Other Algorithms
More advanced algorithms that are even faster while still being able to compute the exact minimax value are known, such as SCOUT, Negascout and MTD-f.
Since the minimax algorithm and its variants are inherently depth-first, a strategy such as iterative deepening is usually used in conjunction with alpha-beta so that a reasonably good move can be returned even if the algorithm is interrupted before it has finished execution. Another advantage of using iterative deepening is that searches at shallower depths give move-ordering hints that can help produce cutoffs for higher depth searches much earlier than would otherwise be possible.
Algorithms like SSS*, on the other hand, use the best-first strategy. This can potentially make them more time-efficient, but typically at a heavy cost in space-efficiency.
Read more about this topic: Alpha-beta Pruning