This content provides an updated tier list ranking of various Linux desktop environments in 2024, evaluating their current features, Wayland support, and overall user experience, while excluding tiling window managers.
Hey everyone, this is Nick and I think
it's time we took another look at a
desktop environment tier list because
the last one I did was in 2023 and
things have moved quite a lot since
then. Not only in the Wayland support
department because a lot of those
desktops now have at least an
experimental session for Wayland, but
also in terms of features and the
general direction these desktops are
going. So, as always, it's not your
usual tier maker tier list. I'll try to
showcase the desktop environments while
I'm talking about them. And also, I'm
not talking about tiling window managers
here because they are not full desktop
environments with their app selection.
So, they don't offer the complete
experience that I'm looking for when I'm
looking at desktop environments. Now,
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video. Okay, so we'll start with a
desktop environment I have used for a
long while, but I don't currently use
and that's Gnome. Gnome is an excellent
desktop environment. It offers a
complete suite of applications. They're
actually plugging the various gaps like
a basic audio player which they didn't
really have before and they have a
really strong application ecosystem
thanks to their unified development
library called Libert Vita. A lot of
apps have emerged for Gnome. It's
actually the most vibrant app ecosystem
out there for Linux desktops.
Application developers tend to default
to building a Gnome app first and that's
kind of important because it means most
of the apps you'll be running on your
desktop will look coherent and have the
same design language. Gnome is also
making big progress on adding support
for more advanced things that generally
just KD has. uh things like HDR support,
variable refresh rate, support for VR
headsets and gamings, triple buffering,
all of that stuff has been coming to
Gnome recently and it makes the desktop
a much stronger contender for most use
cases. Gnome also works really well on
touchscreens and tablets, which is cool.
They're also focusing on having adaptive
applications and desktops, meaning it
can run properly on smaller form factor
devices, even though that's not
important for a lot of people. And
they've also added a bunch more
features, stuff that they generally
don't tend to add options in the
settings. It's still not KDE. It's still
not even cinnamon or mate, but they are
willing to add more and more options
when they feel they are relevant. And
that's important because for a while,
Gnome was the desktop that refused to
let you configure anything. And it seems
like they've changed their opinion on
this exact topic. Where Gnome is a
little bit problematic for me is that
they still lack a few specific options
that most desktop users want. You still
don't have a system tray by default.
They have their background apps
implementation, but it's just not the
same. It doesn't have the same feature
set. They're planning to add context
menus to these background apps, but just
having that little icon in your system
tray sometimes is what you're really
looking for without having to click on a
specific menu. You can add that through
extensions, but the fact of the matter
is extensions tend to break with every
new Gnome version. Same goes for a dock.
Having to go into the activities view is
not a problem if you're a keyboard user,
but if you're a mouse user, it's kind of
annoying to flick your mouse to the
upper left corner and then down to the
dock. It's not the most practical way of
doing things if you don't just use the
super key and type things on your
keyboard. All of these gaps are filled
with extensions, but like we said,
extensions tend to break sometimes and
compatibility is not assured. So, this
is a little problem for me on Gnome,
which is why I can't put it at the top
tier. I'll put it at good. The next one
is Cinnamon. Cinnamon is the default
desktop environment for Linux Mint, but
it's also available on various other
distributions that ship it as an option,
a spin, a variant, a flavor, no matter
how you want to call that. Cinnamon is
basically KDE but written with Gnome
Technologies underneath with GTK. It has
a lot more options than Gnome has. It
doesn't have as many as KD, but it does
have a lot. And previously I felt
Cinnamon was a really good middleof the
road desktop but I felt it was sort of
held back by the fact it really remained
focused on X11 and they had not started
work on Wayland at all which was a
problem because if we're being realistic
X11 is dead it is unmaintained. No one
is contributing any code to it apart
from X Wayand. So Wayland is the only
way forward and not having started work
on that in 2023 was a problem.
Fortunately, Cinnamon has fixed that.
They have an experimental Whan session.
They have improved upon it in the latest
Cinnamon version and they didn't stop
improving the desktop itself. You have
better default themes when you're not on
Linux Mint. You have better default
apps. You get features. to get more
reliability on all their software stack
because they're really the only ones
investing in Debian package tooling at
least graphically which is very
important because Linux Mint is mostly a
Debian based DRO and Cinnamon is mostly
made for Linux Mint. It is a very very
strong desktop and even though the Whan
session isn't fully complete and
perfect, I think it really warrants its
place in the top tier. Next is XFCE.
XFCE is a longstanding desktop and it
does tend to appeal more to people who
started using Linux maybe back when I
started in 2006. It has a very old
school interface. It doesn't try to
revolutionize the desktop. It doesn't
try to cram every single option you
could have. It offers a robust set of
default applications even though they
are sometimes mixed and matched. Some
some have menu bars, some don't. Some
have client side decorations, some
don't. You have some little problems
here and there, but generally it is a
unified platform that works well. The
problem with XFC is that it's a smaller
project. They just do not have as many
developers as Gnome, KD or maybe even
Cinnamon. That being said, they do have
most of the basics there. They do have a
lot of options to really tweak the thing
to your liking. And they also have an
experimental whan session now something
they really hadn't started at all on
back in 2023 in my previous tier list.
Now they have that it is not usable
right now but it is something that
they've implemented meaning this desktop
will survive the next five 6 7 years
they are future proofing themselves and
that's really important. Now,
personally, I do feel like all the
applets and the way you configure the
desktop and the general look is not
super appealing. It feels like you're
stepping back in time to the Windows XP
era, and I don't have much nostalgia for
this, but it does tend to use fewer
resources. It does tend to perform
pretty well on lower-end computers, so
it does have a place. I'll put it on
average because personally, it's not
something I would see myself using. I
find it relatively frustrating and
beauty and aesthetics are important to
me when I use a desktop, but XFC is
definitely not a bad choice. Next is LX
Cute. I call it KD light edition because
it is based on a lot of KD technologies.
It does reuse the KD frameworks, a lot
of the KD components. It's based on cute
just like KDE, but it is a more
lightweight desktop. They don't offer as
much as KD offers, but they do have a
solid foundation. Now, in use, I don't
find it particularly pleasing because it
does give me the same vibes as XFC. It
does look a bit older. It is a bit more
convoluted. You have a lot of older
interface paradigms like little applets
everywhere that have right-click menus
that don't look the same with each
other. and it is not necessarily my cup
of tea, but they are not a bad option.
In my testing, I found it to use
relatively fewer system resources than
most other desktops out there, which is
interesting if you have a low power
computer or not a lot of RAM. And also,
they are future proofing themselves as
well. They do have that experimental way
session right now, which even can work
with various different window managers
if you don't want to use what LX offers
by default. Now, I do find that this
desktop lacks a strong cohesive vision.
It feels like they built a shell and
then they just stacked various apps on
top of it which aren't specifically
designed by the LX cute team. They use a
file manager that is just an alternative
that you could use on KDE. They use a
cute terminal. They use various tools
here and there that aren't built with
the same vision, the same visual design
language. you can theme them, but you
feel like all the options aren't
necessarily in the same place, and I'm
not the biggest fan of that. So, here
again, LXQ will go into average for me.
It is not bad. It is lightweight. It has
its use cases, but it's just not for me.
The next one will be deep in. And deep
in, not the DRO, the desktop environment
is not something I personally enjoy. It
does look really good on screenshots and
it is a desktop that does receive a fair
amount of development time. They have a
really nice visual style with
applications looking the part and
feeling like a coherent hole. The
problem is these applications are still
extremely limited. Even if you compare
them to their Gnome counterparts, they
just don't have the same breadth of
options and configurations and features.
All of these applications still feel
like they're proof of concepts and not
real fullfeatured ones. And if you try
to replace them with anything else that
doesn't come from deepin all of a sudden
the visual style completely breaks
apart, nothing you add will look at home
on deepen and so your desktop will turn
into a mish mash of disjointed parts
that I just do not like using. Also,
Deepen as a whole seems to be more
focused into building an entire platform
as a distro than building a really
strong desktop. So, while they do add a
bunch of features onto the deepend
desktop, they're already sort of linking
back to the deep end distro with support
for their Lini apps, which kind of seem
to be a flatback fork and serving the
same purpose. They're adding all those
AI assistants everywhere that you still
need to add your own AI provider in for
them to work. Meaning they're completely
useless if you don't already have a
subscription to any form of AI provider.
It's just not a desktop I enjoy using at
all. And honestly, when you look at all
the other choices you have, I don't
really see a strong proposition, a
strong reason to use deepen over a
configured and beautified KDE or Gnome,
for example. So, for me, it goes at the
bottom tier because there is just no way
I would use deepen over anything else
that we have. The next one we'll look at
is KDE. It's Plasma. It's the one I use
as my daily driver. I've been using it
for a few years now, and for me, it is
the top tier desktop right now. The KD
team released Plasma 6 at the beginning
of 2024 with a few teething problems,
but it wasn't there yet back when I made
my previous iteration of this ranking
video. Plasma 6 is excellent. It is now
really stabilized. I do not encounter
any crashes. I really don't have bugs in
day-to-day use when I use KDE. And I use
it with an Nvidia GPU. And I do use the
latest version as well on a Debianbased
DRO. It's tuxedo OS. KDI is the most
complete proposition you could get on
Linux right now. It can be daunting
because when you open the settings, you
see that there are a lot of options
everywhere. You can configure very basic
things like just the color of your
windows or the icon theme all the way up
to window rules which let you completely
change how your window manager handles
certain windows. It is also a very
extensible desktop. You can completely
change the layout, completely change the
panels, the widgets. You can add a ton
of different things on top of it. You
even have complete scripts that give you
a full tiling window manager on top of
their default window manager if you
want. It is a very, very complete
desktop. And all their default apps are
also super powerful. Although the KD
team did a really good job in hiding
some of that complexity away, the
default look for these apps is really
simple. you really know how to use them
instantly. But if you do need more
options and you do need to change the
layout of these apps, all the power is
at your fingertips. Previously, I found
KD way too convoluted, too complex, and
it overwhelmed me with options and
settings and features. But I think with
Plasma 6 and the following releases,
they really hit a strong point where it
is really simple by default and it does
have all the power underneath. And for
me, it makes it the best desktop out
there for Linux. So, they're kind of the
forefront of the Linux desktop these
days. I really like what they're doing.
I plan to keep using them for a long
while. For me, they're top tier. Now,
let's move on to Cosmic. I know this one
isn't released yet. It isn't even in
beta at the time I'm recording this.
It's still at alpha 7, I think, but it
is shaping up really nicely, and we do
need to include it. The only reason I
delayed this video in 2024 was because I
was expecting Cosmic to release around
July, but it never really materialized.
So, here we go. We're going to talk
about Cosmic Alpha, and Cosmic is
looking really, really good. Now, it is
not as complete as KDE or even Komi.
Doesn't have the same breadth of default
applications made specifically for that
desktop, but the desktop experience
itself shows a really strong vision.
They want you to have this specific
layout working, but you can tweak it in
the important ways. It doesn't give you
complete freedom to rejig the entire
desktop like KD does, but it does give
you a lot of options to make sure that
this layout works for your needs
specifically. They also have their
default autotiling feature, which is
still absolutely stellar. You can move
from floating windows to fully tiled
windows with window groups at the press
of a button or with a little applet up
top. It is fantastic. They're starting
to add all the options that people
expect, but they're still more on the
Gnome level of settings than uh closer
to Cinnamon or KDE. It is also very
importantly a fully futureproof desktop
because it's been built specifically for
the modern Linux stack. It's only based
on Whan. They don't have any older X11
legacy code hanging around that they
have to carry like the older desktops
like Gnome and KDE. They are just
building things from scratch
specifically for Wayland, meaning they
can have a clean slate and make sure to
implement things that really performs in
the best way. Now, in my testing, it
does tend to perform the same as KD and
Gnome, but it is an alpha, so things
could improve and it could turn into a
more lightweight desktop. It is not
finished. I cannot really give it a
perfect rating yet, but I can already
place it in good. And I could honestly
see myself using it as a daily driver in
its current form if it was a bit more
stable and polished in some places,
which it will likely be when the stable
version releases, probably before the
end of the year. Next is Budgie. And
Budia can't really give a really high
rating to that desktop because they're
still kind of stuck in redesign limbo.
They still have a competent enough
desktop. Budgy in its current iteration
isn't bad. It is Gnome based. It uses a
lot of Gnome technologies and some Gnome
applications including some of their
settings. But it is still a middleof the
road kind of tacked on customization
onto Gnome. And they want to move away
from that. They looked at enlightenment
libraries, but they sort of decided it
wasn't working for them because their
weight and support wasn't advanced
enough. So, they are apparently looking
at what Cosmic is proposing if I
remember correctly. But I haven't seen a
lot of progress on that. The team hasn't
really shared many progress reports on
all of that. And that's kind of annoying
because right now if you use budgie, you
use something that is kind of in
maintenance mode. You know that the end
product that you might get in two or
three years will not look like that at
all. So you're not using the current
vision for the budget team. You're using
the older version in itself. It works.
It is not super coherent. It is, in my
opinion, not as polished as something
like Gnome or K. So, for me, I'm going
to put it in no thanks. It's not the
worst tier, but it's not something I
could see myself using dayto-day. Next
is Mate, and I absolutely love Mate. I
started using Linux in 2006 with Ubuntu
6.06. It came with Gnome 2. And Gnome 2
is Mate. Mate is exactly Gnome 2 with a
few touches here and there to make it
run normally on modern computers. The
thing is desktops and how you use a
computer, it has progressed quite a lot
since the introduction of Gnome 2 and I
myself as a computer user have moved on
from this older paradigm. I use my
keyboard a lot more than I used to back
when I used Gnome 2. Mate is not really
adapted to that. They don't really have
a strong unified launcher that lets you
open files or apps or web pages or
whatever else. They don't really have a
keyboard ccentric thing. Their
customization options are there, but
they're really old and not super
intuitive. Everything looks really
dated. And I think the main problem
isn't that because some people just
don't care about this. They want
something that works and mate works. The
problem is Mate doesn't have enough
developers and they just don't follow
the current Linux desktop fast enough.
They are really not capable of keeping
up with Gnome and KDE. They don't have
the HDR stuff, the VRR stuff, the the uh
VR stuff at all. They don't have whalon
support currently. They just don't offer
a strong proposition. And currently, you
could just use current Gnome Gnome 48
with extensions and replicate this
entire layout if you preferred, but with
all the nicities of current modern
Gnome, which in my opinion is a better
proposition than Mate. So, Mate is going
to go in the no thanks category. It's
not trash. It's not bad. I just don't
see myself using it over Gnome, for
example. Now, we come to Pantheon.
Pantheon is the desktop environment used
by Elementary OS. It is the DRO I used
when I started this channel, and I have
a lot of nostalgia and love for it. But
Pantheon as a desktop environment also
does not keep up with the likes of Gnome
and KD. They have a way smaller
development team and they just cannot
catch up. Their look and feel is
starting to be pretty dated. I used to
really enjoy this Tango icon style sort
of cartoonish with this very simple
visual style that keeps a few gradients
here and there sort of web 2.0. But
today it just doesn't look the part when
you compare it to modern GNO, modern KD
or even something like Cinnamon. You
can't really theme it all that well
because Pantheon apps use a specific
library called Granite on top of GTK,
meaning that the theme has to be
specifically adapted for Pantheon
itself, for elementary OS itself. And
there aren't a lot of themes that do
that. So, visually, it starts on a lower
level for me than Gnome or KDE or even
something like XFCE, which is a problem.
But then you also have the feature set.
And while Elemen OS does offer a very
polished, really nicel lookinging
experience, it does suffer from the same
problem as Deepen, its apps just lack
features. You just don't have enough in
every single of these apps. And that's
because the developers develop the
entire desktop environment, but also the
DRO. And there just aren't enough
developers to do all of that. Well, the
desktop isn't bad. And if you don't have
really advanced needs in terms of your
applications, the options, and how you
want your desktop to work specifically,
then Pantheon is not a bad choice at
all. So, I'll put it in average. It just
doesn't fit my needs anymore. I think
it's better than mate. I think it's
better than deepen, but it's just not
something I could see myself going back
to unless they made significant strides
in the feature set department. I'm also
going to include Unity here. Unity is
what Ubuntu developed back in the day
when they started. I think it was with
Ubuntu 13.04 or 13.10. They moved away
from Gnome 2. They didn't want to move
to Gnome 3 and so they built their own
thing. Unity sort of died at at around
the Ubuntu 18.04 mark, but it was
resurrected in Ubuntu Unity edition and
it seemed like the desktop would have
some new stuff being added, some stuff
being revamped. But it also looks like
now this project has completely
faltered. It was picked up by just one
person, apparently very talented, but
also one person can't really maintain an
entire desktop. The issue is Unity has
not really moved past its old Ubuntu
17.10 roots. It hasn't really evolved.
It is not a bad option, but honestly,
you can replicate what it does really
easily in KDE or even with a few Gnome
extensions apart maybe from the global
menu uh which is still a pain even on
KDE to set up properly with all the
applications. Apart from that, you can
replicate the entire experience and it's
probably going to perform better, look
better, be more customizable, be more
themable. So, I don't see any real
reason to use Unity right now apart from
nostalgia. So, it's going to go at the
very bottom tier. In the previous video
back in 2023, I added CuteFish, which
was a desktop environment that was
starting to be picked back up at the
time. It seems to have completely died,
so I'm not going to talk about this one.
And among others that I haven't tried.
There's something like Luminina. Uh
there's Enlightenment that I haven't
given a shot, so I can't really rank
them here. If you want me to give them a
shot, let me know in the comments. list
all the desktops that I haven't tried
and that you want me to review and I'll
maybe make a dedicated video about this
and I'll integrate them in the next tier
list next year in 2026. Anyway, these
were all just my personal rankings for
my personal use case. I know some of you
will have very different opinions on all
of this, so don't hesitate to let me
know about those opinions down in the
comments. And I leave you on this segue
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