Best Window Managers for Linux of 2025

Your personal assistant designed to streamline interactions with all your windows and applications. This comprehensive cross-platform window manager and switcher tackles window management uniformly across three operating systems: Windows, MacOS, and Linux. Enjoy the benefits of both a window manager and a switcher seamlessly integrated into a single application. Embed any website within a frameless window, ensuring it remains on top for easy access. Activate any window on the current display, the primary display, or wherever the mouse pointer is located, quickly transfer windows between monitors, and conceal all windows solely on the active screen. For applications with multiple windows, if the target window goes missing and you use the keyboard shortcut again, a notification will alert you that the window is no longer available. This allows users to utilize the same keyboard shortcut to target a different window and prompts them to assign a new shortcut for bringing that window forward, ensuring a smooth and efficient workflow. This solution not only enhances productivity but also simplifies the overall user experience when managing multiple applications.

Awesome is a next-generation framework window manager for X that offers a high degree of configurability. Known for its speed and extensibility, it operates under the GNU GPLv2 license. This window manager is designed primarily for power users, developers, and anyone engaged in daily computing tasks who desires detailed control over their graphical interface. In fact, a window manager is one of the most frequently utilized software applications in everyday activities, alongside web browsers, email clients, and text editors. Power users and programmers enjoy a wide variety of options among multiple tools for their daily operations, many of which are highly customizable. Awesome aims to fill the gap in these tools by providing an extensible and highly configurable window manager that enhances the overall user experience. By prioritizing flexibility and user preference, Awesome stands out in a competitive landscape of window management solutions.

i3 is a window manager designed with a tiling approach and built entirely from the ground up. It is compatible with GNU/Linux and BSD operating systems, and it is released as Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) under the BSD license. The design of i3 primarily caters to advanced users and developers. Drawing from our experiences while attempting to modify wmii, we established several objectives for i3. Key among these is ensuring that the software can be customized by individuals who possess programming knowledge but may not be well-versed in the intricacies of X11. To achieve this, we aim to provide comprehensive documentation that explains the reasoning behind various functionalities and their timing, allowing users to grasp the full scope of responsibilities handled by a Window Manager just through the source code. Furthermore, we prioritize the correct implementation of multi-monitor setups, enabling each workspace to be assigned to a distinct virtual screen. It is critical to ensure seamless operation during the connection and disconnection of new monitors, such as video projectors, while also supporting rotated displays, thus enhancing user experience and flexibility in different working environments. In doing so, we hope to create a more intuitive and adaptable window management experience for users.

bspwm is a tiling window manager that models windows as the leaves of a complete binary tree structure. It solely reacts to X events and the messages sent through a dedicated socket designed for communication. The utility bspc is responsible for sending messages to bspwm's socket. Importantly, bspwm does not manage any keyboard or mouse inputs, requiring an external program, such as sxhkd, to convert keyboard and pointer actions into bspc commands. Each monitor displays only the tree associated with the currently focused desktop, meaning that users can only see one desktop's structure at a time. This tree effectively divides a monitor's rectangular area into smaller, rectangular segments that correspond to different windows. Consequently, users can efficiently manage their workspace, promoting a streamlined and organized experience.

IceWM serves as a window manager designed for the X Window System, prioritizing speed, user-friendliness, and unobtrusiveness. It features a taskbar integrated with a pager, offers global and specific keybindings for each window, and employs a dynamic menu system for efficient navigation. Users can manage application windows using both keyboard and mouse inputs, allowing for various actions such as minimizing to the taskbar, tray, or desktop, or even hiding them entirely. Quick window switching is facilitated through the Alt+Tab shortcut and the window list. A variety of customizable focus models can be selected from menus, enhancing user control. Additionally, IceWM efficiently accommodates setups with multiple monitors through RandR and Xinerama support. Its high level of configurability, theming options, and comprehensive documentation make it appealing for users. The manager also includes an optional external wallpaper manager that supports transparency, along with a straightforward session manager and a system tray for added functionality. Furthermore, the robust capabilities of IceWM allow users to tailor their desktop experience to suit individual preferences.

Configuration is fully managed at runtime through the herbstclient tool, meaning that the configuration file essentially acts as a startup script. Users can make changes to configuration settings, window rules, virtual desktops, and keybindings in real time, eliminating the necessity to restart the window manager. Each virtual desktop, referred to as a tag, comprises both a tiling layer and a floating layer, where windows in the tiling layer occupy the entire screen space while floating windows can be positioned freely on top. Furthermore, all monitors utilize the same collection of tags, enabling users to swap the content of two monitors with just a single keystroke. This seamless interaction enhances the overall user experience by allowing for quick adjustments and multitasking capabilities.

Enhance your productivity by tailoring your workspace to align with your personal working style. Make the most of your screen space by seamlessly organizing windows to reduce clutter and distractions. Creating customized layouts, widgets, and commands is straightforward, allowing you to personalize your environment as needed. Help is readily available whenever you encounter challenges. Utilize the comprehensive capabilities of the language to adapt it to your specific requirements. Our commitment is to consistently support the last three releases of CPython, the official Python interpreter, while also typically maintaining support for the most recent stable version of PyPy. You can find detailed information regarding the versions and interpreters that we test against in our tox configuration file, ensuring transparency and ease of access to our current standards. This adaptability not only fosters a more efficient workflow but also encourages continuous improvement in your coding practices.

In a conventional window manager, a significant portion of your time is often consumed by the tedious tasks of organizing and locating windows. XMonad simplifies your workflow by taking care of these tasks automatically. It's been just over a year since we launched XMonad version 0.17.0, a milestone that coincided with our initial outreach for funding. The level of support we've received from the community has truly been remarkable—thank you all! Although our financial needs are fully disclosed, it can be challenging to stay informed if you're not directly engaged with the project. By automating the routine job of window arrangement, XMonad enables you to focus more on productivity. Thanks to the robustness of Haskell and our commitment to effective programming methodologies, users can expect a seamless, crash-free experience while working. This approach not only enhances efficiency but also fosters a more enjoyable computing environment.