Prompt Enhancer: a focused Promptlight alternative for in-place rewriting
If you’re looking for a Promptlight alternative, here’s an honest comparison. These two apps get grouped together because both are keyboard-first Mac tools that mention “prompts.” But they do almost opposite jobs.
PromptLight is a place to store and reuse prompts you’ve already written. Prompt Enhancer is a hotkey that rewrites the draft you’re writing right now. Picking the wrong one means buying a filing cabinet when you wanted an editor — or the reverse.
What PromptLight is
PromptLight is a local-first prompt manager and library for Mac. Per its own site, you save prompts as plain Markdown files on your machine, then search them “like Spotlight” and copy or reuse them across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Cursor, and any app that accepts a paste. The Markdown files stay editable in VS Code, Obsidian, or anywhere else.
It also ships an optional Enhancer mode that rewrites a draft into a clearer version. PromptLight states this mode runs in the cloud and that the free tier includes a limited number of enhancements per month, with more on paid plans.
If your problem is “I keep rewriting the same good prompts and want a fast, local, keyboard-driven place to keep them,” PromptLight is a sensible, privacy-minded tool. Verify its current feature set and pricing tiers on promptlight.app — plans and limits change.
What Prompt Enhancer is
Prompt Enhancer is not a library. It doesn’t ask you to save anything.
You write a rough draft — anywhere: Claude.ai, ChatGPT, Cursor, VS Code, Notion, Slack, Linear, even Mail. Select it, press ⌃⌥⌘P, and in a few seconds the selected text is rewritten in place using Anthropic’s official XML prompt structure: <role>, <context>, <task>, <output_format>.
No window switching. No copy-paste. No browsing a list of saved prompts. The cursor stays where it was, and what you typed becomes a prompt Claude actually parses well.
Prompt Enhancer ships seven presets for different targets — chat, Claude Code, Codex, image, Midjourney, video, and research — so the structure matches the tool you’re prompting (image and video presets write the prompt in English, since those models are English-trained).
Why the distinction matters
A prompt manager assumes you already have good prompts and the bottleneck is finding them. That’s true for some workflows — support replies, repeated coding scaffolds, recurring research briefs.
But most of the time the prompt that gets weak results is a brand-new one you’re typing into a chat box for the first time. There’s nothing saved to retrieve. The fix isn’t search — it’s structure. That’s the gap Prompt Enhancer fills: it turns the messy draft in front of you into Anthropic’s XML shape before you send it.
The two tools can even coexist: rewrite a draft with Prompt Enhancer, then, if it’s a keeper, save the result into a manager like PromptLight to reuse later.
How the alternative stacks up: feature comparison
| Feature | Prompt Enhancer | PromptLight |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Hotkey that rewrites a draft into Anthropic XML, in place | Local-first prompt manager / library |
| Core job | Structure the prompt you’re writing now | Save, search, and reuse prompts you already wrote |
| Primary verb | Rewrite | Store and retrieve |
| Built-in rewriting | Yes — every enhancement; Anthropic XML for Claude | Optional “Enhancer mode” (per its site, cloud-based, monthly limit on free tier) |
| Stores a prompt library | No (it rewrites; it doesn’t keep a library) | Yes — plain Markdown files on your Mac |
| Works inside other apps | Yes — system-wide hotkey, in-place rewrite | Copies a chosen prompt to clipboard; you paste it |
| Output format depth | Deep — role / context / task / output_format, 7 presets | Stores whatever you save; Enhancer rewrites for clarity |
| BYOK direct to api.anthropic.com | Yes — no proxy, no server logs, key in Keychain | Verify on their site (Enhancer mode is described as cloud-based) |
| Pricing model | One-time $29 lifetime, no subscription | One-time lifetime license, tiered by seats — verify current prices on promptlight.app |
| Platform | macOS + Windows; Linux Q3 2026 | macOS 13+ (Intel + Apple Silicon) |
| App signed / notarized | Yes — macOS DMG is Apple-notarized and stapled (opens normally on double-click) | Verify on their site / Mac App Store listing |
| Maturity | Public beta 2026-05-23; v0.1.1 current | Established Mac app — check their changelog |
Competitor details above reflect what PromptLight publishes on its own site at the time of writing. Always confirm current pricing, tiers, enhancer limits, and privacy terms directly on promptlight.app before buying.
When to choose PromptLight
- You have a growing set of prompts you reuse and want a fast, local, keyboard-first place to keep them.
- You prefer your prompts stored as plain Markdown files you can edit in VS Code, Obsidian, or sync yourself.
- You want a Spotlight-style search to pull up a saved prompt across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Cursor.
- A library, not a rewriter, is what you’re actually missing.
When to choose Prompt Enhancer
- Your weak results come from new drafts, not from forgetting prompts you already wrote.
- You want a draft rewritten into Anthropic’s XML structure in place, without leaving the app you’re in.
- You’re prompting Claude (or Claude Code, Codex, image, video, or research tools) and want the structure those targets reward.
- You want BYOK that talks directly to api.anthropic.com, and a one-time price under $30.
Honest caveats
- These tools overlap less than the keyword suggests. PromptLight is primarily a manager with an optional enhancer; Prompt Enhancer is a dedicated rewriter with no library. If you genuinely want to organize and reuse a prompt collection, a manager is the right category and Prompt Enhancer won’t replace it.
- Prompt Enhancer is on version 0.1.1 and has no long track record yet. Check PromptLight’s own changelog for its maturity.
- The macOS DMG is Apple-notarized since June 2026 — installs without Gatekeeper warnings. Verify PromptLight’s signing/distribution on their own site.
- We have not independently audited PromptLight’s pricing tiers, enhancer limits, or data handling. The figures here come from its public site and can change — confirm them live on promptlight.app before you decide.
- Prompt Enhancer focuses only on Anthropic’s XML structure for Claude-family workflows. It is not a prompt library, a model switcher, or a general AI client.