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The Comprehensive List of Wayland Compositors for Unix
See X Window Managers Table or Text Window Managers Table for other categories.
This is a list of every freely available Wayland compositor I'm aware of (51 in 2025-01). New testing/alpha/beta versions won't be listed when a stable version is available. You can sort the table on a particular field by clicking on the header row (should work in any browser).
Recent adds (that doesn't mean it's a new compositor): Miriway (2025-01-09), Pinnacle (2025-01-04), LaikaWM (2025-01-03), Jay (2025-01-03), Greenfield (2025-01-02), Woodland (2024-12-31), croissant (2024-12-31), gogh (2024-12-26), Theseus' Ship (2024-08-08), ittywm (2024-08-08), korgwm (2024-08-07), phoc (2024-08-07), fswm (2024-08-04), Aphelia (2024-08-04).
Most recent updates: 2025-04-22 08:18
| Name | Display | URLs | Version | Release date | Download Link | Date checked | Authors | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| cagebreak | Wayland | [homepage] | 3.0.0 | 20250412 | https://github.com/project-repo/cagebreak/tags | 20250415 | "project-repo" on GitHub | "A Wayland Tiling Compositor Inspired by Ratpoison." MIT license. |
| croissant | Wayland | [homepage] | git | 20250323 | https://codeberg.org/vyivel/croissant | 20250324 | Kirill "vyivel" Primak | "A stacking Wayland compositor." GPL 3.0 only license. |
| dwl | Wayland | [homepage] | 0.7 | 20240806 | https://codeberg.org/dwl/dwl/tags | 20250324 | Devin J. Pohly | "dwl is a compact, hackable compositor for Wayland based on wlroots. It is intended to fill the same space in the Wayland world that dwm does in X11 ..." |
| Enlightenment | Wayland/X11 |
[homepage] [Wikipedia] |
0.27.1 | 20250314 | https://download.enlightenment.org/rel/apps/enlightenment/ | 20250320 | Orig. Geoff "Mandrake" Harrison and Carsten "Rasterman" Haitzler. Now a large team. | Bringing you shaped windows, configurability, and heavy graphics since 2000. Originally based on fvwm 2. Big Samsung funding 2009-11. Version E17 dropped 2012-12 after a decade wait. This is a "Desktop Environment," not just a WM. (X11) Forks: E16, Moksha (E17). |
| foxwhale | Wayland | [homepage] | git | 20241020 | https://github.com/malcolmstill/foxwhale | 20250416 | Malcolm Still | "A Wayland compositor written in Zig," MIT license. According to another source (his notes are sparse), it's tiling and uses wlroots. |
| GNOME | Wayland/X11 |
[homepage] [Wikipedia] |
48 | 20250319 | https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/-/tags | 20250417 | This is a Desktop Environment and NOT a Window Manager. They rely on other WMs, previously Enlightenment, Sawfish, Compiz, Metacity, and now Mutter. | |
| gogh | Wayland | [homepage] | git | 20250205 | https://github.com/xTrayambak/gogh | 20250322 | Trayambak 'xTrayambak' Rai | Written in Nim using the Louvre Wayland library, meant to be a replacement for Hyprland. Unlicensed. |
| Greenfield | Wayland | [homepage] | 1.0.0-rc1 | 20231204 | https://github.com/udevbe/greenfield/tags | 20250328 | Erik "Zubnix" De Rijcke et al | "Greenfield is the Wayland compositor for the web. It runs native Linux applications remotely, or WebAssembly applications directly in your browser." Written in Typescript and C. AGPL-3.0 License. |
| hikari | Wayland | [homepage] | 2.3.3 | 20220113 | https://hikari.acmelabs.space/releases/ | 20250420 (HSTS Error) | Stacking Wayland compositor for FreeBSD and Linux. 2025-01-24: Site has ongoing intermittent HSTS security problems. | |
| hopalong | Wayland | [homepage] | git | 20220810 | https://github.com/iridescent-desktop/hopalong | 20250417 | Ariadne "kaniini" Conill | "... a featureset comparable to XFWM. ... Design Goals: Window managers should stay out of the user's way and be as boring as possible." Built on wlroots. |
| Hyprland | Wayland | [homepage] | 0.48.0 | 20250323 | https://github.com/hyprwm/Hyprland/tags | 20250328 | GitHub: "Vaxry"/"vaxerski" | "Hyprland is a highly customizable dynamic tiling Wayland compositor that doesn't sacrifice on its looks." BSD license, written in C++. |
| japokwm | Wayland | [homepage] | 0.4.2 | 20230115 | https://github.com/werererer/japokwm/tags | 20250418 | Jakob "werererer" Schlanstedt | "Dynamic tiling Wayland compositor that empowers you to create stunning layouts with ease." Based on wlroots. BSD license. Looks like it requires dynamic editing of a text file to change layout. |
| Jay | Wayland | [homepage] | 1.9.1 | 20250213 | https://github.com/mahkoh/jay/tags | 20250330 | "mahkoh" | "Jay's appearance is based on the default i3 look and feel." So ... tiling compositor, written in Rust, GPL 3.0 license. |
| KDE | Wayland/X11 |
[homepage] [Wikipedia] |
6.3.4 | 20250401 | https://kde.org/announcements/plasma/6/ | 20250421 | KDE (unlike its best known competitor) does include a Window Manager, kwin. Famous, big, pretty. | |
| kiwmi | Wayland | [homepage] | git | 20220730 | https://github.com/buffet/kiwmi | 20250418 | "buffet" | "WIP," Lua-scripted, "New users should be aware of the steep learning curve present ..." MPL license. |
| labwc | Wayland | [homepage] | 0.8.3 | 20250221 | https://github.com/labwc/labwc/tags | 20250412 | Johan Malm et al | "Labwc stands for Lab Wayland Compositor ... inspired by BunsenLabs and ArchLabs ... inspired by openbox." |
| LaikaWM | Wayland | [homepage] | git | 20201001 | https://github.com/ianmartinez/laikawm | 20250330 | Ian Martinez | "A lightweight compositor for Wayland" using wlroots "that is inspired by ... IceWM and Fluxbox." Written in C++, GPL 2.0 license. "This is very early in development and is still incomplete. All screenshots on this page are mockups." |
| Liri OS Shell | Wayland/X11 | [homepage] | git | 20240119 | https://github.com/lirios/shell | 20250331 | the Liri team ... but primarily Pier Luigi ("plfiorini") Fiorini | The (graphical) "shell" for Liri OS. May not be buildable without that: requires at least Qt and Wayland. |
| magpie | Wayland/X11 | [homepage] | 0.9.4 | 20240926 | https://github.com/BuddiesOfBudgie/magpie/tags | 20250420 | "Buddies of Budgie" | "... a softish fork of Mutter for use with Budgie Desktop." |
| mahogany | Wayland | [homepage] | git | 20250317 | https://github.com/stumpwm/mahogany | 20250420 | Stuart Dilts et al | Tiling. "While it is not a drop-in replacement for stumpwm, stumpwm users should be very comfortable with Mahogany." Written in Lisp and C. GPL2 license. |
| miracle-wm | Wayland | [homepage] | 0.5.1 | 20250320 | https://github.com/mattkae/miracle-wm/tags | 20250331 | Matthew "mattkae" Kosarek | Most Wayland compositors use wl-roots, this one uses Canonical's abandoned (now community-supported) Mir. |
| Miriway | Wayland | [homepage] | 25.02.1 | 20250312 | https://github.com/Miriway/Miriway/tags | 20250401 | Alan Griffiths | "Miriway is a starting point for creating a Wayland based desktop environment using Mir." It's a compositor, but it's mostly intended for the development of other compositors? Written in C++, GPL 3.0 license. |
| Muffin | Wayland/X11 | [homepage] | 6.4.1 | 20241202 | https://github.com/linuxmint/muffin/tags | 20250421 | Primary GitHub contributors: Clement Lefebvre, Michael Webster | The WM for Cinnamon. Cinnamon is a GNOME Shell fork, and Muffin a fork of Mutter, the GNOME Shell WM. |
| Mutter | Wayland/X11 |
[homepage] [Wikipedia] |
48.2 | 20250413 | https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/tags | 20250421 | The base WM for GNOME 3, replaced Metacity using the Clutter graphics library (thus the name). Can apparently be used as a stand-alone WM. | |
| niri | Wayland | [homepage] | 25.02 | 20250222 | https://github.com/YaLTeR/niri/tags | 20250406 | Ivan "YaLTeR" Molodetskikh | Infinite side-scrolling tiling Wayland compositor written in Rust. "Windows are arranged in columns on an infinite strip going to the right. Opening a new window never causes existing windows to resize." |
| newm | Wayland | [homepage] | git | 20230603 | https://github.com/jbuchermn/newm/ | 20250412 | Jonas Bucher | Wayland compositor, written in Python, tiling, MIT license. "[T]his repo is currently unmaintained. See newm-atha!" |
| newm-atha | Wayland | [homepage] | git | 20230808 | https://git.sr.ht/~atha/newm-atha | 20250415 | "atha" ("Pandademic" on GitHub) | Fork of newm (previous maintainer didn't have time), "a touchpad & touchscreen centric wayland compositor based on wlroots." |
| orbment | Wayland | [homepage] | git | 20160813 | https://github.com/cloudef/orbment | 20250406 | Jari "Cloudef" Vetoniemi | Tiling compositor for Wayland. On their website, this is filed under "Unmaintained projects." |
| phoc | Wayland | [homepage] | 0.45.0 | 20250214 | https://gitlab.gnome.org/World/Phosh/phoc/-/tags | 20250323 | "A wlroots based Wayland compositor mostly used on mobile phones. Often used as part of Phosh [GNOME phone project] but works perfectly well on its own." | |
| Pinnacle | Wayland | [homepage] | git | 20250407 | https://github.com/pinnacle-comp/pinnacle | 20250408 | "Ottatop" | "A WIP Smithay-based Wayland compositor, inspired by AwesomeWM and configured in Lua or Rust." Written in Rust, inspired by AwesomeWM, GPL 3.0 license. |
| Qtile | Wayland/X11 | [homepage] | 0.31.0 | 20250307 | https://www.qtile.org/download/ | 20250401 | Aldo Cortesi | Written in Python, tiling, screenshot suggests strong similarities to wmii/dwm. MIT license. |
| River WM | Wayland | [homepage] | 0.3.9 | 20250310 | https://github.com/riverwm/river/tags | 20250411 | Isaac Freund | "River is a dynamic tiling Wayland compositor with flexible runtime configuration." "Note: river is currently early in development. Expect breaking changes and missing features." Written in Zig. |
| stage | Wayland | [homepage] | git | 20250115 | https://github.com/mdepx/stage | 20250422 | Ruslan "mdepx"/"bukinr" Bukin | "This is a minimalistic tiling window manager ... All the features supported you can find reading the code. If you don't want to read code, this WM is not for you." "... depends on development version of wlroots." |
| Stage-Next | Wayland | [homepage] | git | 20240115 | https://gitlab.com/lidgl/stage-next | 20250422 | "lidgl" | Fork of stage. Google Translate tells me the language is Indonesian. |
| stagen | Wayland | [homepage] | git | 20240124 | https://github.com/lidgnulinux/stagen | 20250422 | "lidgnulinux" | "Stage with some additional features. Mirror of Stage-Next." Doesn't appear to be a pure mirror. |
| Strata | Wayland | [homepage] | git | 20240316 | https://github.com/StrataWM/strata | 20250325 | Anant Narayan et al | Wayland compositor written in Rust and based on Smithay library, uses Lua for configuration. |
| Sway | Wayland | [homepage] | 1.10.1 | 20250126 | https://github.com/swaywm/sway/tags | 20250318 | Drew "SirCmpwn" DeVault | Drop-in replacement for i3 that uses Wayland. |
| SwayFX | Wayland | [homepage] | 0.5 | 20250225 | https://github.com/WillPower3309/swayfx/tags | 20250403 | Erik Reider | A fork of Sway with a prettier (blur, rounded corners, shadows, etc.) renderer. |
| Theseus' Ship | Wayland/X11 | [homepage] | 6.2.0 | 20241009 | https://github.com/winft/theseus-ship/tags | 20250403 | many | A "reboot" of KDE's KWin, meant as a drop-in replacement. |
| tinybox | Wayland | [homepage] | git | 20210916 | https://github.com/icedman/tinybox | 20250318 | "icedman" | Started from tinywl, "tries to emulate the blackbox, fluxbox, openbox family of wm." |
| tinywl | Wayland | [homepage] | git | 20211002 | https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/lilydjwg/wlroots/-/tree/master/tinywl | 20250319 | several? | 'This is the "minimum viable product" Wayland compositor based on wlroots. It aims to implement a Wayland compositor in the fewest lines of code possible, while still supporting a reasonable set of features. Reading this code is the best starting point for anyone looking to build their own Wayland compositor based on wlroots.' |
| tinywl+ | Wayland | [homepage] | git | 20230321 | https://github.com/keshto/tinywl_plus | 20250319 | "Keshto" | "A simple stacking wayland compositor based on tinywl. Where features can be applied to wlroot's tinywl example." Meant as a better coding example than the more minimalistic tinywl. Author doesn't appear to be very active. |
| ukwm | Wayland/X11 | [homepage] | 1.2.3 | 20240808 | https://github.com/ukui/ukwm | 20250322 | "handsome-feng," "liuyi92", et al | No README file in the git repo, NEWS file says "Fork from GNOME3 mutter for UKUI." "UKUI" is a desktop environment ... and that's about all I know. |
| Vivarium | Wayland | [homepage] | git | 20230917 | https://github.com/inclement/vivarium | 20250408 | Alexander "inclement" Taylor | Tiling compositor using wlroots "with desktop semantics inspired by xmonad." |
| volare | Wayland | [homepage] | 1.10.1.0 | 20250204 | https://codeberg.org/raboof/volare/tags | 20250320 | Arnout "raboof" Engelen | "Volare is a tabbed, tiling Wayland compositor. ... new windows will show up as tabs in the current frame instead of rearranging the screen layout." "Volare is a branch of sway, with relatively minor changes to make it behave more like Notion." |
| waybox | Wayland | [homepage] | git | 20220418 | https://github.com/schickst/waybox | 20250327 | Stefan "schickst" Schick | Wayland compositor "modeled largely on Openbox." Written in C (originally Rust but he converted?), considered a WIP as of 2024-05. MIT license. |
| Way Cooler | Wayland | [homepage] | 0.8.1 | 20181122 | https://github.com/way-cooler/way-cooler | 20250403 | Preston "Timidger" Carpenter, S. B. "Snirk" Immington, and others on GitHub | "... is a tiling Wayland window manager, written in Rust, configurable using Lua, and extendable with D-Bus." "This repository has been archived by the owner" in 2020. MIT License. |
| Wayfire | Wayland | [homepage] | 0.9.0 | 20240823 | https://github.com/WayfireWM/wayfire/tags | 20250416 | "Wayfire is a wayland compositor based on wlroots [part of sway]. It aims to create a customizable, extendable and lightweight environment ..." A bit heavy on the visual effects (wobbly windows, really?) but a surprisingly good compositor. | |
| Weston | Wayland | [homepage] | 14.0.1 | 20241021 | https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/wayland/weston/-/tags | 20250323 | Wayland contributors | Gentoo's docs say "Weston is a reference implementation of a Wayland compositor." The Gentoo docs imply you shouldn't use this. I've used it (2023-10 ... not for long): it seems stable and usable, but lacking in any extra features (again: "reference implementation"). |
| wlmaker | Wayland | [homepage] | 0.5 | 20250307 | https://github.com/phkaeser/wlmaker/tags | 20250411 | Philipp "phkaeser" Kaeser | "A Wayland compositor inspired by Window Maker ... in early development stage. |
| Woodland | Wayland | [homepage] | 1.3.2 | 20250202 | https://github.com/DiogenesN/woodland/tags | 20250327 | Nicolas "DiogenesN" | "Woodland is a minimal lightweight wlroots-based window-stacking compositor for Wayland, inspired by Wayfire and TinyWl." "GPL-2.0-or-later" license. |
| xfwm | Wayland/X11 |
[homepage] [Wikipedia] |
4.20 | 20241215 | https://archive.xfce.org/src/xfce/xfwm4/ | 20250410 | Olivier Fourdan | WM for the XFCE project. "XFCE" once stood for "XForms Common Environment," as its behaviour was derived from that of Sun's CDE. |