When comparing aText vs hyper, the Slant community recommends aText for most people. In the question“What are the best power user tools for macOS?” aText is ranked 49th while hyper is ranked 72nd.
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Pros
Pro No Update
Pro A snippet can be expanded to plain or styled text and include pictures
Pro Has built-in snippets for common typos
Pro Cheaper than competition
$4.99, cheaper than textExpander ($35)
Pro Compatible with TextExpander snippets
TextExpander snippets can be imported into aText
Pro Works with VMs
Pro Imports from most alternative text expansion apps
aText can import data from TextExpander, TypeIt4Me, SpellCatcherX, Automaton and CSV file.
Pro Has common HTML & JS snippets built-in
Pro Snippets can include editable fields
Pro Data can be synced through cloud storage services
Pro Snippets can include a wide variety of variables
Possible variables include date, time, other snippets, clipboard content, etc.
Pro Cross-platform due to electron browser-based foundation
Although not Windows-friendly. But nobody uses Windows terminal anyway.
Pro Built on electron, supports split panels and plugins
Cons
Con Frequent crashes in MacOS Sierra
aText crashes frequently, and the developer is unresponsive. Not clear if app is supported or under current development: last update was in 11/15; last post to aText Facebook page 10/15.
Con Doesn't work in Mojave
The current version, with no issues. In fact, I've never had any issue with it with Mojave, so I assume when Mojave was released, aText was already up to date for it.
Con Long time no update
Seems to be abandoned.
Con Made with Electron
It uses a considerable amount of resources, compared to other offerings.
Con Not as cross platform as advertised
Most features only work on Mac OS.
Con Incorrect rendering
Terminal window has visual artifacts.
Con No configuration UI; all options must be set via JSON
Con Still maturing as of December 2016
Folks noticed some issues in the 1.0 release cited here.