Comparison of X window managers - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

This article compares variety of different X window manager
X window manager
An X window manager is a window manager which runs on top of the X Window System, a windowing system mainly used on Unix-like systems.Unlike the Mac OS and Microsoft Windows platforms which have historically provided a vendor-controlled, fixed set of ways to control how windows and panes display...

s. For an introduction to the topic, see X Window System

X Window System

The X window system is a computer software system and network protocol that provides a basis for graphical user interfaces and rich input device capability for networked computers...

Name	Language	License	Type	Configurable titlebar buttons
Compiz Compiz Compiz is one of the first compositing window managers for the X Window System that uses 3D graphics hardware to create fast compositing desktop effects for window management. The effects, such as a minimization effect and a cube workspace are implemented as loadable plugins...	C++ C++ C++ is a statically typed, free-form, multi-paradigm, compiled, general-purpose programming language. It is regarded as an intermediate-level language, as it comprises a combination of both high-level and low-level language features. It was developed by Bjarne Stroustrup starting in 1979 at Bell... (OpenGL OpenGL OpenGL is a standard specification defining a cross-language, cross-platform API for writing applications that produce 2D and 3D computer graphics. The interface consists of over 250 different function calls which can be used to draw complex three-dimensional scenes from simple primitives. OpenGL... )	MIT MIT License The MIT License is a free software license originating at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology . It is a permissive license, meaning that it permits reuse within proprietary software provided all copies of the licensed software include a copy of the MIT License terms...	Compositing Compositing window manager A compositing window manager is a type of window manager. A window manager is software that draws a graphical user interface on a computer display – it positions windows, draws additional elements on windows , and controls how windows interact with each other, and with the rest of the desktop...
cwm Cwm (window manager) cwm is a stacking window manager for X Window System available on OpenBSD , NetBSD, DragonFlyBSD and Linux distributions using pkgsrc, Gentoo Linux and some other Linux distributions....	C C (programming language) C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....	ISC	Stacking
KWin (KDE) KWin KWin is a window manager for the X Window System. It is an integral part of the KDE Software Compilation, although it can be used on its own or with other desktop environments.- History :- Look and feel :...	C++ C++ C++ is a statically typed, free-form, multi-paradigm, compiled, general-purpose programming language. It is regarded as an intermediate-level language, as it comprises a combination of both high-level and low-level language features. It was developed by Bjarne Stroustrup starting in 1979 at Bell... (Qt Qt (toolkit) Qt is a cross-platform application framework that is widely used for developing application software with a graphical user interface , and also used for developing non-GUI programs such as command-line tools and consoles for servers... )	GPL GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....	Compositing Compositing window manager A compositing window manager is a type of window manager. A window manager is software that draws a graphical user interface on a computer display – it positions windows, draws additional elements on windows , and controls how windows interact with each other, and with the rest of the desktop... and Tiling Tiling window manager In computing, a tiling window manager is a window manager with an organization of the screen into mutually non-overlapping frames, as opposed to the more popular approach of coordinate-based stacking of overlapping objects that tries to fully emulate the desktop metaphor.-Xerox PARC:Although the...
Metacity (GNOME) Metacity Metacity was the window manager used by default in the GNOME desktop environment until GNOME 3, where it was replaced by Mutter. The development of Metacity was started by Havoc Pennington and it is released under the GNU General Public License....	C C (programming language) C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system.... , C++ C++ C++ is a statically typed, free-form, multi-paradigm, compiled, general-purpose programming language. It is regarded as an intermediate-level language, as it comprises a combination of both high-level and low-level language features. It was developed by Bjarne Stroustrup starting in 1979 at Bell... (GTK+ GTK+ GTK+ is a cross-platform widget toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces. It is licensed under the terms of the GNU LGPL, allowing both free and proprietary software to use it. It is one of the most popular toolkits for the X Window System, along with Qt.The name GTK+ originates from GTK;... )	GPL GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....	Compositing Compositing window manager A compositing window manager is a type of window manager. A window manager is software that draws a graphical user interface on a computer display – it positions windows, draws additional elements on windows , and controls how windows interact with each other, and with the rest of the desktop...
Mutter (GNOME/MeeGo) Mutter (window manager) Mutter is the window manager for which GNOME Shell is a plugin in GNOME 3, replacing Metacity....	C C (programming language) C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system.... (Clutter)	GPL GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....	Compositing Compositing window manager A compositing window manager is a type of window manager. A window manager is software that draws a graphical user interface on a computer display – it positions windows, draws additional elements on windows , and controls how windows interact with each other, and with the rest of the desktop...
Xfwm (Xfce)	C C (programming language) C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system.... , C++ C++ C++ is a statically typed, free-form, multi-paradigm, compiled, general-purpose programming language. It is regarded as an intermediate-level language, as it comprises a combination of both high-level and low-level language features. It was developed by Bjarne Stroustrup starting in 1979 at Bell... (GTK+ GTK+ GTK+ is a cross-platform widget toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces. It is licensed under the terms of the GNU LGPL, allowing both free and proprietary software to use it. It is one of the most popular toolkits for the X Window System, along with Qt.The name GTK+ originates from GTK;... )	GPL GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project.... , LGPL GNU Lesser General Public License The GNU Lesser General Public License or LGPL is a free software license published by the Free Software Foundation . It was designed as a compromise between the strong-copyleft GNU General Public License or GPL and permissive licenses such as the BSD licenses and the MIT License...	Compositing Compositing window manager A compositing window manager is a type of window manager. A window manager is software that draws a graphical user interface on a computer display – it positions windows, draws additional elements on windows , and controls how windows interact with each other, and with the rest of the desktop...
Enlightenment Enlightenment (window manager) Enlightenment, also known simply as E, is a stacking window manager for the X Window System which can be used alone or in conjunction with a desktop environment such as GNOME or KDE...	C C (programming language) C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....	BSD	Stacking
IceWM IceWM IceWM is a stacking window manager for the X Window System graphical infrastructure, written by Marko Maček. It was coded from scratch in C++ and is released under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License...	C++ C++ C++ is a statically typed, free-form, multi-paradigm, compiled, general-purpose programming language. It is regarded as an intermediate-level language, as it comprises a combination of both high-level and low-level language features. It was developed by Bjarne Stroustrup starting in 1979 at Bell...	GPL GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project.... , LGPL GNU Lesser General Public License The GNU Lesser General Public License or LGPL is a free software license published by the Free Software Foundation . It was designed as a compromise between the strong-copyleft GNU General Public License or GPL and permissive licenses such as the BSD licenses and the MIT License...	Stacking
JWM JWM JWM is a lightweight stacking window manager for the X Window System written by Joe Wingbermuehle. JWM is written in C and uses only Xlib at a minimum...	C C (programming language) C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....	GPL GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....	Stacking
Blackbox Blackbox In Unix computing, Blackbox is a stacking window manager for the X Window System.Blackbox has specific design goals, and some functionality is provided only through other applications. One example is the bbkeys hotkey application....	C++ C++ C++ is a statically typed, free-form, multi-paradigm, compiled, general-purpose programming language. It is regarded as an intermediate-level language, as it comprises a combination of both high-level and low-level language features. It was developed by Bjarne Stroustrup starting in 1979 at Bell...	MIT MIT License The MIT License is a free software license originating at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology . It is a permissive license, meaning that it permits reuse within proprietary software provided all copies of the licensed software include a copy of the MIT License terms...	Stacking
Fluxbox Fluxbox Fluxbox is a stacking window manager for the X Window System, which started as a fork of Blackbox 0.61.1, with the same aim to be lightweight. Its user interface has only a taskbar, a pop-up menu accessible by right-clicking on the desktop, and minimal support for graphical icons...	C++ C++ C++ is a statically typed, free-form, multi-paradigm, compiled, general-purpose programming language. It is regarded as an intermediate-level language, as it comprises a combination of both high-level and low-level language features. It was developed by Bjarne Stroustrup starting in 1979 at Bell...	MIT MIT License The MIT License is a free software license originating at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology . It is a permissive license, meaning that it permits reuse within proprietary software provided all copies of the licensed software include a copy of the MIT License terms...	Stacking
Openbox Openbox Openbox is a free window manager for the X Window System, licensed under the GNU General Public License. Originally derived from Blackbox 0.65.0 , Openbox has now been totally rewritten in the C programming language and since version 3.0 is not based upon any code from Blackbox.Openbox is designed...	C C (programming language) C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....	GPL GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....	Stacking
awesome Awesome (window manager) awesome is a dynamic window manager for the X Window System developed in the C and Lua programming languages. The latter is also used for configuring and extending the window manager. Its development began as a fork of dwm...	C C (programming language) C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system.... , Lua	GPL GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....	Dynamic Dynamic window manager In computing, a dynamic window manager is a tiling window manager where windows are tiled based on preset layouts between which the user can switch. Layouts typically have a master area and a slave area. The master area usually shows one window, but one can also change the amount of windows in this...
xmonad Xmonad xmonad is a tiling window manager for the X Window System, written in the functional programming language Haskell.Begun in March 2007, it is similar to dwm, larswm, StumpWM and other members of the tiling window manager family, in that it arranges windows in a nonoverlapping tiled pattern and...	Haskell Haskell (programming language) Haskell is a standardized, general-purpose purely functional programming language, with non-strict semantics and strong static typing. It is named after logician Haskell Curry. In Haskell, "a function is a first-class citizen" of the programming language. As a functional programming language, the...	BSD	Dynamic Dynamic window manager In computing, a dynamic window manager is a tiling window manager where windows are tiled based on preset layouts between which the user can switch. Layouts typically have a master area and a slave area. The master area usually shows one window, but one can also change the amount of windows in this...
FVWM FVWM The F Virtual Window Manager is a virtual window manager for the X Window System. Originally a twm derivative, FVWM has evolved into a powerful and highly configurable environment for Unix-like systems.- History:...	C C (programming language) C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....	GPL GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....	Dynamic Dynamic window manager In computing, a dynamic window manager is a tiling window manager where windows are tiled based on preset layouts between which the user can switch. Layouts typically have a master area and a slave area. The master area usually shows one window, but one can also change the amount of windows in this...
Ion	C C (programming language) C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system.... , Lua	LGPL GNU Lesser General Public License The GNU Lesser General Public License or LGPL is a free software license published by the Free Software Foundation . It was designed as a compromise between the strong-copyleft GNU General Public License or GPL and permissive licenses such as the BSD licenses and the MIT License... with naming restrictions on modified versions	Tiling Tiling window manager In computing, a tiling window manager is a window manager with an organization of the screen into mutually non-overlapping frames, as opposed to the more popular approach of coordinate-based stacking of overlapping objects that tries to fully emulate the desktop metaphor.-Xerox PARC:Although the... and stacking	no titlebar buttons
twm Twm In computing, twm is the standard window manager for the X Window System, version X11R4 onwards...	C C (programming language) C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....	MIT License MIT License The MIT License is a free software license originating at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology . It is a permissive license, meaning that it permits reuse within proprietary software provided all copies of the licensed software include a copy of the MIT License terms...	re-parenting Re-parenting window manager A stacking window manager is a window manager that draws all windows in a specific order, allowing them to overlap, using a technique called painter's algorithm...
Matchbox Matchbox (window manager) Matchbox is a free and open source window manager for the X Window System. It is mainly intended for embedded systems and differs from most other window managers in that it only shows one window at a time...	C C (programming language) C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....	GPL GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....	Stacking
sithWM	C C (programming language) C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....	GPL GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....	Stacking	no titlebar buttons
evilwm	C C (programming language) C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....	AEWM	Stacking	no titlebar buttons
dwm Dwm dwm is a dynamic tiling window manager for X11 exhibiting the principles of minimalism which is known for having influenced the development of other window managers, including xmonad and awesome. It is externally similar to wmii, but internally much simpler. dwm is written purely in C and, for...	C C (programming language) C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....	MIT MIT License The MIT License is a free software license originating at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology . It is a permissive license, meaning that it permits reuse within proprietary software provided all copies of the licensed software include a copy of the MIT License terms...	Tiling Tiling window manager In computing, a tiling window manager is a window manager with an organization of the screen into mutually non-overlapping frames, as opposed to the more popular approach of coordinate-based stacking of overlapping objects that tries to fully emulate the desktop metaphor.-Xerox PARC:Although the... and stacking	no titlebar buttons
WMFS	C C (programming language) C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....	BSD	Tiling Tiling window manager In computing, a tiling window manager is a window manager with an organization of the screen into mutually non-overlapping frames, as opposed to the more popular approach of coordinate-based stacking of overlapping objects that tries to fully emulate the desktop metaphor.-Xerox PARC:Although the...
wmii Wmii wmii is a tiling window manager for X11. It supports classic and tiling window management with extended keyboard, mouse, and filesystem based remote control...	C C (programming language) C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....	MIT MIT License The MIT License is a free software license originating at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology . It is a permissive license, meaning that it permits reuse within proprietary software provided all copies of the licensed software include a copy of the MIT License terms...	Dynamic Dynamic window manager In computing, a dynamic window manager is a tiling window manager where windows are tiled based on preset layouts between which the user can switch. Layouts typically have a master area and a slave area. The master area usually shows one window, but one can also change the amount of windows in this...
scrotwm	C C (programming language) C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....	BSD	Tiling Tiling window manager In computing, a tiling window manager is a window manager with an organization of the screen into mutually non-overlapping frames, as opposed to the more popular approach of coordinate-based stacking of overlapping objects that tries to fully emulate the desktop metaphor.-Xerox PARC:Although the... and stacking	no titlebar buttons
FLWM FLWM The Fast Light Window Manager is a stacking window manager written in C++ and available for redistribution under the terms of the GNU General Public Licence.- Features :Features of the FLWM window manager include:* Stacking windows* Written in C++...	C C (programming language) C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system.... (FLTK FLTK FLTK is a cross-platform GUI library developed by Bill Spitzak and others. Made with 3D graphics programming in mind, it has an interface to OpenGL, but it is also suitable for general GUI programming.... )	GPL GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....	stacking

See also