Wayfire
A wlroots-based Wayland compositor with plugin-driven window management and 3D desktop effects.
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About Wayfire
Wayfire is a Wayland compositor built on wlroots. It aims to be customisable, extendable and lightweight without giving up visual effects, and window management and effects are provided through plugins.
Version 0.11.0, released in July 2026, reworked the rendering infrastructure and moved geometry handling to floating-point numbers. As a result, text stays crisp at fractional scales in fractional-scale-aware applications such as GTK4 and Qt apps, Firefox and Chrome. The release also added color management improvements.
Strengths
- Plugin-based design for window management and effects
- Improved fractional scaling in the 0.11 release
- Lightweight compositor with desktop effects
Limitations
- Linux and Wayland only
- Releases can be far apart
- Needs configuration to build a full desktop
Details
- Pricing
- FreeFree, with source code on GitHub.
- License
- Open source, license not stated
- Developer
- The Wayfire contributors
- Platforms
- Linux
- How it runs
- Downloadable app
- Account
- Not required
- Works offline
- Yes
- Best suited for
- Linux users who want a customisable Wayland compositor with effects
- Categories
- Window tools
- Last verified
- Added
- Provenance
- Facts checked against the developer's own pages and store listings, 1 sources on file.
Alternatives to Wayfire
Compare allSoftware that can replace Wayfire for an important use case, and what changes if you switch.
Hyprland
Arrange Linux application windows with a configurable tiling Wayland compositor.
Hyprland is a Wayland compositor that adds dynamic tiling with animations and extensive keyboard configuration, rather than Wayfire's plugin-based stacking with 3D effects.
labwc
A lightweight wlroots-based stacking Wayland compositor inspired by Openbox.
labwc is a lightweight wlroots-based stacking Wayland compositor inspired by Openbox, trading Wayfire's plugins and desktop effects for a simpler setup.
Sway
Use an i3-style tiling workflow on Wayland.
Sway is an MIT-licensed Wayland compositor with i3-style keyboard-driven tiling, replacing Wayfire's plugin effects with a largely i3-compatible configuration.
niri
A scrollable-tiling Wayland compositor that places windows in columns on an endless horizontal strip.
niri is a Wayland compositor with scrollable tiling in columns on a horizontal strip, a keyboard-driven model instead of Wayfire's effects-focused plugins.
river
A non-monolithic Wayland compositor that leaves window management to a separate program.
river is a Wayland compositor that delegates window management to a separate program, and building it from source requires the Zig toolchain.
Similar software
Related functionality, not necessarily a direct replacement.
Waybar
Add a customizable status bar to compatible Wayland desktops.
nwg-panel
Add desktop panels to Sway and Hyprland using GTK.
KDE Plasma
Use a full Linux desktop with configurable panels, widgets and window behavior.
GNOME
Use a Linux desktop organized around an activities overview and workspaces.
