Alternatives to spectrwm
A small dynamic tiling window manager for X11 that aims to stay out of the way. The listings below can replace it for an important use case. Each note says what changes if you switch.
The original
spectrwm
A small dynamic tiling window manager for X11 that aims to stay out of the way.
Replacements
Listings that take over the same core job as spectrwm.
dwm
Use a small dynamic window manager for X11 with tiling and floating layouts.
dwm is another small X11 dynamic tiling manager, but many customizations require editing and recompiling the source instead of a plain-text config file.
i3
Arrange X11 windows in a keyboard-controlled tiling workspace.
i3 uses a tree-based tiling layout with workspaces and configurable key bindings, also running on X11 rather than Wayland.
xmonad
A dynamically tiling X11 window manager that is written and configured in Haskell.
xmonad provides automatic tiling on X11 with a large extension set, but configuration is a full Haskell program rather than a text file.
bspwm
Manage X11 windows as the leaves of a binary tree.
bspwm arranges X11 windows as a binary tree controlled by shell commands, and needs separate tools for key bindings and panels.
herbstluftwm
A manual tiling window manager for X11 that is configured at runtime through the herbstclient tool.
herbstluftwm is a manual tiling X11 manager configured live through herbstclient, so you arrange frames yourself instead of relying on dynamic layouts.
awesome
Build a keyboard-driven X11 desktop with a window manager configured in Lua.
awesome adds tiling and floating layouts with programmable widgets and window rules, configured in Lua instead of a single plain-text file.
Qtile
Configure a tiling window manager using Python.
Qtile is configured in Python with programmable layouts and widgets, and offers both X11 and Wayland back ends.
Sway
Use an i3-style tiling workflow on Wayland.
Sway moves an i3-style keyboard tiling workflow to Wayland, which spectrwm does not support, though some X11 applications need compatibility layers.
Also worth comparing
These listings name spectrwm as their own alternative, so the relationship runs both ways.
LeftWM
Arrange Linux windows with a tiling manager written in Rust.
spectrwm is a small dynamic tiling X11 window manager with few dependencies and a single plain-text configuration file, running on Linux and the BSDs.
StumpWM
A keyboard-driven tiling window manager for X11, written in and extensible with Common Lisp.
spectrwm is a minimal dynamic tiling X11 window manager with a single plain-text configuration file, running on Linux and the BSDs.
Similar software
Related functionality, not a direct replacement.
Polybar
Build a configurable status bar for an X11 desktop.
Lemonbar
Featherweight, scriptable status bar for X11 built on xcb.
rofi
A keyboard-driven window switcher, application launcher and dmenu replacement for Linux desktops.
picom
A lightweight standalone compositor for X11 that adds shadows, transparency, blur, fading and animations.
xmobar
A minimalist text-based status bar for X11, written in Haskell and often paired with xmonad.
Tint2
Lightweight panel and taskbar for Linux and BSD window managers.
