Cinnamon desktop environment
Hacker ApprovedRanked 5 of 24 desktop environments by recommenders
A polished, Windows-like Linux desktop that is simple and light on resources. Critics say it is less customizable than KDE or GNOME.
A polished, Windows-like Linux desktop that is simple and light on resources. Critics say it is less customizable than KDE or GNOME.
69 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 57
- criticize it
- 12
- approval share
- 83%
Recommended in 12 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Owned for 1 year
Median of the 3 owners who said how long they have had it.
Each square is one year.
Why it carries the badge
- 57 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 4.8 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 12 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Familiar, Windows-like desktop layout
“gave everyone back a more familiar and intuitive desktop”
Comment from 5 Nov 2025 in “Gnome Mutter Now "Completely Drops the Whole X11 Back End"” “essentially a Windows like experience without the BS”
Comment from 23 Nov 2025 in “1M Downloads of Zorin OS 18” “an excellent DE in the classic (and therefore best) style”
Comment from 14 Sep 2026 in “Cpak – OCI application package format for Linux desktops, servers and devices” Simple, works well out of the box
“Looks great out of the box and easy to configure quickly.”
Comment from 12 Jan 2026 in “XFCE Is Great” “Not too ambitious but that ends up keeping things simple and mostly just works.”
Comment from 23 Jul 2026 in “Ask HN: What Linux distro do you daily drive?” “Imo its the most user friendly and boring + batteries DE”
Comment from 24 Sep 2026 in “Ideas on modernizing the open-source desktop” - Comment from 2 Apr 2026 in “Steam on Linux Use Skyrocketed Above 5% in March”
Uses less RAM than other desktops
“it uses considerably less RAM for just the desktop”
Comment from 7 May 2026 in “Motherboard sales are now collapsing amid unprecedented shortages fueled by AI” “Cinnamon for fat systems or XFCE for lean ones do wonders for my sanity.”
Comment from 24 Sep 2026 in “Ideas on modernizing the open-source desktop” Better than GNOME for many users
“I've had twice the issues with GNOME as I have with KDE or Cinnamon”
Comment from 7 Mar 2026 in “Plasma Bigscreen – 10-foot interface for KDE plasma” “Cinnamon and MATE are the directions I'd have preferred for Gnome to go.”
Comment from 7 Jan 2026 in “Gnome dev gives fans of Linux's middle-click paste the middle finger” “an experience that's similar to GNOME-when-it-was-good”
Comment from 24 Apr 2026 in “Ubuntu 26.04 LTS Released”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Wayland support still immature
“just coming out of experimental support for Wayland”
Comment from 15 Sep 2026 in “Cpak – OCI application package format for Linux desktops, servers and devices” “XFCE and Cinnamon will be Wayland native before then.”
Comment from 16 Mar 2026 in “Separating the Wayland Compositor and Window Manager” Less customization than KDE or GNOME
“Only problem I believe is the lack of customization options in Cinnamon compared to KDE and even Gnome with extensions.”
Comment from 11 Jan 2026 in “I dumped Windows 11 for Linux, and you should too” “Gnome with a few tweaks ended up being much closer to my ideal than even heavily customized Cinnamon”
Comment from 20 Mar 2026 in “Wayland set the Linux Desktop back by 10 years” Desktop crashes reported
“watching multiple Linux desktop environments crash when I switched to my Bluetooth headphones”
Comment from 3 Jan 2026 in “Microsoft kills official way to activate Windows 11/10 without internet” “Cinnamon and Budgie both crashed. No one knows why.”
Comment from 3 Jan 2026 in “Microsoft kills official way to activate Windows 11/10 without internet”
Other desktop environments people recommend
The four most recommended other desktop environments, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| KDE Plasma | 650 | 264 | 71% | 13 | 2 yrs79 owners | Approved |
| GNOME | 340 | 464 | 42% | 12 | 5 yrs29 owners | — |
| Xfce | 183 | 48 | 79% | 12 | 10 yrs29 owners | Approved |
| COSMIC desktop | 75 | 28 | 73% | 12 | 1 yr3 owners | Approved |
| Cinnamon desktop environmentThis page | 57 | 12 | 83% | 12 | 1 yr3 owners | Approved |
What people said
40 of the 82 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“different architecture (not spinning up a VM for every user) while still protecting personal data”
“so I started building a platform for small teams and households”
“Imo its the most user friendly and boring + batteries DE”
“Cinnamon for fat systems or XFCE for lean ones do wonders for my sanity.”
“Mate / Cinnamon is quite nice, actually, for those who haven't gotten used to the Mac-style app bar.”
“XFCE and Cinnamon are probably the closest to striking the right balance”
“I like KDE a great deal but I also liked Cinnamon a great deal”
“just coming out of experimental support for Wayland”
“an excellent DE in the classic (and therefore best) style”
“fall back to a software compositor Cinnamon Desktop when things bork after an update”
“What’s keeping you from trying modern Linux distributions, eg. Cinnamon?”
“Currently I use Cinnamon for years and couldn't be more happy.”
“Not too ambitious but that ends up keeping things simple and mostly just works.”
“life is way better since I upgraded to Xlibre & Cinnamon”
“it uses considerably less RAM for just the desktop”
“an experience that's similar to GNOME-when-it-was-good”
“has a delightful commitment to functional minimalism”
“Cinnamon says write it in JS and plug it in as an applet”
“the polish of Cinnamon makes it the best recommendation for somebody new”
“it's mostly what you see is what you get, but still very customizable.”
“Gnome with a few tweaks ended up being much closer to my ideal than even heavily customized Cinnamon”
“XFCE and Cinnamon will be Wayland native before then.”
“I've had twice the issues with GNOME as I have with KDE or Cinnamon”
“Now I'm using Cinnamon until the bug gets fixed which I enjoy too”
“The best I could find was cinnamon desktop, they're not too bad.”
“specifically with the Cinnamon desktop environment for people leaving Windows”
“I can totally say that KDE AND Gnome AND Cinnamon AND Sway AND even the immature Niri are all better experiences than macOS.”
“The fact that it’s a stupid simple rule means I can get way better at just doing things by muscle memory”
“Looks great out of the box and easy to configure quickly.”
“you are running a DE (cinnamon) which is really designed for a specific distro (Mint)”
“Only problem I believe is the lack of customization options in Cinnamon compared to KDE and even Gnome with extensions.”
“Cinnamon and MATE are the directions I'd have preferred for Gnome to go.”
“Nowadays I think Cinnamon (Linux Mint's default DE) has also a super good UX”
“watching multiple Linux desktop environments crash when I switched to my Bluetooth headphones”
“Cinnamon and Budgie both crashed. No one knows why.”
“in Cinnamon I will occasionally install an app that doesn't have a tray icon”
“Cinnamon and XFCE both have advanced wayland sessions”
“Over all it's a solid DE now even if the stock start/menu is underwhelming everything is fixable.”
“essentially a Windows like experience without the BS”
“gave everyone back a more familiar and intuitive desktop”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.