◄ DISTRO FIGHTER ▶Play the game

16 top Linux DEs & WMs

The 16 desktops and window managers we picked for the game, A–Z. Tap any one for its strengths, considerations, 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, so you get 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.