Kando alternatives for Windows: three ways to get a pie menu

Kando is a pie menu for the desktop: you press a shortcut, a circle of items appears around the pointer, and you pick one by direction. It is free, open source and well made. People still look for alternatives, usually for one of three reasons: they only use Windows and want something built for it, they want more ready-made actions, or they would rather script everything themselves.

This page compares three ways to get a pie menu on Windows. We make one of them, RadialDeck, so we have kept to facts you can check, and we say where Kando is the better pick.

The short version

Pick Kando if you also use macOS or Linux and want the same menu everywhere, if you want open-source software, or if you work with a pen, a touch screen or a game controller.
Pick RadialDeck if you work in Windows programs all day and want rings that act on what you are doing (the files selected in Explorer, the text you copied) with most actions ready-made.
Script it in AutoHotkey if you already write AutoHotkey and want every detail under your control.

Kando

Kando describes itself as a cross-platform pie menu. Facts from its own README and documentation:

Platforms: Windows, macOS and Linux.
Licence: free and open source; the author accepts donations.
Input: designed for mouse, stylus, touch and game controller input.
What items do: launch applications, simulate keyboard shortcuts, open files and more.
Getting started: it ships with an example menu that opens with Ctrl+Space on most platforms, and a menu editor to build your own.
Per-program menus: a menu can have conditions, such as the name of the focused application or window, so different menus can open in different programs.
Windows installer: code-signed through the SignPath Foundation.

Kando's strengths are its reach across operating systems, its design, and its support for pens, touch and controllers. If those matter to you, it is hard to beat.

RadialDeck

RadialDeck is a radial menu for Windows 10 and 11 only. It is a native Windows app rather than a cross-platform one, and that shapes what it does:

Rings per program. The same hotkey opens a different ring depending on the program in front, matched by program name or window title.
It works on your selection. In Explorer a slice can act on the selected files: copy their path, zip them, hash them, open a terminal there. Anywhere, a slice can take the text you highlighted or copied.
Ready-made actions. A gallery of 1,400+ actions for 100+ programs, and on first run it offers packs for the programs it finds installed.
Clipboard tools. 32 built-in text transforms (plain text, UPPER and lower case, clean links, JSON, sort lines and more), a window switcher ring, and a clipboard history ring in Pro.
Copy text from the screen with the OCR built into Windows.
Keyboard and mouse. Hold a hotkey and flick, tap and click, arrow keys, number keys, type the first letters of a slice; or open it with a side mouse button, the middle button or by holding the right button.
Price: free for two rings with up to eight slices each. Pro is 24 € a year with VAT included, with a 14-day trial. It is closed source and is available in the Microsoft Store.

Where RadialDeck is weaker: it runs only on Windows, it is not open source, and it is built for mouse and keyboard rather than pen, touch or controllers.

The Outlook ring from the RadialDeck gallery

AutoHotkey is a free, open-source scripting language for Windows, used for hotkeys, remapping keys, text replacements and macros. People have written pie menus in it for years, and you can write your own: draw a window around the pointer, work out which direction the mouse moved, run a function.

What you get is complete control. Every slice can do anything a script can do, and nothing runs that you did not write.

What it costs is time. You build and maintain the menu yourself, including the drawing, the screen scaling on high-DPI displays, multiple monitors, and the logic for which menu belongs to which program. For someone who already lives in AutoHotkey that is part of the fun. For everyone else it is a project.

Side by side

Runs on. Kando: Windows, macOS, Linux. RadialDeck: Windows 10 and 11. AutoHotkey: Windows.
Price. Kando: free. RadialDeck: free for two rings, Pro 24 € a year. AutoHotkey: free.
Source. Kando: open. RadialDeck: closed. AutoHotkey: open, and your script is yours.
Different menu per program. Kando: yes, with menu conditions. RadialDeck: yes, by program name or window title. AutoHotkey: if you write it.
Ready-made actions. Kando: an example menu. RadialDeck: 1,400+ actions for 100+ programs. AutoHotkey: whatever you write or copy.
Pen, touch, controller. Kando: yes. RadialDeck: no. AutoHotkey: if you write it.

For a longer table, see RadialDeck vs Kando.

How to choose

Start from where you spend your day. If it is across several operating systems, Kando keeps your menu the same everywhere. If it is Excel, Outlook, Explorer, a CAD program or a terminal on Windows, a menu that knows those programs saves you building everything yourself. If it is AutoHotkey scripts, you already have the tool.

You do not have to decide on paper. Kando is free, RadialDeck is free for two rings with a 14-day trial of Pro, and a weekend with each will tell you more than any comparison page.