i3 VS qtile

i3

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

qtile

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

Landing page //
2021-09-19

Landing page //
2023-06-14

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

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

i3 videos

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

qtile videos

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Obscure Window Manager Project - Qtile

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to i3 and qtile)

qtile

Window Manager

76 76%

Window Manager

24% 24

Linux

78 78%

Linux

22% 22

Utilities

70 70%

Utilities

30% 30

Open Source

100 100%

Open Source

0% 0

User comments

Share your experience with using i3 and qtile. 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 qtile

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

qtile Reviews

Top 13 Best Tiling Window Managers For Linux In 2022

Custom layouts, commands, and widgets are simple to create in Qtile. It may also be remotely scripted to create workspaces, update status bar widgets, and manipulate windows, among other things. It comes with extensive documentation in case you have any questions.

Source: www.hubtech.org

13 Best Tiling Window Managers for Linux

Qtile features easy to write custom layouts, commands, and widgets. It can also be scripted remotely in order to set up workspaces, update status bar widgets, manipulate windows, etc. It has comprehensive documentation in case you need clarification along the way.

Source: www.tecmint.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, i3 seems to be a lot more popular than qtile. While we know about 89 links to i3, we've tracked only 6 mentions of qtile. 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

qtile mentions (6)

Qtile Logs in to a Blank Screen
Yes, all the dependencies listed in qtile.org are installed. Source: 8 months ago
docs.qtile.org down? Any information to be found?
I think yesterday qtile.org itself seemed to be working properly. Now it is also offline. Source: 8 months ago
New to Linux and qtile, need help.
Try python -m py_compile ~/.config/qtile/config.py first. You can find this from https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Qtile#Installation which you should be using as your main resource along with qtile.org. Source: over 1 year ago
Free/Total Disk Space Widget?
I was just curious if there is a Qtile widget that would show how much space I have left on my SSD. I looked through the Qtile widgets on qtile.org and couldn't seem to find anything like this which is actually kind of odd to me. Source: over 1 year ago
Issue with installing Qtile?
I possess followed installation guide from‏‏‎‏‏‎‏‏‎‏‏‎the qtile.org. Error occurs when I type command startx. https://preview.redd.it/6x0qri1b4n361.png?width=801&format=png&auto=webp&s=bee71e4eb593c08b56f9fd07b30e9c9eca6fd00f. Source: about 2 years ago

What are some alternatives?

When comparing i3 and qtile, 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.

bspwm - A tiling window manager based on binary space partitioning

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

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.

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.