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Compare COSMIC with alternatives
COSMIC vs Pop Shell
A keyboard-driven GNOME Shell extension from System76 that adds automatic tiling window management.- COSMIC vs Xfce
Xfce is a modular desktop built around traditional panels and windows, with components distributions can combine, and no built-in tiling mode. - COSMIC vs Tiling Shell
A GNOME Shell extension that adds FancyZones-style tiling layouts and Windows 11 style snap assistance. - COSMIC vs KDE Plasma
KDE Plasma provides a full desktop with extensive panel, widget and window behavior settings, and integrates with KDE applications instead of System76's stack. - COSMIC vs GNOME
GNOME offers an activities overview and workspaces with a consistent settings suite, but lacks COSMIC's built-in tiling and relies on version-matched shell extensions. - COSMIC vs Cinnamon
Cinnamon gives a traditional application menu, panel and system tray with applets and desklets, without COSMIC's tiling workflow. - COSMIC vs Enlightenment
A window manager, compositor and minimal desktop for Linux, BSD and other UNIX systems. - COSMIC vs Budgie
Budgie is a simple Linux desktop environment with its own panel and application menu, designed to stay out of the way while remaining customisable. - COSMIC vs MATE
MATE continues the classic GNOME 2 desktop layout and is widely packaged, though full releases arrive every few years. - COSMIC vs LXQt
LXQt is a lightweight Qt-based desktop with X11 and Wayland sessions, using less resources but with fewer integrated features.
