I don’t think there really is a significant difference, unless you’re already using Alfred. I’m an Alfred user and it’s kind of the “start everything place” window for me, the system-wide equivalent of a text editor’s command palette, a CLI for the GUI.
Agreed. I just tried out the Dash hot key and it’s basically the same. I’m tempted to claim the Alfred integration is better but that’s probably just me being a user of Alfred.