Try them, it's fun
this post was submitted on 06 Apr 2026
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Obviously check out Eylenburg's page and the ArchWiki, but here are my two cents on a bunch of DEs:
This is going to be long
Note: The weight of a DE is comparitive. "Heavy" DEs (such as GNOME) can still be swift on lower spec machines.
GNOME
- Based on Shell Toolkit and GTK4 (with libadwaita)
- Wayland only
- Heavy
- Slightly similar to macOS' UI/UX, but really in a class of its own
- ~~Not particularly customisable~~ Can be customised heavily, but the settings aren't exposed and the devs don't like it much.
KDE Plasma
- Based on Qt6 and QML (with its own frameworks)
- Wayland only (usually)
- Heavy
- Has a lot of dependencies
- Very Windows-y out of the box; but can easily be modified to replicate any other UI/UX
KDE Liquid
- Based on QtQuick
- X11 only (as far as I know)
- Midweight
- No fancy effects
- Not usually packaged, but available on Arch
- Basically just KDE Plasma, but using a slightly different widget toolkit
Xfce
- Based on GTK2/3 (originally XForms)
- X11 by default, but everything except Xfwm supports Wayland (Xfwl is almost done)
- Light
- Generally looks like itself, but some Linux distros have it looking more like Windows
LXQt
- Based on Qt5/6
- X11 by default, but you can switch Openbox for KWin or LabWC in the settings
- Light
- The result of LXDE and Razor-qt merging
- Layout is similar to older versions of Windows, but this can be changed
LXDE
- Based on GTK2 (I believe a GTK3 port may exist)
- X11 only
- Very light
MATE
- Based on GTK2
- X11 only, but it's almost Wayland-ready
- Midweight
- Comparable to Xfce
- Unique 2-bar layout, but can be transformed
- A fork of GNOME 2
Cinnamon
- Based on GTK3/4 (with XApp frameworks)
- X11 by default, with experimental Wayland support
- Midweight
- Windows-esque layout
- Created as a spiritual successor to GNOME 2
- Forked from GNOME 3
Budgie
- Based on GTK3/4
- Wayland only
- Midweight
- Unique layout
- Also created as a spiritual successor to GNOME 2
deepin
- I know basically nothing about this other than the fact it's Chinese
- Looks pretty
Trinity
- Based on TQt3
- X11 only
- Lightweight (these days)
- Similar layout to Windows; actually an old KDE layout
- Forked from KDE 3
- Maintains its own forks of Qt (called TQt), KHTML, and the KDE applications
- Still works with older themes and software, such as QtCurve (which is nice)
Enlightenment
- Based on EFL
- X11 by default, with experimental Wayland support
- Lightweight, despite fancy effects and animations
- Often considered a WM, rather than a DE, but it has its own suite of applications so it's a DE
- Unique layout
COSMIC
- Based on iced
- Wayland by default
- Unsure of weight
- Maintained by System76 (the Pop!_OS people)
- Layout similar to GNOME
- Still quite new
Lumina
- Based on Qt5
- X11 by default
- Quite popular among FreeBSD users
Pantheon
- Based on GTK3/4 and Granite
- Wayland by default (soon to be Wayland-only)
- Midweight
- Akin to macOS
- Used in elementary OS
CDE
- Based on Motif
- X11 only
- Lightweight
- Ancient software, used in many Unices (e.g. AIX, Solaris, Tru64, etc.) and other OSes (e.g. VMS) back in the day
FVWM-Crystal
- Not based on any particular toolkit (a fair bit of raw XCB/Xlib, I imagine)
- X11 only
- Very lightweight
- Quite old, so your mileage may vary when using it with newer software
- Integrates with several music players, including Audacious and Quod Libet
- Arguably more of a shell for FVWM
Great write-up! Thank you for the effort!
Though, if I may: Regarding GNOME, you said:
Not particularly customisable
I would rather rephrase this to "Does not expose many knobs for customization by default.". Because -frankly- between dconf, extensions and CSS; the possibilities are actually quite expansive. So much so, even, that a KDE dev said regarding GNOME: "sometimes it (read: GNOME) can be customized better than KDE". (They say this literally in the first 10 seconds or so.)
Another striking example of the breadth of GNOME's customization would be how Niri was heavily inspired by GNOME's PaperWM extension. (Source) So, GNOME's customizability has allowed the creation of a new workflow that eventually served as a direct inspiration for one of the most exciting WMs we've got.
Well, yes; after all, I have been able to modify even proprietary software to fit my own preferences; but it's clear (and also explicitly stated) that it's supposed to be used mostly as-it-comes.
I can't say I've tried Niri or PaperWM before, but if they're based on GNOME then maybe I'm being a little harsh.
Thanks for the complements!
I definitely agree with you on GNOME being rather opinionated. Perhaps more so than most other DEs.
Anyhow, thanks again for appreciating my input and compliments!
GNOME isn't actually based on GTK, the shell has its own widget framework called the Shell Toolkit: https://gnome.pages.gitlab.gnome.org/gnome-shell/st/index.html
Fixed
Do you mean Desktop Environments?
EDIT: OP has changed the title of the post since. Regardless, thank you OP for the confirmation/clarification! FWIW, I really like Eylenburg's resource on this.
Yes I would like to learn about those.
Don’t take this the wrong way, but that’s such a broad question. If you made a comprehensive list, there could be hundreds.
I suggest you find some Linux newbie websites.
Best way to figure out which one you're happiest with is to try them out yourself, or look at an existing comparison list. Or else pare things down to a more specific question, because I doubt anyone is going to do a lengthy comparison here.
Highly recommend this. Spent months with hyprland then sway and eventually realized I prefer a traditional DE but I was glad to have tried them and learning them felt great.
KDE based in germany easy to use for beginners and highly configurable for those that want that ability. They have a fully integrated software suite that has basically become the default for many distros even if they aren't using plasma.
I found windows snapping worked better for me with kde plasma than gnome. Outside of that I don't have much. Im pretty lazy and the fact I finally installed kde is sorta telling on the difference.
GNOME feels more like macOS.
KDE feels more like Windows.
just try them yourself, it's not hard..