Budgie
A sleek, modern desktop with a clean panel and sane defaults out of the box.
Budgie aims for the sweet spot between GNOME\'s minimalism and a traditional desktop\'s practicality. Born at Solus and now developed by the Buddies of Budgie project, it pairs a clean single panel and menu with Raven, a slide-out sidebar unifying notifications, media controls, and quick settings in one place.
The design philosophy is "sane by default": attractive without configuration, familiar without cloning anyone, and light enough for ordinary hardware. Budgie 10 continues maturing on GTK while the project plans its longer-term Wayland-native future. It is a tasteful middle path that many users find exactly right on first boot.
Strengths
- Clean, modern look that needs zero setup to be pleasant.
- Raven sidebar: notifications and controls in one elegant place.
- Familiar enough for switchers, fresh enough to feel current.
- Moderate footprint: lighter than GNOME, fuller than Xfce.
- Available across many distros (Solus, Ubuntu Budgie, Fedora).
Considerations
- Smaller development team than the giant desktops.
- Wayland support is still on the roadmap; X11 today.
- Customization depth is intentionally shallower than Plasma's.
Standout features
- Raven: the most polished notification/control center idea outside GNOME.
- Sane-defaults philosophy that respects new users' time.
- Solus pedigree: designed as a first-class desktop, not a fork.
- Budgie Desktop Settings make its options approachable.
Who it's for
Best for
People who want a modern, good-looking desktop that is right out of the box with minimal fiddling.Maybe not for
Deep customizers and Wayland-first adopters, for now.The Budgie player profile
In Distro Fighter's desktop round, Budgie tends to win for people who…
Distros that ship it
Signature moves
Similar desktops
Is Budgie right for you?
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