Alternatives to Enlightenment
A window manager, compositor and minimal desktop for Linux, BSD and other UNIX systems. The listings below can replace it for an important use case. Each note says what changes if you switch.
The original
Enlightenment
A window manager, compositor and minimal desktop for Linux, BSD and other UNIX systems.
Replacements
Listings that take over the same core job as Enlightenment.
KDE Plasma
Use a full Linux desktop with configurable panels, widgets and window behavior.
KDE Plasma is a full Linux desktop with configurable panels, widgets and window behaviour, integrated with KDE applications, and heavier than Enlightenment's minimal shell.
GNOME
Use a Linux desktop organized around an activities overview and workspaces.
GNOME organises the desktop around an activities overview and workspaces with consistent settings, though shell extensions must match the installed version.
Xfce
Use a modular desktop environment built around traditional panels and windows.
Xfce is a modular desktop built around traditional panels and a settings manager, with components distributions can combine, rather than a single EFL-based shell.
LXQt
A lightweight, modular Qt-based desktop environment for Linux and BSD with X11 and Wayland sessions.
LXQt is a lightweight Qt-based desktop for Linux and BSD with X11 and usable Wayland sessions, compared with Enlightenment's experimental Wayland support.
MATE
A traditional desktop environment for Linux and other Unix-like systems that continues the GNOME 2 design.
MATE continues the GNOME 2 traditional desktop layout and is packaged in many distributions, with full releases arriving every few years.
Cinnamon
Use a Linux desktop with a traditional application menu, panel and system tray.
Cinnamon provides a traditional application menu, panel and system tray with applets, desklets and extensions, under GPL-2.0.
Budgie
A free and open source Linux desktop environment with its own panel, application menu and window management.
Budgie is a simple, tidy Linux desktop with its own panel and application menu, usually installed through a distribution with regular releases.
COSMIC
Use System76's desktop environment with configurable workspaces and window tiling.
COSMIC is System76's desktop environment with configurable workspaces and both tiling and floating workflows, needing a distribution and graphics stack that support it.
Also worth comparing
These listings name Enlightenment as their own alternative, so the relationship runs both ways.
FVWM3
A highly configurable X11 window manager, the successor to fvwm2, with multi-monitor support.
Enlightenment bundles a window manager, compositor and minimal desktop shell built on EFL, with experimental Wayland support and source-only releases.
Window Maker
An X11 stacking window manager that reproduces the look and feel of NeXTSTEP.
Enlightenment combines window manager, compositor and desktop shell built on EFL, with experimental Wayland support and source-only official releases.
Similar software
Related functionality, not a direct replacement.
Openbox
Manage X11 windows with a configurable stacking window manager.
picom
A lightweight standalone compositor for X11 that adds shadows, transparency, blur, fading and animations.
BunsenLabs Linux
A Debian-based distribution with a preconfigured, lightweight Openbox desktop, continuing CrunchBang Linux.
