Ranking Linux Desktop Environments for 2023

[@TheLinuxEXP]

Get 100$ credit for your own Linux and gaming server: www.linode.com/linuxexperiment

[@csehszlovakze]

isn't akamai related to meta?

[@rakiburrahman7898]

Please make a video on Feren OS 🙏🏼🥺❣️

[@NottarJohnny]

What about i3 ? 😂 Personnally, I've recently moved from GNOME to KDE and it is so great ! All the available customizations make it so much better ! You feel like every part of your system is under your control !

[@revanvonheaven8270]

unity

[@hubertgraja91]

@@rakiburrahman7898 p.m. p. P

[@VandrerenErik]

Good to see you actually evaluated DEs and not Distros. Great video!

[@SunIsLost]

Yea

[@brostoevsky22]

The desktop environment is the most visible aspect of the user experience anyways. You should make a video about all of the cool and unique little features of various DEs and distros. When you do a deep dig there are a ton of them. @The Linux Experiment

[@mndtr0]

When they must evaluate a DE they evaluates a distro but when they must evaluate a distro the evaluates a DE...

[@VandrerenErik]

@@yash1152 yeah, I remember the video.

[@ultravioletiris6241]

Good point. So many channels review a distro by clicking around the DE for a few minutes.

[@Cptnbond]

As you said in the beginning, desktops are very personal. I have been a fan of XFCE4 for years. Rock solid on Debian and does what a desktop should do; run your critical applications. I'm not so much into jazzing up the look and feel, as you may have guessed. It also feels blazingly fast, regardless of the hardware, which is my priority. Cheers.

[@RandyHanley]

XFCE is so great! I feel like it's always there for me if I have issues with another Desktop Environment, and it's so lightweight, and so darn solid!

[@IncendiarySolution]

@@RandyHanley xfce is gold star because it just works and gets out of the way.

[@RandyHanley]

@@IncendiarySolution I totally agree!

[@TheAkatran]

Same here. I've been using XFCE in 2 desktops and one laptop that have a quite huge spread on their production date and still the experience is the same. Just login and start working...

[@ashishKjr]

+1 for Debian + Xfce

[@oussamabouchebak6877]

Since you can turn KDE into any other DE or OS it might need a tier list of its own, love KDE.

[@TheLinuxEXP]

Yeah, that’s a full other video right there!

[@accountid9681]

the more you stray from the defaults, the more bugs you encounter though

[@francootaola9172]

@@TheLinuxEXP would love that video!

[@PhilipDudley3]

@@TheLinuxEXP A Tweaking KDE video to show you how to make it like MacOS or Win10 or Win11 looks. Or just something entirely different.

[@theairacobra]

@@PhilipDudley3 he did make a video where he showcased his kde setup if im not wrong

[@marcosfs93]

Until some time ago, I used to use only the KDE interface, but after testing Pop OS with your Gnome Cosmic interface I become more likely to use this interface instead KDE, even with their "lack" of features. Everything seems too responsive, the system boot is awesome.

[@ArniesTech]

Exactly why I fell in love with GNOME 😁

[@unknown_codec_404]

@@ArniesTech The GNOMEs modified by Pop and Ubuntu all perform and look better than default GNOME imo

[@Toll99725]

my personal favorite is cinnamon! it looks pretty modern and is easy to use while still being pretty powerful

[@n.m4497]

People who use cinnamon and Mate are about 8 in total. No one uses them, using old technologies and being maintained only by nostalgia. And it seems all those 8 people have gathered here to answer me. Just use XFCE retards

[@TheLinuxEXP]

Cinnamon is on Mint. It’s probably one of the most used distros and desktops ;)

[@Megaghost_]

Me too, Cinnamon not only looks nice, it is stable too, I never had any problems with it. There may be other DEs with interesting perks but I still stay with it because it's predictable and easy to use.

[@ptzzz]

Another Cinnamon user here too. I don't use the Mint X themes and icons as they make the DE look dated. I use the Materia Dark GTK theme and Flat Remix Yellow Dark icons. How about you?

[@The77SpaceMan]

@@n.m4497 Completely wrong. I resurrected a 11 inch Asus notebook with only 2 gigs of ram and let me tell you that Cinnamon and Mate are the two DEs which use the least RAM, even less than KDE Plasma. Anything that is a fork of Gnome 2 is great for old machines.

[@captain150]

Pretty much agree with you on your top three! The tweakability of KDE is what draws me to it, and as a Windows user for decades the layout is familiar (taskbar at bottom is something I have a lot of trouble losing). I've been using Kubuntu for a few months now. But I've used Gnome and Cinnamon as well and they are OK, Gnome is just not customizable enough for me. And Cinnamon desperately needs Wayland support. High DPI scaling in Cinnamon is still horrible, which is the problem I had with it almost 10 years ago when I first tried it. That it's still a problem in 2023 is inexcusable. Every new release of Mint I get excited that scaling will actually work, and I'm always disappointed.

[@peterschmidt9942]

Having the panel at the bottom was always a saving grace when switching from Windows for me. Nowadays, I really like the panel at the top of the screen as ergonomically, it makes more sense. Takes a little getting used to at first but at least your mouse isn't flying all over the screen now from top to bottom.

[@chickenbobbobba]

when i first went into linux more or less blind, i loved mate for all the monetoring and stuff. eventually i got bored of it, tried some others, (xfce, cinnamon, gnome, deepin) and eventually landed on KDE, and stuck with it since. its been so nice to use, i still have the system monitoring and stuff and the customisation is amazing

[@milohoffman274]

Even as a KDE Fan, I have been using Gnome 43 lately, and honestly its pretty good now if you install a handful of extensions. This is first version of Gnome I have liked since the GNOME2 days.

[@ArniesTech]

Yepp, to me it's KDE or GNOME....and XFCE which has a Special place in my nerds heart 😁

[@GabrielFreirev]

Same here, I'm running KDE on my main desktop, but my laptop now runs Gnome. Fedora 37 + Gnome 43 go really well

[@vika3750]

Out of my own curiosity, what are those gnome extensions you use that you feel are needed to make it pretty good? I get a little lost with all of them so I haven't really explored too many of them

[@GabrielFreirev]

@@vika3750 Not OP, but for me Just Perfection, Dash to Dock and AppIndicator are a must.

[@milohoffman274]

@@vika3750 I use dash-to-dock, aylurs widgets, just perfection, rounded corners, rounded window corners, and blur my shell

[@VallThyo]

I really like how Gnome looks, I think the team nailed how nice a desktop can look. But there is no way I can leave KDE, the ability to let the user do almost whatever they want, the great native apps like KDE Connect, and many others just make it the best one for me.

[@celestialbeing4767]

Crafting a desktop environments isn't easy. Looking forward to the "Cosmic desktop". Going against kde, gnome, xfce, cinnamon, budgie. Pretty impressive competition. I Hope the System76 has a ux designer to help.

[@ioneocla6577]

It will probably look like the current gnome cosimc

[@enslavedgorilla]

im sick of these amateur projects

[@RipCityBassWorks]

Is Cosmic Desktop going to support Wayland? That is a must for me at this point. KDE has especially made great strides in Wayland support over the last year - I definitely need to give it another try.

[@TechJolt3d]

@@RipCityBassWorks I think its built on top of wayland so there is that

[@Ryan-ct3rv]

@@RipCityBassWorks yes, infact Wayland is going to be the primary mode. It's designed for Wayland first but it is still compatible with x11.

[@thejoneseys]

Long time user of GNOME here too and I'm super productive with it. Used KDE a ton back in version 3 days (SUSE 9.x releases) but I keep going back to GNOME everytime I look at new versions of KDE. It's come a long way and looks absolutely amazing now. The settings can get a bit overwhelming like trying to find your favourite spice at a large supermarket seasoning isle! XFCE is my second favourite desktop. I used to see all these desktops choices as confusing but it's really a gift 😀

[@Theinvalidmusic]

I'm genuinely gutted for Budgie. Back when Solus was in its ascendancy, the combo of the two just absolutely wiped the floor with every other desktop-focused distro out there (in my opinion). Now both feel like they're on life support. Same with Elementary / Pantheon I guess. Despite my quibbles with GNOME's defaults, I'm kind of super impressed with how both have matured over the last few years, and tbh I don't feel there's much that could tempt me away from either these days.

[@nategraham4027]

It's the problem with these innovative small-team projects. With the right vision and team, you can get 80% of the way to something amazing quickly, but that remaining 20% takes so much more work and grind than the team expects. And without that 20%, the project can't manage to generate enough interest, usage, or money to sustain itself. I unfortunately expect the same thing to happen with Cosmic in a few years. KDE, GNOME, and Mint are the only FOSS DE communities that I think ever reached this level, and it's kind of iffy for Mint IMO.

[@Theinvalidmusic]

@@nategraham4027 As a current Pop user, I absolutely agree with you about Cosmic. I like some of the tweaks Cosmic makes, but hard-forking GNOME shell for what amounts to small differences in aesthetic choices and workflow tweaks feels less like a practical choice and more a political one.

[@cameronbosch1213]

​@Theinvalidmusic This didn't really age well. COSMIC has a company backing it (System76) so I don't see it going anywhere when GNOME refuses to work with other DEs.

[@Theinvalidmusic]

@@cameronbosch1213 What's COSMIC got to do with GNOME, Solus or Budgie?

[@cameronbosch1213]

@Theinvalidmusic I can see COSMIC being the right balance of customization and simplicity. Unlike GNOME, the developers actually seem to listen to community feedback, and unlike Budgie, COSMIC has a company backing them.

[@jasonrm999]

Wayland being "100% ready soon" fits in with "this will the year of the Linux desktop" or "fusion energy's only 20 years away". X is the zombie that can't be doubled-tapped.

[@TazerXI]

For me, GNOME and KDE are at the top imo. I use KDE on desktop, and GNOME on laptops. GNOME works really well with touchpad gestures, and I like the default look and layout. It is the one DE that gets me to use virtual desktops because they are easy to get to, and presented when opening apps. KDE is good because I like the ability to change everything. GNOME feels better to me for an "average person" DE, with things being fairly simple and not overwhelming the user. KDE also doesn't feel as smooth as GNOME, just slight animation differences and stutters here and there. But to me, I like how I can change anything, theme things to my hearts content. I like the concept of activities as well as virtual desktops. The separation of activities allows me to say have a school, or relax one, which would be helpful to say stop certain apps from opening. And I just like the workflow I have for KDE.

[@ouiVEVO]

Nemo, the file manager from cinnamon, was always the greatest app for me, for any DE you would use (except KDE). It's responsive, quick, efficient, not bloated, yet doesn't lack features like gnome nautilus where you cannot easily copy and paste a folder path by default for example.

[@frogmcribbit8778]

The ironic part of it is that Nemo is a fork of Nautilus from a decade ago. GNOME devs somehow remove features over time for some reasons.

[@yoyoma2026]

I've been arguing with the GNOME devs for a couple years now about that issue but they refuse to change it despite every other filemanager having that behavior. I hate to say it but windows 11 file explorer is close to perfection for me.

[@charliekahn4205]

I just wish there were a version of Nemo with CSD, since I want to use it alongside Gnome apps

[@tomspencer1364]

@@frogmcribbit8778 Gnome devs are an excellent reason not to use Gnome.

[@JeffreyOcaya]

I install Nemo alongside the default Thunar on my go to distros and then make Nemo the new default file manager. 😊 Nemo is convenience for me.

[@fliptip]

KDE Plasma is the best for me

[@abhijitkmt]

Me too

[@Cart1416]

Very good because of customization but I would just use Linux Mint Cinnamon easier to use

[@ouiVEVO]

KDE best DE

[@dogbog99]

It has lots of potential and looks lovely

[@goldenamir9803]

Buggy

[@EmileNani]

KDE is my absolute favourite but I was forced to switch to Mate due to my laptop's limitations. Added Compiz to Mate and it is beautiful and fast. Only thing I miss from KDE in this setup is the blur

[@Psychx_]

KDE has made enormous improvements on the "being buggy" front. I think that reputation still lingers from the KDE4 days, during which it used to crash very often… Bugs, crashes and strange application behaviours definitely aren't a common thing anymore with KDE nowadays. I've been using it for the past 2-3+ years, been through the whole Wayland enablement saga and the user experience now is better than ever!

[@ArcangelZero7]

Yeah, I'm honestly interested in something "lighter weight" like XFCE just for fun on my laptop...but every other DE feels like there's stuff missing after using modern KDE!

[@williamofbaskerville5777]

I am using a PC with Windows 11 Pro, a Mac Mini with macOS of course, a PC with KDE, an older laptop with XFCE and another (fanless) PC with Cinnamon. The PC I am using the most is the one with Kubuntu 22.04 and KDE Plasma. It is indeed the best desktop experience of all.

[@mx338]

XFCE is really solid choice for VMs and Remote Desktop type scenarios. It does what you would expect while being very stable and lightweight.

[@stillmattwest]

This is one of my favorite Linux channels. Love the real-world, actually used it vibe. Good tier list, too. I wish you’d added Cosmic. Cinnamon really has gotten very good. It’s underrated, much like Mint.

[@cameronbosch1213]

I agree on TLE being a great Linux channel. I disagree on Cinnamon being underrated. I think it is overrated and stuck in the past. No Wayland support even STARTED is a HUGE miss in 2023, to the point I'm wondering if they'll just kill Cinnamon and move to MATE & Xfce when Wayland becomes the default.

[@ncrdesertranger2201]

I use Fedora with GNOME because I study Chinese, and it has input out of the box, so you don't need to install packages like ibus and configure them. But I'd like to use KDE because it's similar to windows I used for almost the whole time. I also felt incompleteness while was trying to use Fedora with KDE because this OS supports GNOME lot better out of the box.

[@ArniesTech]

Exactly thats where GNOME wins. The out of the box feeling 💪

[@maclee5381]

If OOTB is what you're after, then I agree that Plasma is definitely not the right DE for you. Linux is all about customization, and often things don't work without some tinkering--that's a positive and also a negative, and that's the price you pay for the freedom you get. Plasma desktop is the epitome of this philosophy--filled with features that you didn't know you needed but requires a bit of customization to get it work the way you want (their defaults have gotten much better over the years. Don't know if I can say the same about GNOME, but then GNOME has distros to polish their product for them to the point that it is presentable). GNOME has good OOTB experience not because of its design, but its incumbent advantage, being the first desktop that's fully free throughout the stack. As such, major backers in the Linux world like RedHat and Canonical put in the time and money to polish their GNOME desktop to a point that it is actually usable for most people when distributed (things like bundled extensions since GNOME shell is quite lacking without those, and in some cases, patched software, mostly for the file manager, which has only gotten worse over the years). However, once you need to customize GNOME 3 beyond the limits the devs put on its users (I hit that pretty much from day one--I used GNOME as my sole DE for a few years, and GNOME 3 specifically for about one year), then you'll need to use the terminal. Like a lot. In contrast, I never had to use the terminal to customize anything with Plasma since there's always a button or checkbox somewhere in the GUI to get it to do what I needed. I would like to add that I also type Chinese, and I never had trouble setting that up in any DE whatsoever, and in practically any modern distro like Fedora/openSUSE/Debian/Ubuntu you shouldn't need to use the terminal to set that up--there should be GUI package managers and configuration wizards for that. I gotta say tho, Fedora is not the best distro for KDE/Plasma--anything that is not GNOME is an afterthought for them. If you really want to get a good experience out of the Plasma desktop, you should checkout openSUSE or Kubuntu. I tried openSUSE something like 15 years ago and their OOTB experience with KDE + CJK IME is second to none and it was at least on par with what you get on GNOME these days (I tried GNOME again recently). Debian is not bad either (that's what I've been using for the past 12 years or so. It's mostly DE agnostic), but it will require a bit more work from the user.

[@maycherryblossoms]

@jernejj5 it's not, use fcitx and the kcm that comes with it and languages are super easy to use, I got Japanese IME working flawlessly on KDE

[@TurboWafflz]

I've been using NsCDE on my laptop for a few months now, and while it's definitely not for everyone, I really like it. It's a clone of the old CDE desktop using FVWM and most applications look remarkably consistent in it. Additionally, something about the huge colorful desktop buttons makes me actually use four desktops when usually I would only use one or two.

[@NerdistRay]

Linux Mint XFCE is one of my all time favourite linux desktop environment.

[@cameronbosch1213]

Linux Mint KDE was mine. Now it's Sweet themed KDE but otherwise the default KDE Plasma 5 layout.

[@ganglmiklos1572]

Linux Mint Mate is my favorite although it looks old fashoned. It is very stable very quick and runs on old laptops well.

[@Name-t9fbd]

For a dark theme I prefer Linux Mint XFCE. For a light theme Linux ZorinOS Lite (xfce with whisker replaced).

[@hjrgf]

I liked manjaro xfce but switched to crystal (another arch based distro)

[@BujuArena]

My opinion: XFCE is good now and its prospects look truly great. I use it daily and it can make a layout that I like that not even KDE Plasma can make.

[@topolojack]

i've been a solus budgie user for over a year now (i started *just* before strobl quit solus), and while i don't plan to switch, your criticisms are spot-on. it feels like budgie has largely stagnated and the progress that has been made is convoluted. i still like the looks and features of budgie and imo solus is incredibly efficient for how powerful it is. i hope both projects grow and improve and i can't wait to see budgie 11, even though that's not on the slate for 2023.

[@theviniso]

Yeah, I was on Solus for most of 2021 and despite looking good and working perfectly well I ended up installing Fedora. I don't like it as much to be honest, but it works too and it's good to know it won't be dying anytime soon.

[@prashanthb6521]

I stay with XFCE (on Debian) for a long time now as I work with many old hardware mostly. Never felt any need to change as it is fast and simple. Earlier I was LXDE Lubuntu.

[@andrewkamoha4666]

Why did you switch LXDE to XFCE ??

[@Rac3r4Life]

I am a GNOME guy, personally. I think it looks beautiful and works very well. I do use Dash to Panel to get that more traditional desktop layout though. I have tried to use KDE for extended periods, but I just don't like it.

[@rafalg87]

Yeah, whenever I try Gnome after not seeing it for a while, I'm really impressed how slick it looks. It feels like what I expected MacOS to feel like (which it didn't). But it's not for me, I don't want to install extra apps and extensions to set up really basic stuff and hope it doesn't break on the next big update. So it's KDE for me 🙂

[@VandrerenErik]

Yeah, I'm always trying other DEs in hope to see any improvement and every time I just end up appreciating Gnome even more, even with its downsides.

[@radoslew]

@@rafalg87 it's a real pain in the ass for a "Windows familiar look" fan - KDE works like that straight OOTB

[@tabnumlock7790]

Very happy with Zorin Core. Makes Gnome slick and modern. Protip: turn on the Workspace Indicator extension to rapidly scroll through workspaces.

[@Lodinn]

I'm very happy with Gnome on a laptop, but gotta agree with Nick here - on desktop it feels worse. I tend to not keep both my hands on the keyboard unlike on a laptop because the physical mouse still comes in handy (which is particularly noticeable with scroll, touchpads are always a bit wacky on that front). And it starts falling apart from there. Great keyboard-centric experience, very slick. I do not really need more than what's provided out of the box, and various bells and whistles are there to make my life better, not to have me tearing my hair out. I pretty much only set up a sensors widget, maybe a few more status indicators/weather applets and that kind of thing, and Dash to Panel for my SO. I'm not great with patching things together so that the end result looks great, and KDE embodies that for me as well. If I had a better design aptitude I might prefer it, actually, but if I can't figure out the setting combination which would look good it never will. So, less user-facing customization is a good thing for me personally: if something really bothers me, I am not opposed digging for it. But cohesive design and eye candy that does not immediately go into kitsch territory is very desirable, and GNOME does it better, IMHO.

[@affechristoph]

My personal tierlist looks similar, but I would put GNOME on the great rank because the lack of options and tweaks out of the box is not that bad. But I would still love to see that issue beeing fixed. Having the Extension Manager App preinstalled and the options of the GNOME Tweak Tool moved into the Settings App would already be a big improvement in that regard. Also, a more native approach of theming would be nice. When it comes to KDE, I think that it doesn't have any lack of options (the huge amount of options is KDE's biggest strength ), but I doesn't feel as smooth and dynamic as GNOME does and it is too bloated for me. So I'd say that GNOME and KDE are both in the great tier, but the rest of the tierlist is basically the same for me. Especially when it comes to DEs and WMs, it's about personal preferences and for me GNOME and KDE are the two DEs which I love the most, even if their approaches and goals are completely different.

[@CoasterMan13Official]

I made my MATE desktop look modern. And I use it as my daily driver. MATE is just about as customizable as KDE is in some areas.

[@folksurvival]

It's the best DE (and basic applications) IMO.

[@jezzamobile]

Agreed. And apps are just nicely done, Pluma, Caja etc.. ¡Excelente!

[@hjrgf]

​@@folksurvival I like xfce more but MATE would be my 2nd pick

[@TunjungUtomo]

IMO it's the better version of Cinnamon

[@hjrgf]

@@TunjungUtomo same cinnamon is good but MATE feels and looks better

[@trveadu]

Being a tiled window manager user I always think of how much I love KDE as a more user friendly DE. Absolutely top notch.

[@amaralbc]

Agree with you on almost all of them! Also super sad for elementary, such a great distro that got stuck in time. Devs should perhaps focus only on Pantheon and make it easier to implement on other distros, but I doubt it. I'm afraid it will just go down and be forgotten. It was the only distro that worked flawlessly in an old Dell laptop I had, couldn't even make Ubuntu work in it. Got me through college and it was awesome. Today it's KDE for me, however I think it's missing a killing distro to rock it, like Gnome has Fedora. I don't think either Neon or Kubuntu have the same impact. Wish we still had Mint KDE, that would be incredible

[@vika3750]

I totally agree about KDE needing a good distro. People say Arch or OpenSUSE tumbleweed is the way to go for KDE. Arch/Endeavor was a bit of a headache for me. I could get them going but I'm too to want to spend so much time configuring and tinkering. OpenSUSE I just didn't like the package management system. I know people swear by it but honestly for me it was a little confusing adding "patterns" in the launcher/searching for the right thing to pick wasn't straight forward and KDE discover on it didn't work well (for me anyway, experienced lots of glitches etc), and a few programs I use really just support apt whereas opensuse uses yast/RPMs. Kubuntu was frustrating because packages seemed out of date and it wasn't easy to get the latest KDE stuff, and Neon had uptodate KDE stuff but other things were outdated since it used an old ubuntu repo.

[@amaralbc]

@@vika3750 Yeah I've got the exact same experiences, even though instead of Arch I've used Manjaro. It was okay for a while but something would eventually break, and I really don't like pamac to manage software, especially on KDE where it looks out of place. OpenSuse is where I had the most success using KDE without too much headaches, looks good and it really works. But while I see the appeal of Yast, I can't stand having to install things through it. Never got Fedora KDE to work with my hardware, that would have been great. For now it's Kubuntu + KDE PPA, but their use of snaps throws me off a bit. A Mint KDE revival, or a PopOS KDE would be sweet, but sadly not happening.

[@yoyoma2026]

I've been digging Nobora (fedora) KDE. Stays up to date but not so cutting edge stuff breaks all the time. IMO Fedora or Arch + KDE is best since having KDE up to date is more important due to its complexity.

[@keilmillerjr9701]

That is why I choose arch. It isn't going anywhere, always up to date, and has an amazing wiki. The distro wars are too much for new users. Easy to fall into a distro that is no longer maintained, especially when the devs are overwhelmed from trying to make every aspect of an operating system instead of focusing on what they are good at. Keep the distro, DE, ui framework, and apps separate.

[@fluentmoheshwar]

Did you try KDE Neon?

[@cameronbosch1213]

I don't like GNOME hiding the minimize and maximize buttons by default without GNOME Tweaks or dnconf, but I do understand that some people do like GNOME. I'm just not one of them (I use KDE Plasma 5 btw.)

[@AdamWarner]

I think the major problem GNOME faces is that it requires that the user be completely on-board with their workflow. They are expecting you to interact with it differently, and that can be difficult to adapt to. From their side of the fence, I think the question would be, "Why do you need to minimize a window?"

[@cameronbosch1213]

@@AdamWarner And that lies the problem for me. I like to adapt my computer to my workflow, not me adapting to my computer's workflow. And I like minimizing windows because it keeps my focus on what I'm currently working on.

[@diwaalejandrogalvez796]

I have to admit. I've been a Cinnamon Mint user since 2014, and I don't see moving away from it until I saw this. I used KDE from 2006 - 2013, and wow Plasma is such a big improvement now. That's for my laptop. Like you, I still use Gnome on my main laptop (XFCE on my old one).

[@AnErrupTion]

You forgot LXDE :(

[@frustratedalien666]

I am an XFCE fanboy and tend to install it even on more powerful systems because it does what I need it to do and stays out of my way. Also, unlike with Gnome, whenever I ask how to configure something on XFCE, I don't get told that what I want to do is wrong and that I have no idea what a desktop should and shouldn't do. That said, I wish the Fedora KDE spin worked as well as their default Gnome. I ran into some bugs the last time I tried it and that's why I begrudgingly run vanilla Fedora on my primary laptop.

[@iamnotyourmate]

I really appreciate that you keep uploading and keeping the linux community happy

[@ravagingwolverine666]

This kind of choice is one of the great things about Linux and other similar operating systems, though I understand it also seems difficult to newcomers. I started on KDE in 2013, mostly due to an odd set of circumstances when I started. When I finally put my parents on Mint, which was a wonderful decision, whenever I used Cinnamon to take care of things on their machines it just felt like a better fit for me. Plus, my distro seemed to not be as good for me as when I started. I liked the more classic Windows feel of Cinnamon. So I stayed with that for a while, though I still liked to play with new distros and desktops now and then which led me to trying out Xubuntu and Ubuntu MATE in 2017 and 2018. There was something really special to me about Xubuntu and it stuck with me even though I didn't stick with it then. Ubuntu MATE was a mess for me back then. I was not aware of the compositing issues until I did that experiment and it was really annoying at first, so I stuck with Cinnamon for a while. It was a good thing I did jump around and learn the quirks because eventually I did feel the need to change distros for my machines and having that experience left my options open and I knew what to do. I ended up using XFCE and much like when I was on KDE and Cinnamon felt like a better fit, XFCE felt like a better fit as well. There was a bit more to customize at first, and learning how to do it, but it never felt like too much. I was already having to jump through hoops on Mint Cinnamon, so I didn't mind new hoops that made more sense. Now, whenever I use Cinnamon, which I briefly put on one of my tiny desktops recently, it feels limited by comparison for the way I operate. One thing I like about MATE(which Cinnamon has as well) is the option for delay for startup applications, which I needed for something. But MATE feels so much like XFCE that I felt comfortable right away. I should say that I like the way MATE and XFCE typically look. I like that so-called retro look, because to me it's about being functional and not getting in the way. A lot of the things people refer to as modern tend to get in my way or just annoy me as being useless. But that's just me. I should say, I did try KDE last year since I've heard so many good things about it in recent years and I wanted to test a couple of features. While I did like it, it also felt a bit more foreign to me with different programs, different names for things etc. It wasn't worth it for me to stick with it since I still functioned better under XFCE and MATE, but I did like KDE and could use it just fine if I had to.

[@barbagrossa]

Used to enjoy Ubuntu with gnome, but after start using windows 11, I started to enjoy a single panel desktop. So I installed KDE and put the panel to the left, best of both worlds!

[@muhametsmaili3832]

Gnome is one of the best i have tried. I use nearly vanilla gnome. The only extensions that change the look of gnome are: - Hide top bar ( i always hide the top bar) ------ - Bing photo (for changing background pictures) - pop shell - for windows tiling.

[@jimmyking92]

I currently run Debian stable with LXQT since I'm on old hardware and I love it since I'm not really into eyecandy.

[@un_tizio_a_caso2701]

Same thing, I tried i3, but for now I'm not comfortable with it...

[@lyoneel]

yes but LXQT is miles less ugly than XFCE, and IMO QT is lighter

[@crazycatman4171]

So do I: Debian stable + LXQt on a 15 years old computer (and on some more modern ones, too). LXQt is really fast and uses much less resources/RAM than XFCE or any other of the major desktop environments. LXQt is great, because it is easily combined with any window manager - I prefer Xfwm4 for it, because I think Xfwm4 is the best compromise between functionality, customization capabilties and RAM usage. LXQt itself is a bit hard to customize, but it is doable with some effort. Hopefully some more people will report about it in the future…

[@hjrgf]

​@@lyoneel xfce looks good if you know how to make it look good and imo its better than all of the other environments

[@oyohval]

Missed a good chance to say "no budgie" instead of "doesn't move at all"

[@Magicmedo]

As an Artist Vanilla Gnome is the DE for me. Once you open an Application, it’s the only thing on the screen. Everything is scaled perfectly and minimal specially when you add the No GTK No title bar extension.

[@TheLinuxEXP]

It is more focused, yeah!

[@cameronbosch1213]

Though Krita is a Qt application, so idk if that matters to you, but Qt applications don't look good on GNOME to me...

[@Magicmedo]

@@cameronbosch1213 It does.. matter of fact All apps look uniform in Gnome.

[@cameronbosch1213]

@@Magicmedo A year later, and your comment didn't age well with the Adwaita icon theme missing icons on Qt apps issue...

[@kmemz]

Honestly, while XFCE is by default somewhat outdated, without installing any extensions or addons, it's probably the single most customizeable DE outside of Plasma, at least as far as I'm aware. Honestly, it's even more customizeable in some ways, such as its menu to select which window manager you want to use, where you can pretty much select everything from Mutter to DWM. Speaking of DWM, I'm honestly relieved to see that I'm not the only person who's not fond of the Window Manager workflow. Tried it, tried it again, and still scratching my head over how anyone can find speed, efficiency, and even *convenience* in such a janky workflow. Not going to say it's impossible, but that it just doesn't work for me.

[@1Raptor85]

yeah, XFCE has an insane amount of customization available, pretty much all in the menu's too. Personally I run a custom layout with no compositor and a lot of the standard plugins like the ACPI temperature monitors, clipboard manager, screenshooting tool, pipewire, etc. I have it pretty much looking like kde 3.5 but with the bar on top and a custom quick launch dock that hides on the right bottom of each of my screens with the most common apps i use on each, and a standard hidden dock on the bottom with the common thunar/mousepad/terminal/firefox. It's basically been my work setup I customize it to since I actually USED kde 3.5

[@SvalbardSleeperDistrict]

As an i3wm user, now I want to find videos where Nick had made his views on tiling managers known.

[@krux02]

I use XFCE, because when KDE or Gnome ship with all these awesome features I never asked for, I don't even have to ignore them. I don't notice anything, and that is how I like things to be: constant.

[@AceOfBased]

Xfce is a way of life!

[@thekthe12345]

Nice comparison, I've tried different desktops but always went back to KDE in the end... since 2005 🙂

[@TheDeeplyCynical]

I began my Linux journey 9 months ago with KDE. with retrospect, one of the few good decisions I've made.

[@IGqy]

Very surprised to hear pantheon rated this low, but understandable with the arguments. I agree with the top 3, but would probably swap KDE and gnome, and don't have much of an opinion on the rest as I haven't used anything else for years. Looking forward to the cosmic desktop once they build that, then I will decide whether to use fedora or pop

[@jengilbert8858]

Agree that gnome is great for laptops, the touchpad gestures are just so convenient, especially when paired with the pop os shell for the window tiling. However I like KDE a lot too, I put it on my kid's laptop because it allowed me to really customize the look to be perfect for her and it runs well on a lower powered machine

[@retropipes8863]

Insightful analysis - given your usage patterns, ranking touchpad gestures highly makes complete sense.

[@taiwbi]

I agree with all. I was using gnome for 1.5 year and I just moved to KDE. Gnome is really simple, beautiful and more arranged but it's not customizable enough. They're even removing theming support.

[@madpoet]

Nice one, thanks for posting. I've been a KDE fan since I used CDE back in the day on Solaris desktops. KDE is certainly the way to go.

[@kitalthevali]

in defense of xfce and mate, due to their lightweightedness they're great if you are trying to revive an old machine that doesn't support more than 1 or 2 GB of RAM (that said cinnamon does really well despite this)

[@akshaymathur136]

KDE despite its appearance is pretty light weight these days, and years blows with Xfce in RAM and CPU usage. I am running it on an underpowered E450 dual core processor and it is very very responsive.

[@hjrgf]

​@@akshaymathur136 xfce has a lot of customization too with themes

[@KatInkura]

Currently using hyprland on both my desktop and laptop, absolutely adore it! I know, I know, tiling window manager, not a desktop environment.. *turns on floating*

[@mysterynad]

A lot of the issue with Pantheon is how tightly the thing is integrated with ElementaryOS. If you don't run that particular distro and its old Ubuntu LTS base it breaks half the functionality. Trying to run it on something like Arch, Gentoo or Debian Sid is probably gonna be a bad time.

[@charliekahn4205]

If you ignore the app store, Pantheon's components can be very powerful on other DEs. Gala and Xfce are a great combo.

[@enkiimuto1041]

I was wondering why you were so quiet about Pantheon as Gnome started getting praises. I finally got an answer

[@burnin8orable]

I know you don't like tiling window managers, but it would still be cool if you did a tier list for them since they are popular.

[@MasterPJ86]

Strange, I'd make exactly the same list as you nick, BUT, I'd just switch KDE with cinnamon. I liked and used KDE but so many options and menus (and bugs) gave me headaches in a few months. Then I went to Gnome cause i wanted the opposite: a simple desktop with no option with great workflow and window management. But, in time, I had to use many extentions to adjust my workflow and I got tired of "tinkering" with the fear everything could (and did) brake with an update. Cinnamon hits the sweet spot between ease of use and customization options without the need of third party tools. With great gtk soft looks, and modern restyle with the new 5.6 version. I already liked cinnamon back in the first versions, but now it's just a joy to use and to look at.

[@stumpypost]

Spot on !

[@cameronbosch1213]

@@stumpypost Until Cinnamon adds Wayland support, it's a decent rating for me at best.

[@Lunix_Hardcore]

I love KDE. It almost feels like a sandbox to build your own Desktop Enviroment

[@coolbrotherf127]

I have KDE customized exactly how I like it and I haven't had any issues with it. It's a great one to use for casual Linux users and power users alike.

[@kertrix_]

I really like Gnome and ever more LibAdwaita and their modern design

[@TheLinuxEXP]

I love libadwaita! It has helped improve GBOME apps so much!

[@michaelhamilton7037]

Good summary. When writing a PyQt system-tray application I sampled KDE, Gnome, Deepin and Xfce. My impressions were the same. I found gnome to be the weirdest, quite unfriendly to anyone familiar with more "normal" desktops, it was the only one that required significant exceptions in my coding. Deepin seemed very well thought out, focused, but off the main-stream (for now). In the end, KDE seems like the best of the bunch. I've had some gripes about KDE, but as you've said, they keep fixing them.

[@stumpypost]

This is exactly the same order I would put the DE's in, although, personally, I favour Cinnamon over KDE as I prefer something more minimalist (I agree KDE was buggy but much of this has been addressed)

[@cameronbosch1213]

I would actually drop Cinnamon down a tier from what Nick did, because no status on Wayland plans in 2023 is a cardinal sin.

[@farishanafiah8461]

Xfce is still my preferred choice. It's still the best desktop environment for laptops and desktops with old, if not outdated hardware.

[@zparihar]

I fully agree with your ratings. Great job!

[@rakota1967]

Since I started to run EndeavourOS as my main OS I've stuck to using I3 with XFCE as a backup if I need a GUI I rarely do so much these days, XFCE being easy to tweak and having a low cost on performance makes it perfect for this use case. I am happy that there seems to be healthy competition amongst DE's though, there are really important for people that are getting started with Linux or people who really don't care to tweak things by themselves that much.

[@emptybottle1200]

nice! i'm planning to have EndeavourOS on my desktop

[@theodoros_1234]

Happy new year, Nick! I think I agree with your rankings, especially KDE! I've tried multiple desktop environments, but I always end up switching back to it. Also, it's the desktop environment that made two of my friends switch from Windows to Linux. It is buggy sometimes, but usually the bugs are fixed after a while, as you said.

[@tulsatrash]

Fair that you aren't reviewing ones that you have not used. Thank you for acknowledging their existence.

[@SirRFI]

I like GNOME for it's looks and simplicity. The latter is indeed "too simple" and many default apps aren't good enough even for standard users. GNOME Tweaks and Extension Manager (the one with ability to browser and install extensions) should be built in the settings.

[@talkysassis]

The problem is that GNOME devs hate those two.

[@powerdude_dk]

Glad you mentioned LXQT. I really like the default taskbar.

[@abuzawad3192]

Once I switched to KDE. I could never find an alternative to it. KDE is awesome

[@Azmodaeus49]

Same here and I came from Windows months ago, as soon as I saw KDE, I installed and I've not looked at any OS since. And my brain and muscle memory got so used to KDE (neon) that I can't go back to windows ever again. I also own a steam deck too.

[@its_maalik]

Fedora 37 + Gnome 43 is 🔥. One of the smoothest and cleanest linux experiences I have had in a while.

[@DSTechMedia]

Elementary OS & Pantheon have also long been in my favorite desktop & distros. But you are right, it seems the project is stagnating. And I don't think it's simply from a lack of personnel but from problems within the team itself. The co-founder Cassidy James Blaede has left, and he was a major part of the work there. And if you're right about devs choosing to develop on Gnome now that's a major change. The most impressive thing about Elementary was that they had gotten so many developers to build apps for Elementary/Pantheon using it's specific toolchain. When they launched App Center I thought it was pointless, and they managed to prove me wrong.

[@elitehacker1069]

I was a KDE fan boy , until I learnt how to customize XFCE . Solid Performance XFCE especially on Arch and its derivatives !

[@BahaaBarakat]

Gnome 40+ is the best user experience I've had on any electronic device. Nothing comes close especially on a laptop! I have to use Windows 11 because of work (Autodesk, Office, Adobe) and it's so frustrating how janky everything feels especially the touchpad gestures and the horrible implementation of virtual desktops. I'd give a kidney to have a similar experience to Gnome's workspaces in Windows.

[@ruthmoreton6975]

I use Mint XFCE on my desktop for it's lightweight nature. I use Mint 21 with Gnome on my upstairs machine its an old Lenovo C470 all in one that I've put an SSD and extra ram in. Very pleased with how Gnome works with the touch screen.

[@theboring_xor]

My tier list would only have a few changes from yours. I would put Gnome in the great category. It has a polished feeling I otherwise only feel in commercial Android Skins (like OneUI or googles Material You Design). The problem with some missing options is there, but it never really disturbed me. I would also put xfce one grade higher, as i've seen very modern xfce configurations

[@Daijyobanai]

XFCE on Xubunti and Salix OS. I do not miss the OSX style trackpad gestures, I turn all of that off, so the trackpad can move the cursor and click, and that's all. Most distro's customize xfce so as not to look old fashioned like the default Greybird theme, but you can customize it the max yourself. The Salix default is particularly pleasing.

[@toranshaw4029]

I would probably have put GNOME down a place, due to the power consumption issue, as my laptop's fans would scream at me, some times all day. I run KDE now and have very little noise from the fans, so I agree with it being in the number 1 spot! 🙂 While I like the Unity DE, I tried the new Ubuntu Unity release and had too many problems with it, the worst of which was it not handling my external monitor properly. I'll always have a soft spot for Cinnamon, for it was the first DE I really liked!

[@ArniesTech]

Thats interesting. I even run Ubuntu 22.04 LTS GNOME on my ancient ThinkPad T61 with Intel Core 2Duo and 4GB RAM. And its dead silent unless I watch a DVD full resolution.

[@toranshaw4029]

@@ArniesTech it's certainly interesting how the performance works well on one machine and not another!

[@popgenje7234]

Cinnamon is my favourite, it is based on GNOME, fast, highly customisable, tonnes of applets and widgets, is default with Linux Mint, it have system tray and above all it do have live window preview on hovering cursor to taskbar. Team LM taken it (and LM) to the really serious level. They are more focused on consistency than cutting edge. You don't have to find things on every release. Whenever a feature comes, it stays. From dev aspect it is hard to maintain backward compatibility. Hats off to team LM.

[@enu42]

Do you have, or would you be interested in making a video on switching from Gnome to KDE? I tried it out for a day, and was horribly frustrated trying to find everything I needed, and eventually gave up.

[@TheLinuxEXP]

Maybe I could!

[@ReinisIkass]

I would also love to see a video for Gnome deserters. With tips on making KDE look nicer, productivity tips etc. As I am planning to switch from Gnome 43 to KDE very soon.

[@ThingyThongy]

I have only tried kde and gnome, gnome is the most stable and out of the box ready for me, both look very good so it's the stability that makes gnome win for me, i also like a lot gnomes modern look

[@bippaasama]

For me, based on the ones I've tried: Good: GNOME, XFCE, LXDE, LXQt, Cinnamon, MATE, Unity Good but I encountered issues that I was too lazy to properly fix: KDE Not so good: Deepin I don't know if I'm way too forgiving these days, or if desktop environments in general have gotten so good that I have nothing left to complain about.

[@andrewkamoha4666]

> "Good: GNOME, XFCE, LXDE, LXQt, Cinnamon, MATE, Unity" Mind to sort this list?

[@digitalage2010]

Great video as always. Regarding GNOME, I do not understand something. Most users use extensions like Blur or Cofein or other top-rated ones. Why don't GNOME developers implement those extensions into the OS so people won't face issues and bugs?

[@KeithBoehler]

I think it is a maintenance issue, as in the project devs don't want to up keep it, so they push it on to the extensions.

[@98SE]

11:02 My jaw actually dropped to the floor haha, I was not expecting that!

[@un_tizio_a_caso2701]

You should try LxQt, it isn't bad considering the resource usage, although it is quite far from perfection... It is also quite customizable and better looking than LxDE

[@folksurvival]

LXDE is better because it's gtk.

[@un_tizio_a_caso2701]

@@folksurvival but it is almost unmanteined, and LXQt is its successor

[@andrewkamoha4666]

@@un_tizio_a_caso2701 > "LXQt is its successor" The last time I've tested some years ago, LXQt was a resource hog compared to LXDE. If LXDE really had become unavailable, I would rather switch to Openbox than to LXQt.

[@darrelld5848]

the touchpad gestures are what switched me from kde to gnome. i install 3 extensions: hide top bar, bing wallpaper and caffeine

[@digitalage2010]

BTW, KDE is indeed the King of desktops. I LOVE IT.

[@BWGPEI]

Nick - your opinions are helpful, and very much appreciated. Here's hoping your weekend is a good one.

[@The_Frustrated_Optimist]

I spent a lot of time using KDE on fedora and neon, but ultimately i just find it to have frequent if minor bugs. Trying to customize the layout, especially panels, is a big one. Mint Cinnamon though, I'm not bothered by the lack of Wayland (for now), and It Just Works for me. I also love the new look in 21.1. Really the only thing I care about that KDE has over Cinnamon is how the dual-screen wallpaper management works, but I can replicate that in Cinnamon with a Hydrapaper crontab.

[@Tetemovies4]

XFCE is really good when you don't have a lot of power available for exemple when you use Linux on a VM for school.

[@IuriFiedoruk]

I have to agree. I try lots of different things, but end always going back to KDE. You can easily make it minimal but still keeping all the power under the hood, and its performance and stability greatly imprroved last year, making it a great default option.

[@233kosta]

XFCE is kinda nice. Minimal, out of the way, lightweight - a decent choice for old machines.

[@70shahin]

Nice video, Although Gnome is better for touch experience

[@TheLinuxEXP]

It absolutely is!

[@victor3285]

Bonne année ! Encore une excellente vidéo qui change pas mal des autres tier list, ça va pas mal m’aider dans le choix de mon prochain environnement de bureau. J’adore !

[@watynecc3309]

Potooo

[@canadaman3191]

KDE in great, ah yes, things that support my own bias's

[@TheLinuxEXP]

Confirmation bias is great!

[@sandeepvk]

KDE is definately buggy. The log screen flickers before showing login manager and bluetooth doesn't work in MxLinux

[@lukashavel7690]

Zorin OS should get its own category. I know, that it has GNOME basically. But it is the best variation of it that I know.

[@TheLinuxEXP]

I could do a list of GNOME implementations if this video does well