They are both the same but which is easier to learn and more powerful?
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New: DesktopSnowOK (Jan 6, 2025), Platform 29.5.3 (Jun 27, 2024)
1,100+ portable packages, 1.1 billion downloads
No Ads!, Please donate today
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I have a little experience in both but I am by no means an expert. From what I've noticed AutoHotKey is way easier to learn. However I have noticed that AutoIt is definitely more powerful. If you want an example of an AutoIt program download Xenon from the application page it's source is included and it's written in AutoIt by John Bentely. Any more than that and you need to talk to someone a little more experienced.
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I tried AutoHotKey but not AutoIt because many said that AutoHotKey is easier to learn.
I have found that the documentation for AutoHotkey (AHK) is very very complete. It is also open source.
I have briefly played with AutoIt. I know one of the caveats about AutoIt is that just attaches the script to the autoit executable and is quite often mass flagged by antivirus.
I prefer AHK as it is open source. And I know how to use it.
There are portable packages of both in the forums, so really, the choice is yours. You will have to manually download the AutoIt binaries.
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I have taken the time to lean both languages and, IMHO, find that they are equivalents of each other. AutoHotKey was based from some of the AutoIt v2 source so they share a lot of the same syntax. Mind you today they also have a drastic amount of differences. There are strengths and weaknesses in both which complement each other. For example, AutoIt is much easier to work with command line interfaces in a GUI. Where AHK has a very extensible XML parsing engine.
The topic has been heavily covered at both websites, heatedly i might ad. Here is the link from AutoHotKey, I can't find the AutoIt forum thread that I read a while back.
http://www.autohotkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4363
I personally use AutoHotKey for the simple fact that it is still open source.
"If knowledge can create problems, is it not through ignorance that we can solve them." -Isaac Asimov
Everyone has their own opinions. They're both good scripting languages. I prefer AutoIt. It's what I started with, and it's very extensible via user created function libraries. I also think the open source argument when it comes to programming languages is a bit silly. None of the major languages are open source. IMO it's not a consideration for choosing one language over another.
I want to make a few corrections to some comments in this thread though, so there's no bad info floating around:
1. Xenon is rewritten in C++ and wxWidgets. It's not AutoIt anymore.
2. AHK and AutoIt3 are functionally identical. They both package their interpreter and the script file together in one executable. This is not the reason for them being flagged by some AVs. Both lauguages sometimes get flagged, and it's usually by lower end and careless AV company's definitions. This can also be attributed to both languages' use of UPX to pack their executables.
AutoIT, being closed source (AHK is open source), also adds in the ability to make the attached script in the EXE unreadable so it can't be examined by the end user. So, it's been used for a lot more spyware/malware, which leads to more false positives.
The open source argument does come into play with something of this nature as AutoIT could just go away and leave you stuck without the ability to further enhance and fix bugs within their runtime. Whereas with AutoHotKey, even if the original team disbands, others (even you) could pick it up and continue to make bug fixes, security fixes and enhancements to it. It's of more concern with smaller projects like this but could be of concern with large companies as well (for example, when Microsoft switched from VB to VB.net and left lots of VB developers stuck having to create .NET apps if they wanted to continue using VB or when they dropped J++).
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AutoHotkey can also make the code un-decompilable. It's just that for some reason, malware makers don't use it as much... I don't know why, but it's a good thing for AutoHotkey users
The open source argument is always a good one though
For me, I always prefer AutoHotkey. Never used AutoIT.
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Do you really need to download the whole package? Autohotkey only needs the AutoHotKey.exe
Once the script is compiled, neither languages have any dependencies. So, no files are needed for either.
Really depends on the person. I personally am learning AutoIt because it easier for me to read because I'm take AP Comp Sci (learning Java) and AutoIt is some what like Java syntax. I have never personally tried AutoHotKey but i think that AutoIt and AutoHotKey do almost the same thing except that AutoHotKey is can be used for more than just file related programming.
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