localhost:1234, Sensitive Mode blocks the cloud path at the processing layer.

03 / Price

Free tier that is actually usable.

Most competitors cap free at 10-20 snippets and lock sync behind paid plans. Makro ships unlimited macros on the free tier. Paid plans add credits and sync, not core capability.

Real receipt: Free unlimited macros, 25 AI credits/mo. Pro $2.99/mo (500 credits + sync). Premium $5.99/mo (10,000 credits). Lifetime $149.

Already using one?

Your macros, imported in minutes.

If you are moving from any of the tools on the right, Makro imports your library natively. Hotwords, bodies, categories, and shortcuts all carry over. Your existing workflow works on day one.

Export from your current toolMost tools export to JSON or CSV - one click

Drop the file into MakroSettings → Import → pick the source format

Start typingEvery hotword works exactly as before

Supported formats

TxTextExpander

.csv import

TbText Blaze

.json import

EsEspanso

.yml import

MgMagical

.json import