Desktop Environment reviews from Reddit

Summary

We analyzed 594 Reddit reviews across 20 subreddits and 61 posts to rank the best Desktop Environment brands recommended by redditors, including communities like r/archlinux, r/linux4noobs, r/linuxmasterrace, r/linuxquestions, r/debian. Top-rated brands include KDE (4.3/5), GNOME (4.1/5), KDE Plasma (4.6/5).

Stats

Reviews594

Subreddits20

Posts61

Brands75

Products28

Top communities

r/archlinux215 r/linux4noobs77 r/linuxmasterrace53 r/linuxquestions50 r/debian50

594 reviews from

and

By Brand

By Product

KDE

4.3

(82)

"I'm really impressed by the way EOS handles KDE 6 and Wayland."

"For my 7.2L v10 open piped quad-turbo gaming rig I find KDE is the best."

"Kde here with Wayland, now on my Amd and Nvidia machines."

"My favourite by far is KDE"

"My desktop is running KDE. Both have been awesome in my experience."

"KDE is probably your best bet."

"If you want a beginner-friendly distro for playing with KDE, you could try Kubuntu."

"Kde plasma!"

"I believe KDE is best."

"Plasma is my personal favourite."

GNOME

4.1

(56)

"I’m loving Gnome with PaperWM and V-shell"

"Gnome is amazing, I love the 3 finger swipe to switch workspace"

"I definitely liked Gnome + Wayland a lot"

"Gnome. Note that Gnome apps also have support for touch gestures and such."

"Gnome. For sure"

"Gnome has pretty great gesture support."

"Gnome has the best touch and touchpad gestures"

"If you’re new to tiling WMs (like me), I’d gnome with a tiling extension like paperwm or forge!"

"I recommend Gnome for 2 reasons: 1. It works well for both traditional and touch based input 2. It's fantastic with workspaces."

"Personally, I went with Nobara (Glorious Eggroll's Fedora-based distro) with Gnome on Wayland."

KDE Plasma

4.6

(43)

"KDE Plasma, it already looks so beautiful and the fact you can transform it anyway you want to."

"KDE Plasma is the best!"

"KDE Plasma is the best for that!"

"I am absolutely loving Plasma."

"KDE Plasma for me! As I want to have the best visual quality and best customization options."

"KDE Plasma and LXQt arguably look the most like Windows out of the box."

"Plasma! As it's just the most modern and advanced!"

"Currently, I'm using Plasma 6 because it seems to handle scaling on HiDPI displays SO much better."

"KDE Plasma is the golden standard, I'd definitely try Kubuntu or Arch+Plasma"

"KDE Plasma"

XFCE

4.2

(36)

"Simple, and never gets in the way."

"I have been mostly using Xfce for the past four or five years for this reason."

"Xfce is king"

"XFCE. It's the Debian of DEs: it moves slowly and doesn't break under the weight of unnecessary change for the sake of change - it's solid, stable and gets out of your way."

"I have a fairly high end pc, use XFCE on it, run XFCE on an older Dell laptop as well."

"Xfce is my favorite."

"XFCE GANG"

"Stable and customizable? That's the definition of xfce"

"XFCE if you want the best combination between stability, speed, lightweight and customization."

"Xfce"

Cinnamon

4.2

(34)

"Cinnamon is the WAY bro! You'll never regret it."

"I will always recommend Cinnamon."

"For a DE, Cinnamon, easily."

"I tried xfce, gnome, kde, lxde, lxqt and Cinnamon , and liked Cinnamon so much that now I am a patron of Linux Mint project :D"

"I use cinnamon and love it. From my experience, it has the stability of Gnome, and customisability almost comparable KDE."

"Really digging cinnamon"

"Cinnamon, hands down."

"+1 for Cinnamon. The Muffin window manager works perfectly and I don't experience any tearing at all."

"Cinnamon on Mint & KDE on Sparky (very highly customisable)."

"Cinnamon is clean & straightforward"

Xfce

4.1

(30)

"Choose XFCE"

"If you are in a dev sphere, I highly recommand you XFCE, it can even be modified so it will look like the way you want it."

"I second XFCE. I use it and the scientists I work for use it too."

"I would go with XFCE or Cinnamon.. personally I prefer Cinnamon because it's beautiful and the learning curve is not high."

"Xfce, MATE and LXQt are on the light side."

"Something like Xfce or Mate."

"Try xfce, it could be themed with GTK."

"Try xfce or lxqt."

"Xfce and Plasma (KDE) are the most customizable."

"XFCE with debian, openbox otherwise like bunsenlabs"

LXQt

3.9

(21)

"LXQt it probably the lightest DE, but Xfce and Mate are also worth a look."

"Lxqt does support wayland and is quite consistent"

"LXQt, XFCE, Mate"

"Xfce, MATE and LXQt are on the light side."

"LxQt with tint2 panel if you need a different/more customizable panel."

"Check out MATE, LXQt, or LXDE if you want lightweight but also don't like Xfce."

"LXQt 2.1 with Wayland support"

"Lxqt for me"

"Lxqt antix-full has a load of super light desktops to choose from at login."

"I like LXQT"

KDE Desktop Environment

4.3

(18)

"I personally use KDE though, I like how easy it is to customize for ricing and the default UI it provides you with is pretty great."

"Endeavour's flavor of KDE is my fav personally"

"I run, and adore, kde."

"KDE is amazing for new comers to Linux that comes from Windows"

"Kde is best for the people who came from windows recently. It's really easy to customize, very windows like design also other kde apps (okular, kdenlive,kate) great too."

"Kde or xfce. Gnome on Ubuntu is awful... Anything else is great, just kde or xfce rise on the top of anything else but gnome"

"KDE."

"KDE"

"Obviously and objectively it's the one I use."

"I have heard a lot of good things about KDE, I think I will give em a try!"

MATE

4.1

(18)

"Mate, been using it for 12 years with MInt."

"Cinnamon or MATE, every time."

"Choose MATE"

"Mate"

"Mate or xfce"

"Mate"

"Xfce, MATE and LXQt are on the light side."

"Something like Xfce or Mate."

"I would recommend MATE if you want to switch."

"Check out MATE, LXQt, or LXDE if you want lightweight but also don't like Xfce."

#10

XFCE Desktop Environment

4.4

(16)

"Try xfce am using it for my older laptop for some tasks and it works greater than my newer computer running windows 11"

"XFCE for DE and i3 for WM"

"Only XFCE... the best"

"I had a laptop with near these exact specs. I recommend xfce. It’s light, stable, and can be made to look gorgeous."

"LXQt and XFCE are my favorite."

"+1 for XFCE. Lightweight and easily customizable."

"XFCE handles both of your requirements, right out of the box; as a bonus it is super configurable & lightweight."

"The best: Plasma Xfce, Cinnamon, Gnome."

"XFCE"

"Xfce"

#11

Linux Mint

4.2

(16)

"Linux Mint works PHENOMENALLY on the touchscreen 2 in one laptop"

"Use Linux mint with cinnamon or just Ubuntu."

"I recommend to you Linux Mint, is a solid distro that is easy to use."

"I use LMDE on my older laptops, and find it works well."

"I also tried Mint with Cinnamon and it ran very well."

"The DE cinnamon by Lenox Mint is outstanding."

"I would try Mint with xfce again but add a Tiling Window Manager."

"Normal cinnamon if your PC can handle it, otherwise xfce edition"

"Linux Mint Cinnamon works fine on it."

"I came from Windows and used Linux Mint - DE: XFCE, i prefer the latter."

#12

GNOME Desktop Environment

3.6

(17)

"GNOME looks the best. It's polished, it's gorgeous, it's simple, I love it."

"Gnome for me is no doubt the best looking and concise modern UI/UX."

"Yes, I went back to gnome, I really liked it I genuinely like the simplicity of it and if I ever need anything extra I can just get an extension for it."

"I've used gnome which was really pleasant I like how it looks and wouldn't mind sticking to that one though its main drawback was that it was missing some crucial functionality I needed which was both the top bar hiding and rotating wallpapers."

"Gnome and KDE will be feature rich, and Openbox will be minimalistic."

"Gnome if you like it can be quite cool"

"Gnome and KDE are the most popular and are amazing"

"GNOME with Tiling Assistant extension. Simple wayland desktop that is super stable."

"I would try first KDE Plasma and Gnome."

"Reportedly GNOME is also acceptable as a DE for this use case scena"

#13

i3

4.1

(14)

"If you like scripting, i encourage you to install and try a tiling window manager, like i3 or awesomewm."

"I tried them all, but i3 is the king."

"Once it clicks you will find full desktop environments annoying and slow and limiting."

"You can also go for a tiling WM like i3-wm (my personal preference)."

"I3"

"Try A WM with your o~n configs very lightweight maybe i3 or sway"

"An i3 is pretty decent."

"I3wm, but when i look to some XFCE rices - i would like to try it too."

"I3wm is good for start, gaming work fine."

"I'd personally go with sway since it has a few interesting bells and whistles."

#14

KDE Plasma Desktop Environment

4.3

(13)

"I'm partial to KDE Plasma. Funnily enough, at my new job every colleague who uses linux runs a different distro, but always with Plasma."

"My go to for multi monitor support is KDE plasma. Has everything you could want and looks fantastic."

"My favorite is KDE plasma, I don't know if it's the best but it's my absolute favorite."

"There is not best desktop environment, but KDE Plasma is the best ;)"

"I like plasma"

"I like KDE for my main PC and will play with different things on my craplap."

"Plasma"

"Me personally am a big fan of plasma cause it has a lot of stuff premade for it"

"It's fair to say that KDE Plasma does receive the greatest attention."

#15

Hyprland

4.3

(13)

"Hyprland as my new main."

"Use hyprland on Nvidia. Been using on 3 systems, rtx 3070 rtx 3070 and rtx4060. Zero issues."

"For maximum spice, I'd recommend Hyprland, followed by Sway or i3."

"Hyprland."

"I discovered hyprland DE and it's amazing."

"Hyprland and make it as comfortable as gnome."

"Recently I switched over to hyprland."

"Hyprland"

"Hyprland! Mouse / trackpad inputs are only optional. The only negative side has to be all the configuration needed..."

"Gnome is alright, but I prefer Hyprland."

#16

Fedora

4.2

(11)

"Youll find Fedora very comfortable, everything pretty much works the same."

"Go with Fedora. I also have a lenovo laptop and it works great."

"Fedora with KDE works great."

"Fedora and Mint are great."

"I also have a Steam Deck and was impressed with KDE Plasma."

"I use fedora with KDE, but id recommend downloading and trying a few live images of popular distros and see what you like."

"If you want it to work similar to fedora use gnome"

"Fedora by default uses gnome."

"You should definitely try Fedora."

"You can never go wrong with Fedora."

#17

MATE Desktop Environment

3.9

(10)

"Mate"

"I would go with mate. Personal choice"

"It runs MATE (GNOME2) just fine. I actually prefer MATE over Xfce"

"I usually use mate, but I also have xfce installed and configured."

"I use MATE. It's not flashy, but it's lightweight and just does what I need it to do."

"I like MATE personally. XFCE is a close second and I usually use that on underpowered hardware."

"For DE, Mate desktop. But wm dwm or ratpoison are the bests."

"MATE is the developer's preferred DE."

"Mate and xfce should be fine too"

"MATE is OK."

#18

i3 Window Manager

4.3

(9)

"I3 is best. Because I like it most and it'll run on your machine."

"I'm using i3wm and loving it"

"None, use a WM like i3. Seriously, it sucks for the first week, and after that, its the best, most productive thing I've ever used."

"Xfce and i3wm is the way to go"

"I3wm i would recommend dwm, but since you are new to linux -> i3wm is better and easier way to happy linux life :-)"

"Not a Desktop environment but I use for my old laptop i3 as the window manager"

"I use i3. It needs time for configuration but it is lightweight."

"Tiling usually comes down to 2 choices: i3/sway or xmonad."

"I3 is very light and fast, with perfect multi-screen handling."

#19

Openbox

3.9

(8)

"Try Openbox or XFCE"

"Openbox is just a window manager, but it's very lean on resources and highly customizable."

"For a more 'traditional' WM you can go with openbox."

"I personally prefer openbox however I would recommend cinnamon or kde if you want a beautiful environment out of the box."

"I really enjoy openbox window manager as it is light weight and highly customizable!! Definitely a must try if you’re looking for a floating desktop environment."

"Install openbox or dwm (they aren't Desktop Enviroments but they are extremely lightweight)"

"On most of my systems it's openbox"

"No desktop environment. Only window managers. I use OpenBox."

#20

Cinnamon Desktop Environment

3.8

(8)

"Here's my Cinnamon desktop stats"

"I’ve tried gnome, KDE, and, xfce but always returning your cinnamon."

"Cinnamon or KDE, but I personally would go with cinnamon"

"Probably Cinnamon is the best, at least for new users."

"Yeah LMDE is def the way to go if you like Debian+Cinnamon."

"The best: Plasma Xfce, Cinnamon, Gnome."

"Cinnamon is quite chopped down on Debian, perfectly functional from a utilitarian standpoint, but missing a lot of appearance options."

"Cinnamon imo"

#21

Enlightenment

3.9

(7)

"If you have a row potato computer, than **Enlightenment** is good choice."

"Enlightenment is very light on resources."

"Try enlightenment"

"Enlightenment DE has Wayland and multimonitor support."

"It's a little ugly by default but it's Wayland ready and very low resource, definitely a good DE for old hardware with Wayland."

"Enlightenment and Plasma can be neat."

"Enlightenment DE"

#22

Sway

4.5

(6)

"I prefer a tiling desktop environment like sway which is way better for work flow"

"If you want something similar to gnome and much more lightweight I’d recommend sway with nwg-shell."

"Sway/Hyprland."

"Sway. Take a look at swayos to get collection of nice tools."

"Sway or i3, or whatever TWM suits your fancy."

"Sway."

#23

LXQt Desktop Environment

4.6

(5)

"I use lxqt 2.0 on my Arch machine. It's flawless."

"LXQt and XFCE are my favorite."

"LXQt, my PC absolutely screams on it"

"Take a look at lxqt, or use a window manager (tiling or normal) and build your desktop around it."

"LXQt"

#24

Xubuntu

4.2

(5)

"Xubuntu for sure"

"I’d recommend checking out Linux Lite or Xubuntu."

"Xubuntu works quite nice on my old systems with 4GB RAM."

"Xubuntu, Lubuntu, Linux Mint Xfce, Linux Lite."

"Xubuntu, Zorin, DSL are all on the smaller end."

#25

Ubuntu

4.2

(5)

"Use Ubuntu on a touch screen convertible notebook."

"Ubuntu seemed to be the best out of the box."

"Ubuntu, Linux Mint and Fedora are commonly recommended."

"Ubuntu 22.04 (Gnome DE)"

"I would suggest using Ubuntu."

#26

Openbox Window Manager

4.0

(5)

"Openbox - all time best WM"

"You can use a window manager, for example Openbox. That is lighter than a desktop environment."

"For a WM I'd recommend Openbox. it's kida the same thing as in Xfce you get the menu on right click but is way lighter."

"Gnome and KDE will be feature rich, and Openbox will be minimalistic."

"Openbox"

#27

Sway Window Manager

4.0

(5)

"I recommend sway which is a ion3 rewrite as a Wayland compositor."

"Tiling usually comes down to 2 choices: i3/sway or xmonad."

"Any one that doesn’t force you to drag your mouse to move or resize windows. For example, Sway or AwesomeWM"

"Sway if you want with swayFX"

"Sway has been amazingly snappy so far."

#28

LXDE

3.8

(5)

3.0

3.0

(1)

"Jwm, blackbox or fluxbox"

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