# AwesomeWM

26 Hacker News commenters recommended AwesomeWM and 2 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 11 of 13 months; owners who said how long report a median of 12 years (3 owners). It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Keyboard-driven tiling window manager, configured in Lua, that long-time users say is hard to replace.

## Why people recommend it

- Highly configurable through Lua scripting (7 comments): "I have used AwesomeWM for years and love its Lua configuration for providing infinite flexibility." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48983440)) "minimalist, keyboard-driven and infinitely configurable through Lua scripts which I really like" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45929836)) "It's the lua scripting that really pushes it to the next level for me." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45930311))
- Long-term loyalty from users (6 comments): "Thanks for all your work on AwesomeWM - whether I keep using it or not it has been a great experience!" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48383402)) "My favorite is still AwesomeWM, although I haven't used it in years." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47482453)) "I came back to AwesomeWM for a number of years twice" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48564813))
- Hard to replace on other systems (4 comments): "I can't get a good one to work on Windows or Mac OS the way I can with AwesomeWM" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49831843)) "Once you get used to it, you miss it in any window manager that doesn't have it." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49845475)) "I somehow doubt you'll find something as good as AwesomeWM in pre-Linux WMs" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49836285))
- Predictable tiling and window layouts (3 comments): "one feature I like about it is this: combine any two or three workspaces and all the windows are shown tiled together" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45930341)) "I never felt like window sizing and positioning was random, it always opened in the logical place" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47638211)) "found AwesomeWM to work well for me for the usecase of configurable predefined window layouts" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45930387))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Openbox](https://hackerapproved.com/p/openbox.md): 15 recommend
- [KWin](https://hackerapproved.com/p/kwin.md): 11 recommend
- [Blackbox window manager](https://hackerapproved.com/p/blackbox-window-manager.md): 9 recommend
- [CWM window manager](https://hackerapproved.com/p/cwm.md): 7 recommend
- [Cage Wayland compositor](https://hackerapproved.com/p/cage.md): 5 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "AwesomeWM", https://hackerapproved.com/p/awesomewm/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).