◄ DISTRO FIGHTER▶ Play the game

16 top Linux DEs & WMs

The 16 desktops and window managers we picked for the game, A–Z. Tap one for its profile and who it's for — or play the quiz and let the desktop round decide.

Distros (32)Desktops & WMs (16)Play →

Prefer a written ranking? Read the 10 best Linux desktop environments on Hayden's Linux blog.

awesome WM
A Lua-scripted tiling WM that ships a working setup — dynamic tiling without starting from zero.
Budgie DE
A sleek, modern desktop with a clean panel and sane defaults out of the box.
Cinnamon DE
Traditional, polished, and friendly — Windows-familiar without the bloat.
COSMIC DE
System76's Rust-built desktop — fast, modern, Wayland-native with optional tiling baked in.
Deepin DE
The most polished-looking desktop on Linux — glossy effects and a macOS-style dock, heavy but gorgeous.
GNOME DE
A clean, gesture-driven, opinionated desktop that gets out of your way once you adapt.
Hyprland WM
Flashy Wayland tiling with animations and effects; bleeding-edge eye-candy.
i3wm WM
Keyboard-driven tiling you build yourself; minimal, fast, exactly your config.
KDE Plasma DE
Endlessly customizable and feature-rich; make it look like anything, tweak everything.
LXQt DE
Qt-based and feather-light — keeps old or low-RAM hardware feeling quick.
MATE DE
The classic GNOME 2 layout, kept alive: simple, fast, and predictable.
Openbox WM
A barebones stacking window manager — light, scriptable, and yours to shape.
Pantheon DE
The most design-focused desktop on Linux; calm, consistent, macOS-ish.
Qtile WM
A tiling WM configured in pure Python — hackable, keyboard-driven, X11 or Wayland.
Sway WM
I3's tiling workflow on Wayland — same keybinds, modern display stack.
Xfce DE
A full desktop that's light and slow-moving — the boring partner that stays out of your way.