i3 VS Openbox

i3

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

Openbox

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

Landing page //
2021-09-19

Landing page //
2023-09-06

Categories	Window Manager Linux Open Source Utilities
Website	i3wm.org
Details $

Categories	Linux Window Manager Desktop Environments Utilities
Website	openbox.org
Details $	-

i3 videos

+ Add

30k Miles with the BMW i3 - End of Lease Review

Openbox videos

+ Add

Get Rid Of That Bloated Desktop Environment And Install Openbox

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to i3 and Openbox)

Openbox

Window Manager

75 75%

Window Manager

25% 25

Linux

69 69%

Linux

31% 31

Utilities

64 64%

Utilities

36% 36

Open Source

100 100%

Open Source

0% 0

User comments

Share your experience with using i3 and Openbox. For example, how are they different and which one is better?

Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare i3 and Openbox

i3 Reviews

Top 13 Best Tiling Window Managers For Linux In 2022

Sway is a tiling Wayland i3-compatible window manager that dynamically arranges app windows to rationally maximise desktop space. It is free, open-source, and lightweight. By default, it arranges windows in a grid and supports practically all of the i3 commands.

Source: www.hubtech.org

Top 10 Best Desktop Environments in 2020

i3-wm is one of my most loved standalone window managers, qualifying it to easily fit under the desktop environment list! The configuration is just very easy, and you can change everything that you see on screen. This includes what information you see on the bottom panel, how windows behave, and keyboard shortcuts to move, align, and set up windows on the screen.

Source: www.journaldev.com

13 Best Tiling Window Managers for Linux

Sway is a free, open-source, and lightweight tiling Wayland i3-compatible window manager that automatically arranges app windows to logically maximize desktop space. It arranges windows into a grid by default and supports almost all the commands included in i3.

Source: www.tecmint.com

5 Great Tiling Window Managers for Linux

I begun testing i3 just this week. I was always fascinated by the Tiling WM’s as they seem really light on system resources and functional. To my surprise , although i3 is really easy to customize, and works really well (at least for my needs) , I found that it isn’t really that lightweight. I had Mate desktop environment use the same amount of RAM. Maybe I was mislead to...

Source: www.maketecheasier.com

Openbox Reviews

Top 10 Best Desktop Environments in 2020

People who’re deep into Linux, love Openbox’s simplicity. It’s extremely lightweight, and comes with only a text-based right-click menu that lists all your applications. The menu is customizable too, and you can add scripts or functions within the menu as a link.

Source: www.journaldev.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, i3 seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 89 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.

i3 mentions (89)

"We understand" ;)
This is partially why I use tools like i3 (/ sway). I like the tool; it works extremely well for me; the design has stayed the same for 20 years; there's no profit motive to come along and fuck everything up. It just works. It is boring in the best way possible. Source: 3 months ago
what machines have you used for development, and what do you prefer?
I use MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid-2014) with Manjaro as OS using i3 as a window manager. It isn't perfect, but I'm thrilled with it. I have been a Mac OS user for the last 15 years and wouldn't change what I have now for a Mac OS because I don't need more than what I'm using for development. Source: 8 months ago
Machine for pentesting and general use?
For daily usage I really like kubuntu with i3wm, but it takes some configuration and getting used to the shortcuts, but it's well worth it. Source: 9 months ago
What's the difference between Gnome and KDE? Do applications written for one work in the other?
Some window managers are meant to be used as-is, and provide a minimalist yet functional environment that use very little resources or give power users an almost HUD-like interface. Examples of those window managers are OpenBox and i3wm for X, and Weston and Hyprland for Wayland. Source: 9 months ago
tiling window manager
I did use i3 exclusively for a few years. The reasons I chose it were. Source: 9 months ago

Openbox mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of Openbox yet. Tracking of Openbox recommendations started around Mar 2021.

What are some alternatives?

When comparing i3 and Openbox, you can also consider the following products

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.

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

bspwm - A tiling window manager based on binary space partitioning

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

Xfce - Xfce is a lightweight desktop environment for UNIX-like operating systems. It aims to be fast and low on system resources, while still being visually appealing and user friendly.

IceWM - icewm home page . Bug Tracking. If you have a patch, a bug report or a feature request to submit, please do so at the icewm project page at SourceForge.