When comparing Cerebro vs Spotlight, the Slant community recommends Spotlight for most people. In the question“What are the best app launchers for Mac OS X?” Spotlight is ranked 5th while Cerebro is ranked 11th. The most important reason people chose Spotlight is:
Spotlight comes packaged with OS X and iOS.
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Extensible
List of plugins at here.
Pro Clean visual design
Pro Cross platform is a HUGE plus
Pro Measurement conversion and calculator
Pro Navigate file system with previews
Pro Closest approximate to look/feel of macOS's Spotlight on Linux
Pro Native to OS X
Spotlight comes packaged with OS X and iOS.
Pro Intuitive
Cons
Con Development is not very active
Con Uses a lot of system resources
It's using a lot of system resources (it's an Electron app)
Con Plugin selection is small
Con No file system search
Con Limited customization
Allows for very little customization, not theming, and no custom scripting.
Con No longer launches applications at all in Sierra
After updating to Sierra, typing an application name in Spotlight results in "No Results" or random wikipedia matches. True even after reloading com.apple.metadata.mds.plist and adding/removing "Macintosh HD" on the "Privacy" tab. Launchpad still works.