Software Alternatives & Reviews

dwm VS bspwm

Compare dwm VS bspwm and see what are their differences

dwm

dwm is a dynamic window manager for X. It manages windows in tiled, monocle and floating layouts. All of the layouts can be applied dynamically, optimising the environment for the application in use and the task performed.

bspwm

A tiling window manager based on binary space partitioning
  • dwm Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-09-12
  • bspwm Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-14

dwm

Categories
  • Linux
  • Window Manager
  • Utilities
  • Open Source
Website dwm.suckless.org  

bspwm

Categories
  • Utilities
  • Window Manager
  • Linux
  • Open Source
Website github.com  

dwm videos

dwm (suckless) - why I prefer it to i3 [ricing FreeBSD & OpenBSD]

More videos:

  • Review - Super MINIMALIST tiling window manager - dwm
  • Review - Suckless's dwm: So easy even a caveman could do it!

bspwm videos

Switching To Bspwm - Initial Thoughts

More videos:

  • Review - BSPWM - Its like I3 but not.
  • Review - BSPWM Review

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to dwm and bspwm)
Linux
65 65%
35% 35
Window Manager
60 60%
40% 40
Utilities
52 52%
48% 48
Productivity
47 47%
53% 53

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare dwm and bspwm

dwm Reviews

Top 13 Best Tiling Window Managers For Linux In 2022
Spectrwm is a fast, compact, and brief reparenting and tiling window manager for X11 that is inspired by xmonad and dwm. It was created to address the problems that xmonad and dwm have. Also check Fulfillify alternatives
Source: www.hubtech.org
13 Best Tiling Window Managers for Linux
spectrwm is a small, dynamic, xmonad, and dwm-inspired reparenting and tiling window manager built for X11 to be fast, compact, and concise. It was created with the aim of solving the issues of xmonad and dwm face.
Source: www.tecmint.com
5 Great Tiling Window Managers for Linux
DWM is, well, a dynamic window manager. Tiling isn’t the only way you can manage your windows. It’s also possible to lay the windows out in a floating or monocle style. All modifications to DWM can be done within its source code. Easy keyboard shortcuts allow for a great navigation experience while managing windows.

bspwm Reviews

Top 13 Best Tiling Window Managers For Linux In 2022
Support for multiple windows, limited support for EWMH, automatic mode for automatically determining the location of app tiles, and configuration and control via messages are among the characteristics of bspwm.
Source: www.hubtech.org
13 Best Tiling Window Managers for Linux
bspwm’s features include support for multiple windows, partial support for EWMH, automatic mode for automatically setting the position of app tiles, and it is configured and controlled through messages, among others.
Source: www.tecmint.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, dwm should be more popular than bspwm. It has been mentiond 62 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

dwm mentions (62)

  • Sent – simple plaintext presentation tool
    > Their philosophy[1] says nothing of the sort Their philosophy doesn't, but their page for dwm[0] does :D "Because dwm is customized through editing its source code, it's pointless to make binary packages of it. This keeps its userbase small and elitist. No novices asking stupid questions. There are some distributions that provide binary packages though." [0] https://dwm.suckless.org/. - Source: Hacker News / 10 days ago
  • Introduction
    I was looking for a minimal linux distribution that is light on resources, and I found one called Metis Linux, which is based on Artix. The interesting part of metis is that it wasn't using a desktop environment, but a windows manager called dwm. At the time, metis linux had a minimal bash script installer via chroot. This took longer to setup, but I had a better understanding of what the setup involved rather... - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
  • Hi guys I am new to linux and want to install gentoo ok i tried many distrues before so how can i make gentoo look like this? a windows telling manager?
    The window manager in this screenshot is DWM in floating mode (https://dwm.suckless.org) with a lot of patches and a compositor (to make DWM support transparency). And the terminal is st with some patches. Both should be compiled from source manually. And both are configured in C. Source: 9 months ago
  • I Have a Dirty Secret. I’m a Software Craftsman
    In my programs there's usually a core insight or mental model that makes the code simple and straightforward to understand. What does someone need to have in their mind to understand this program? Then time happens and then the code is adapted and refactored and more features are added, then the original gem of mental model is hidden by hundreds of files and the algorithm is split into 10s of files for the little... - Source: Hacker News / 10 months ago
  • FreeBSD 13.2 Is Released
    Https://surf.suckless.org/ ah, the memories this + dwn https://dwm.suckless.org/ then I said to myself "why am I wasting so much time tinkering with stuff that gains me nothing" and moved on in my life. - Source: Hacker News / 11 months ago
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bspwm mentions (20)

  • What WM should I use?
    Use BSPWM. It supports right clicks by default and its modular. You might want to look for status bars that work with it, slstatus does not work. Good luck, supremacist! Source: 10 months ago
  • What are some OpenSource apps that are the best of their kind?
    I had not heard of bspwm but I am a fan of telling WMs. Looking at the documentation now, I really like the pragmatic approach lol https://github.com/baskerville/bspwm. Source: 11 months ago
  • Got some questions before moving to linux...
    I am not familiar with that distro at all, so no idea. KDE Plasma is fine, I use it myself (with BSPWM as my window manager, but that's irrelevant). Source: about 1 year ago
  • MacBook Setup - OS Ventura 13.1 - Samsung QLed 43” - VM: yabai - Terminal: Hyper
    There's a paradigm shift required for a lot of people to start using automatic tiling window managers. Yabai is basically a bspwm port for MacOS and it follows the rules of binary space partitioning. In fact, bspwm has a great diagram on its github readme that illustrates how it works. This will limit the number of windows you can have on any given desktop. To overcome this limitation you use multiple desktops. A... Source: about 1 year ago
  • How much better is neoVim? Is it really that much better than VsCode?
    It’s night and day. I also combine a heavily customized NeoVim config (https://github.com/tomit4/notes/tree/main/nvim) with a tiling window manager (https://github.com/baskerville/bspwm), the espanso text expander (https://espanso.org/), Vimium in the browser (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/), and a 40% ortholinear keyboard(https://drop.com/buy/planck-mechanical-keyboard). Source: about 1 year ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing dwm and bspwm, you can also consider the following products

i3 - A dynamic tiling window manager designed for X11, inspired by wmii, and written in C.

awesome - A dynamic window manager for the X Window System developed in the C and Lua programming languages.

qtile - Qtile is a full-featured, hackable tiling window manager written in Python.

Xmonad - xmonad is a dynamically tiling X11 window manager that is written and configured in Haskell.

Openbox - Openbox is a highly configurable, next generation window manager with extensive standards support.

Fluxbox - Fluxbox is a window manager for X that was based on the Blackbox 0.61.1 code.