Which is better for quickly developing small utilities? AutoIt or AutoHotKey or something else?
I need to develop some small software for which I think using some professional suite like Visual Studio will be overkill. Most of the macro recording tools like AutoIt or AutoHotKey provide enough power to write decent application. Plus they are small and free.
Which option will be good? Using one of these tools or using some other small/free compiler?
Both are really good pieces of software and you will only decide by trying both of them out with tests that check if you can create your small bits of software.
Me personally I would probably investigate AutoIt in depth and if it started to mess me about I would then check AutoHotKey and others.
They are both pretty good, and can do most of the same things... but I typically use AutoIt over AutoHotKey for the following reasons:
If you need a GUI at all, then you'll need to use AutoIt.
I prefer the syntax of AutoIt over AutoHotKey's. IMO, it is much easier to follow, and pick back up when you need to go back into your code later.
I like that AutoIt makes it very easy to change version numbers, icons, and compression of your compiled scripts (when compiling to exe). The default compression will sometimes cause false positives with some anti-virus software.
Ultimately, though, it really depends on what your requirements are for your small utilities.