# DMS (DankMaterialShell)

6 Hacker News commenters recommended DMS (DankMaterialShell) and 3 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 3 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Recommended for its polished look, fast development and batteries-included setup that saves hours of tweaking. Critics call it heavyweight and sluggish.

## Why people recommend it

- Batteries included, less ricing (2 comments): "allowing you to use the window manager without having to spend hours ricing your system" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48899462)) "the base DMS configuration has a lot more batteries included so I switched" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48897322))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [LXQt](https://hackerapproved.com/p/lxqt.md): 15 recommend
- [Windows 8 Desktop Environment for Linux](https://hackerapproved.com/p/windows-8-desktop-environment-for-linux.md): 13 recommend
- [NsCDE](https://hackerapproved.com/p/nscde.md): 7 recommend
- [NextSpace](https://hackerapproved.com/p/nextspace.md): 5 recommend

## Cite as

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