Debian desktop environment comparison

General License GPL GPL GPL, LGPL, BSD GPL, LGPLv2 GPL GPL, LGPL Proprietary Proprietary First release 1998 1999 1997 2011 2011 2013 2000 1995Windows 95 Forked from - - - GNOME 2 GNOME 3 LXDE & Razor-qt - - Corporate and government backing Blue Systems, Canonical, Google, Qt Group, SUSE IBM (Red Hat), Canonical, Google, SUSE, System76 - - - - Apple Microsoft Application suite (readme)May include inactive, experimental or 3rd party apps.
blue/orange shading = KDE/GNOME app or fork;
blue/orange font = uses Qt/GTK GUI toolkit Qt GTK GTK GTK GTK Qt Cocoa WinUI Window manager KWin Mutter Xfwm4fork of Fvwm Marcofork of Metacity Muffinfork of Mutter Openboxfork of Blackbox Quartz Compositor Desktop Window Manager Preferred display manager SDDM GDM LightDM LightDM LightDM SDDM macOS login screen Windows login screen Embedded HTML engine QtWebViewBlink, fork of WebKit, fork of KHTML WebKitGTKWebKit, fork of KHTML - - WebKitGTKWebKit, fork of KHTML - WKWebKitWebKit, fork of KHTML Edge WebView2Blink, fork of WebKit, fork of KHTML File manager Dolphin GNOME Files (Nautilus) Thunar Cajafork of Nautilus Muffinfork of Nautilus PCManFM-Qt Finder File Explorer Archive manager Ark File Roller Xarchiver Engrampafork of File Roller File Roller - Archive Utility (ZIP support in Explorer) Document/PDF viewer Okular Evince - Atrilfork of Evince xreaderfork of Atril qpdfview Preview Edge Image viewer & management Gwenview, digiKam eogEye of GNOME, Photos, Shotwell, gThumb Ristretto Eye of MATEfork of eog (Eye of GNOME) xviewerfork of eog (Eye of GNOME), pixfork of gThumb LXImage Preview, macOS Photos Windows Photos Image editing Krita, ShowFoto GIMP - - - - macOS Photos Paint Text editor Kate, KWrite gedit Mousepad Plumafork of gedit xedfork of Pluma Featherpad TextEdit Notepad, WordPad Terminal Konsole GNOME Terminal Xfce Terminal MATE Terminalfork of GNOME Terminal GNOME Terminal QTerminal macOS Terminal PowerShell Calculator KCalc GNOME Calculator - MATE Calculatorfork of GNOME Calculator GNOME Calculator - macOS Calculator Windows Calculator Media player Dragon, Kaffeine, KMPlayer GNOME Videos (Totem) Parole - xplayerfork of Totem - Quicktime Player Windows Media Player Music library Elisa, JuK, Strawberry Music, Lollypop, Rhythmbox Xfmpc - - - Apple Music Windows Media Player Web browser Falkon GNOME Web (Epiphany) Midori - - - Safari Edge Email client KMail, Trojita Geary, Evolution - - - - macOS Mail Windows Mail Calendar KOrganizer GNOME Calendar, Evolution Orage - - - macOS Calendar Windows Calendar System monitor Plasma System Monitor GNOME System Monitor Xfce Taskmanager MATE System Monitorfork of GNOME System Monitor GNOME System Monitor qps Activity Monitor Windows Task Manager General features Display server support X11 + Wayland X11 + Wayland X11 only X11 only X11 only X11 only Quartz Compositor Desktop Window Manager HiDPI support Yes (fractional scaling) Yes (fractional scaling) Yes (fractional scaling) Yes (2x scaling) Yes (2x scaling) No (only font size) Yes (fractional scaling) Yes (fractional scaling) Preferred style of window decorations (SSD/CSD) Server-side decorations Client-side decorations Mixed (mostly SSD) Server-side decorations Server-side decorations Server-side decorations Mixed Mixed Theme support, including 3rd-party themes Yes Not out of the boxneed to install gnome-tweaks and gnome-shell-extensions Yes Yes Yes Yes No No Scheduled theme switch (e.g. dark theme at night) No No No No No No Yes No Night light (reduces blue light) Yes Yes Yes No No No Yes Yes Integration with online accounts Google, Owncloud Facebook, Flickr, Foursquare, Google, Microsoft, Nextcloud - - Facebook, Flickr, Foursquare, Google, Microsoft, Nextcloud - Apple, AOL, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo Microsoft Panel elements w/o extensions or hidden settings/tweaks App launcher: show all apps / sort apps by XDG category Yeswith alternative launcher/Yes Yes/Nobut can create custom app folders Yes/Yes Yes/Yes Yes/Yes No/Yes Yes/(n.a.)no automatic categorization but can create custom app folders Yes/(n.a.)no automatic categorization but can create custom app folders App launcher: quickly uninstall apps (e.g. right-click) No No No No No No Yes Yes Favourited/pinned apps in app launcher and panel in "Activities" dash in app launcher and panel in app launcher and panel in app launcher and panel in panel in dock in start menu and panel Panel location changeable (e.g. bottom, top) Yes (all four sides) No Yes (all four sides) Yes (all four sides) Yes (all four sides) Yes (all four sides) No, but can move dock No Panel auto-hide function Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes No, but can auto-hide dock Yes Clock/volume/battery/network status/keyboard layout Yes(all) Yes (all) Yes (all) Yes (all) Yes (all) Yes (all) Yes (all) Yes (all) Notification list (e.g. new e-mail, updates available) Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Icons for background apps (e.g. cloud sync, messenger) Yes LimitedGNOME does not support tray icons, but applications can use sticky notifications, similar to those on Android. However, this is not supported by all applications who would have otherwise shown tray icons. More info here: https://wiki.gnome.org/Initiatives/StatusIconMigration Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Toggle between local (in-window) menus or global menubar Yes (default: local) No (always local) No (always local) Yes (default: local) No (always local) No (always local) No (always global) No (always local) Window management Taskbar/dock: toggle between showing windows or apps Yes No (shows neither)dash (in "Activities" screen) shows running apps, panel shows only the one currently focused app Yes Yes Yes Yes No (only shows apps) No (only shows apps) Maximize window (without hiding panel/dock/taskbar) Yes Yes (right-click) Yes Yes Yes Yes keyboard shortcut only Yes Fullscreen (hides panel and other element) Yes keyboard shortcut only Yes (right-click only) keyboard shortcut only keyboard shortcut only keyboard shortcut only Yes No Minimize Yes Yes (right-click) Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Show desktop (minimize all windows) Yes keyboard shortcut only Yes Yes Yes Yes only with keyboard shortcutor trackpad gesture Yes Keep window on top Yes (right-click) Yes (right-click) Yes (right-click) Yes (right-click) Yes (right-click) Yes (right-click) No No Move to other workspace/show on all workspacesworkspace = virtual desktop Yes (right-click) Yes (right-click) Yes (right-click) Yes (right-click) Yes (right-click) Yes (right-click) Only using drag & drop Only using drag & drop Tile windows by moving them to the screen edge ("Snapping") Yes (½ or ¼ screen) Yes (½ screen only) Yes (½ or ¼ screen) Yes (½ or ¼ screen) Yes (½ or ¼ screen) No No snappingBut supports ½ screen "Split View", which can only be initiated by hovering over the window's fullscreen button with the cursor and then selecting the option. Yes (½, or ¼ screen) Move/resize windows using Alt + Left/Right Click Yes/Yes Yes/YesSuper key instead of Alt key Yes/Yes Yes/Yes Yes/Yes Yes/Yes No/No No/No Show overview of all windows (exposé) Yes Yes (current workspace) No No Yes No Yes (current workspace) Yes (current workspace) Show overview of all workspaces (virtual desktop grid) Yes Yes No No Yes No Yes Yes Virtual desktop cube Yes No No No No No No No File managerDolphinGNOME Files (Nautilus)ThunarCajaNemoPCManFM-QtFinderFile Explorer Icon/column/tree view Yes/Yes/Yes Yes/Yes/No Yes/Yes/in side panel Yes/Yes/in side panel Yes/Yes/in side panel Yes/Yes/in side panel Yes/Yes/No Yes/Yes/in side panel Tabs or dual-pane view Yes/Yes Yes/No Yes/No Yes/Yes Yes/Yes Yes/Yes Yes/No No/No Toggle to show/hide hidden files Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes keyboard shortcut only Yes Sort by: name/type/size/date Yes/Yes/Yes/Yes Yes/Yes/Yes/Yes Yes/Yes/Yes/Yes Yes/Yes/Yes/Yes Yes/Yes/Yes/Yes Yes/Yes/Yes/Yes Yes/Yes/Yes/Yes Yes/Yes/Yes/Yes Thumbnail support in file manager and file pickeropen/save dialogue Yes/Yes Yes/No Yes/No Yes/No Yes/No Yes/Yes Yes/Yes Yes/Yes Type-ahead find in active folder Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Filter files in active folder Yes No No No No Yes No No Recursive file search Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Undo rename or deletion with Ctrl+Z Yes Yes No Yes Yes No YesCmd + Z Yes Duplicate file options Keep new/old/rename Keep new/old/rename Keep new/old Keep new/old/rename Keep new/old/rename Keep new/old/rename Keep new/old/rename Keep new/old/rename Create new empy file Yes only files from ~/Templates Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes Select multiple files with Ctrl/Shift, and invert selection Yes/Yes Yes/keyboard shortcut only Yes/Yes Yes/Yes Yes/Yes Yes/Yes Yes/keyboard shortcut only Yes/Yes Edit, copy or paste folder location/path Yes keyboard shortcut only Yes Yes Yes Yes keyboard shortcut only Yes Distribution support Number of supporting active distributions (Distrowatch.com) 53 74 94 51 29 27 macOS only Windows only Debian option during installation pre-selected at installation option during installation option during installation option during installation option during installation Ubuntu default in Kubuntu default desktop (modifiedUbuntu comes with a heavily modified GNOME desktop by default, which is configured to look and behave similar to the previous default desktop Unity) default in Xubuntu default in Ubuntu MATE officially supported default in Lubuntu Fedora default in KDE Spin default desktop default in Xfce Spin default in MATE Spin default in Cinnamon Spin default in LXQt Spin OpenSUSE option during installation option during installation option during installation officially supported officially supported officially supported Arch officially supported officially supported officially supported officially supported officially supported officially supported FreeBSD officially supported officially supported officially supported officially supported officially supported officially supported Usage share (estimate) GamingOnLinux.com User Statistics (01/2022) Arch (no default desktop) - installations (12/2021) OpenSUSE (no default desktop) - 2020 EoY survey