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Comparison of X window managers
List article

This article compares variety of different X window managers. For an introduction to the topic, see X Window System.

General information

NameTypeLanguageInitial releaseLatest releaseLicenseMemory (MB)1
VersionDate
9wmStackingC19941.4.22 2022-01-19MIT0.4
aewmStackingC19991.3.123 2007-12-27MIT
awesomeDynamicC, Lua2007-09-184.34 2019-01-28GPL-2.0-or-later9
BerryStackingC2018-08-240.1.122022-10-24MIT
BlackboxStackingC++19970.775 2021-05-12MIT3
bspwmTilingC2013-04-230.9.106 2020-08-02BSD-2-clause7
CompizCompositingC (OpenGL)20060.9.14.28 2022-08-22MIT
CTWMStackingC19924.1.02023-03-26MIT
cwmStackingC2004-07-1039 2005-08-28ISC8
dkwmDynamicC2019-12-011.9-12023-06-18MIT/X
dwmDynamicC2006-07-146.510 2024-03-19MIT1
EnlightenmentCompositingC19970.27.111 2025-03-14BSD-2-clause
Enlightenment 1612CompositingC2009-06-031.0.302024-08-10
evilwm13StackingC20001.4.3142024-03-09aewm/9wm15
EXWMTilingEmacs Lisp20180.32162024-10-05GPL-3.0-or-later
FluxboxStackingC++2001-09-121.3.717 2015-02-08MIT16
FLWMStackingC++ (FLTK)19981.0218 2006-06-30GPL-2.0-or-later
FVWMDynamicC1993-06-01GPL4
herbstluftwmDynamicC++2011-10-020.9.52022-07-30BSD-2-clause
i3DynamicC2009-03-154.2419 2024-11-06BSD-3-clause3
IceWMStackingC++19973.7.420 2025-04-21LGPL-2.0-only4.5
IonTilingC, Lua2000Final2009-01-10LGPL-2.1-only21
JWMStackingC20032.4.5222024-10-05MIT3
KWin (KDE)CompositingC++ (Qt)20026.3.2.123 2025-02-25GPL41
LeftWMTilingRust20190.5.32024-10-20MIT
MatchboxStackingC2007-04-131.2.3242023-03-15GPL-2.0-or-later
Metacity (GNOME 2)CompositingC, C++ (GTK+)2002-103.54.025 2024-10-05GPL-2.0-or-later
Moksha (E17)CompositingC2015-08-110.4.1262023-07-23
Motif Window Manager (mwm)StackingC19892.3.827 2017-12-05LGPL-2.1-or-later
Mutter (GNOME 3+/MeeGo)CompositingC (Clutter)2011-0447.628 2025-03-05GPL-2.0-or-later18.6
OpenboxStackingC2002-09-183.6.129 2015-07-01GPL-2.0-or-later7
PekWMStackingC++20090.3.230 2024-12-29GPL-2.0-or-later5.3
PlayWMStackingC2013-31-01Final2013-02-10GPL
QtileDynamicPython2008-08-310.31.031 2025-03-07MIT2
RagnarTilingC2023-05-151.5.02024-08-17GPL
RatpoisonTilingC2000-12-041.4.92017-04-03GPL-2.0-or-later1
SawfishStackingLisp, C2000-01-011.13.032 2021-12-24GPL-2.0-or-later3.1
SithWM Archived 2022-03-26 at the Wayback MachineStackingC20071.2.333 2008-04-25GPL
spectrwmDynamicC2012-02-073.6.0342024-07-10ISC
steamcompmgrCompositingC352013BSD-2-clause36
StumpWMTilingCommon Lisp2017-01-1223.11372024-11-29GPL-2.0-or-later
twmStackingC19871.0.13.13839 2025-05-06MIT-open-groupMIT-CMUXFree86-1.01.2
Ultrix Window Manager (uwm)StackingC1985Final401988-10-27Similar to BSD licenses
Window MakerStackingC19970.96.041 2023-08-05GPL-2.0-or-later7
WingoDynamicGo2012Final2018WTFPL
wmiiDynamicC2005-06-013.9.242 2010-06-10MIT
Xfwm (Xfce)CompositingC, C++ (GTK+)19964.19432024-11-01GPL, LGPL70
xmonadDynamicHaskell2007-03-060.18.044 2024-02-03BSD-3-clause2
wormDynamicNim2021-12-120.3.32024-03-30MIT
NameTypeLanguageInitial releaseLatest releaseLicenseMemory (MB)
VersionDate

Features

NameConfigurable titlebar buttonsGraphical configurationHotkeysICCCM/EWMH compliantPanel for window switchingTabbed windowsThemeable
9wmNoNoNoYesNoNo
aewmNoNoNoYesYesNoNo
awesomeYesNoYesYesYesNoYes
BerryNoYes45Yes46NoNoNoYes
BlackboxNoDepends47Depends48Yes49YesNoYes
bspwmNoNoYes50PartialNoNoNo
CompizYesYesYesYesDepends51YesYes
CTWMYesPartialYesYes
cwmno titlebar buttonsNoYesNoNoYes
dkwm
dwmno titlebar buttonsNoYesYesNoYes
EnlightenmentYesYesYesYesYesNoYes
evilwm52no titlebar buttonsNoYesPartial53NoNoYes
EXWMNoNoYesPartialNoDependsYes
FluxboxYesDepends54YesYes55YesYesYes
FLWMNoYesNo56NoNo
FVWMYesNoYesYesYesYes57Depends585960
herbstluftwmno titlebar buttonsNoYesYesNoYesYes
i3no titlebar buttonsNoYesYesNoYesYes
IceWMYesDepends61YesYesYesYesYes
Ionno titlebar buttonsNoYesNoYesYes
JWMYesDepends62YesEWMHYesNoYes
KWin (KDE)YesYesYesYesYesYesYes
LeftWM
MatchboxEWMH complianceNoNoYes
Metacity (GNOME)YesYesYesYesYesNoYes
Mutter (GNOME/MeeGo)YesYesYesYesGnome ShellNoYes
Moody
Motif Window Manager (mwm)NoNoYesNo63
OpenboxYesDepends64YesYesDepends65NoYes
PekWMYesNoYesPartialNoYesYes
PlayWMYesNoYesYesYesNoYes
QtileYesNoYesYesYesYes
Ragnar
RatpoisonNoNoYesNoNoNoNo
SawfishYesYesYesPartialYesprimitiveYes
SithWM Archived 2022-03-26 at the Wayback Machineno titlebar buttonsNoYesNoNoYes
spectrwmno titlebar buttonsNoYesYesNoNosolid colors
steamcompmgrNoNoYesNoNoNo
StumpWMNoNoYesNoNoNoNo
twmYesNoYesYesNosolid colors
uwm
Window MakerNoYesYesPartialYesYesYes
WingoYesNoYesYesYesNoYes
WMFSYesNoYesYesYesYesYes
wmiiYesNoYesYesNoYesYes
Xfwm (Xfce)YesYesYesYesYesNoYes
xmonadYesNoYesYes / ?Depends66YesYes
worm
NameConfigurable titlebar buttonsGraphical configurationHotkeysICCCM/EWMH compliantPanel for window switchingTabbed windowsThemeable

See also

  • Free and open-source software portal

References

  1. "A Memory Comparison of Light Linux Desktops". l3net - a layer 3 networking blog. 2013-03-17. Retrieved 2017-12-28. https://l3net.wordpress.com/2013/03/17/a-memory-comparison-of-light-linux-desktops/ ↩

  2. "Release 1.4.2 · 9wm/9wm · GitHub". https://github.com/9wm/9wm/releases/tag/1.4.2 ↩

  3. "aewm". Archived from the original on 11 October 2019. Retrieved 19 January 2018. https://web.archive.org/web/20191011045208/https://www.red-bean.com/decklin/aewm/ ↩

  4. "Release 4.3". 28 January 2019. Retrieved 28 January 2019. https://github.com/awesomeWM/awesome/releases/tag/v4.3 ↩

  5. "Release 0.77". 12 May 2021. Retrieved 21 May 2021. https://github.com/bbidulock/blackboxwm/releases/tag/0.77 ↩

  6. "Release 0.9.10". 2 August 2020. Retrieved 4 August 2020. https://github.com/baskerville/bspwm/releases/tag/0.9.10 ↩

  7. "bspwm License". GitHub. 2 November 2021. https://github.com/baskerville/bspwm/blob/master/LICENSE ↩

  8. "Compiz 0.9.14.2 released". 22 August 2022. Retrieved 26 August 2022. https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/compiz/2022-August/003539.html ↩

  9. "cwm". Archived from the original on 8 June 2015. https://web.archive.org/web/20150608154132/http://monkey.org/~marius/pages/?page=cwm ↩

  10. "bump version to 6.5". 19 March 2024. https://git.suckless.org/dwm/commit/061e9fe9a7db396c0c4f3d996c3908fb43a6d50c.html ↩

  11. "Enlightenment 0.27.1 Release". 14 March 2025. Retrieved 17 March 2025. https://www.enlightenment.org/news/2025-03-14-enlightenment-0.27.1 ↩

  12. "Enlightenment E16". www.enlightenment.org. Retrieved 2024-11-05. https://www.enlightenment.org/e16 ↩

  13. "evilwm - standards support". Archived from the original on 2020-10-27. Retrieved 2009-10-26. evilwm releases following and including version 1.1.0 follow the EWMH standard. https://web.archive.org/web/20201027065835/http://www.6809.org.uk/evilwm/standards.shtml ↩

  14. "Index of /evilwm/dl". www.6809.org.uk. Retrieved 2024-11-04. https://www.6809.org.uk/evilwm/dl/ ↩

  15. "evilwm.txt". https://www.6809.org.uk/evilwm/doc/evilwm.txt ↩

  16. "Releases · emacs-exwm/exwm". GitHub. Retrieved 2024-11-05. https://github.com/emacs-exwm/exwm/releases ↩

  17. "Fluxbox 1.3.7 - Bam! Zero Bugs!!11!". 8 February 2015. Archived from the original on 24 January 2022. Retrieved 24 January 2022. https://web.archive.org/web/20220124112924/https://fluxbox.org/news/all.php ↩

  18. "flwm". http://flwm.sourceforge.net ↩

  19. . 6 November 2024 https://github.com/i3/i3/releases/tag/4.24. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help) https://github.com/i3/i3/releases/tag/4.24 ↩

  20. "Release icewm-3.7.4". 21 April 2025. Retrieved 21 April 2025. https://github.com/ice-wm/icewm/releases/tag/3.7.4 ↩

  21. LGPL-2.1-only with naming restrictions on modified versions. ↩

  22. "Releases · joewing/jwm". GitHub. Retrieved 2024-11-04. https://github.com/joewing/jwm/releases ↩

  23. https://invent.kde.org/plasma/kwin/-/tags/v6.3.2.1. Retrieved 10 March 2025. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help) https://invent.kde.org/plasma/kwin/-/tags/v6.3.2.1 ↩

  24. "matchbox-window-manager - Matchbox Window Manager v1". git.yoctoproject.org. Retrieved 2024-11-04. https://git.yoctoproject.org/matchbox-window-manager/ ↩

  25. "3.54.0". 5 October 2024. Retrieved 8 January 2025. https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/metacity/-/tags/3.54.0 ↩

  26. "Releases · JeffHoogland/moksha". GitHub. Retrieved 2024-11-10. https://github.com/JeffHoogland/moksha/releases ↩

  27. "Motif 2.3.8 Source Code". 5 December 2017. https://sourceforge.net/projects/motif/files/Motif%202.3.8%20Source%20Code/ ↩

  28. "47.6 · GNOME / mutter · GitLab". 5 March 2025. Retrieved 16 March 2025. https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/releases/47.6 ↩

  29. "Openbox:Changelog". http://openbox.org/wiki/Openbox:Changelog#3.6.1 ↩

  30. "Release 0.3.2". 29 December 2024. Retrieved 26 January 2025. https://github.com/pekwm/pekwm/releases/tag/release-0.3.2 ↩

  31. "Release 0.31.0". 7 March 2025. Retrieved 27 March 2025. https://github.com/qtile/qtile/releases/tag/v0.31.0 ↩

  32. https://github.com/SawfishWM/sawfish/releases/tag/sawfish-1.13.0. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help) https://github.com/SawfishWM/sawfish/releases/tag/sawfish-1.13.0 ↩

  33. https://sithwm.darkside.no/sn/?M=D. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help) https://sithwm.darkside.no/sn/?M=D ↩

  34. "Releases · conformal/spectrwm". GitHub. Retrieved 2024-11-05. https://github.com/conformal/spectrwm/releases ↩

  35. "steamos-compositor debian source package". /steamos-compositor-1.35/src/steamcompmgr.c. https://repo.steampowered.com/steamos/pool/main/s/steamos-compositor/steamos-compositor_1.35.tar.xz ↩

  36. "steamos-compositor amd64 debian package". /usr/share/doc/steamos-compositor/copyright. License: BSD-2-clause https://repo.steampowered.com/steamos/pool/main/s/steamos-compositor/steamos-compositor_1.35+bsos1_amd64.deb ↩

  37. "Releases · stumpwm/stumpwm". GitHub. Retrieved 2024-11-05. https://github.com/stumpwm/stumpwm/releases ↩

  38. "[ANNOUNCE] twm 1.0.13.1". 6 May 2025. Retrieved 9 May 2025. https://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg01809.html ↩

  39. "twm-1.0.13.1 · タグ · xorg / app / twm ·". 6 May 2025. Retrieved 9 May 2025. https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xorg/app/twm/-/tags/twm-1.0.13.1 ↩

  40. "wm/uwm - The NetBSD Packages Collection". cdn.netbsd.org. Retrieved 2024-11-05. https://cdn.netbsd.org/pub/pkgsrc/current/pkgsrc/wm/uwm/index.html ↩

  41. "Version 0.96.0 released". 5 August 2023. Retrieved 7 August 2023. https://www.windowmaker.org/news/ ↩

  42. https://code.google.com/archive/p/wmii/downloads. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help) https://code.google.com/archive/p/wmii/downloads ↩

  43. "xfce:xfwm4:start [Xfce Docs]". docs.xfce.org. Retrieved 2024-11-04. https://docs.xfce.org/xfce/xfwm4/start#latest_release ↩

  44. "Release 0.18.0". 3 February 2024. Retrieved 20 February 2024. https://github.com/xmonad/xmonad/releases/tag/v0.18.0 ↩

  45. Via CLI client. ↩

  46. Via CLI client and third party (e.g. sxhkd). ↩

  47. Via third party. ↩

  48. With bbkeys. ↩

  49. Through 0.65 / from 0.70.[44] ↩

  50. With sxhkd. ↩

  51. Via third party. ↩

  52. "evilwm - standards support". Archived from the original on 2020-10-27. Retrieved 2009-10-26. evilwm releases following and including version 1.1.0 follow the EWMH standard. https://web.archive.org/web/20201027065835/http://www.6809.org.uk/evilwm/standards.shtml ↩

  53. "evilwm - standards support". Archived from the original on 2020-10-27. Retrieved 2009-10-26. evilwm releases following and including version 1.1.0 follow the EWMH standard. https://web.archive.org/web/20201027065835/http://www.6809.org.uk/evilwm/standards.shtml ↩

  54. Via third party. ↩

  55. "Tables". Archived from the original on 2009-08-19. Retrieved 2011-05-07. https://web.archive.org/web/20090819040039/http://fluxbox.sourceforge.net/docs/ewmh-support.html ↩

  56. There is a window list menu. ↩

  57. FvwmTabs Archived 2009-08-02 at the Wayback Machine http://www.fvwm.org/documentation/manpages/unstable/FvwmTabs.php ↩

  58. Via third party. ↩

  59. Fvwm Themes http://fvwm-themes.sourceforge.net/ ↩

  60. FVWM-Crystal ↩

  61. Via third party. ↩

  62. Via third party. ↩

  63. Can change colours. ↩

  64. Via third party. ↩

  65. Via third party. ↩

  66. Via third party. ↩