dwm
Hacker ApprovedRanked 6 of 30 window managers by recommenders
A minimal tiling window manager for X11 that people set up once and keep for years, praised for stability and staying out of the way. Configuration means editing and recompiling C source.
A minimal tiling window manager for X11 that people set up once and keep for years, praised for stability and staying out of the way. Configuration means editing and recompiling C source.
25 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 22
- criticize it
- 3
- approval share
- 88%
Recommended in 11 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not 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 10 years
Median of the 3 owners who said how long they have had it.
Each square is one year.
Why it carries the badge
- 22 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 7.3 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 11 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
Simple and minimal, stays out of the way
“After installing dwm years ago, I've more or less stopped thinking about window managers as an open problem to be solved.”
Comment from 15 Nov 2025 in “Moving Back to a Tiling WM – XMonad” “Ive personally always enjoyed more minimal window mangers like DWM and BSPWM on X11”
Comment from 6 Apr 2026 in “A Tale of AI Betrayal and Snapshotting Victory” “The best part about choosing a simple WM is you never have to think about it again.”
Comment from 15 Nov 2025 in “Moving Back to a Tiling WM – XMonad” - Comment from 28 Dec 2025 in “Phoenix: A modern X server written from scratch in Zig”
- Comment from 12 Jan 2026 in “XFCE Is Great”
- Comment from 20 Jul 2026 in “Hyprland 0.55 announced the switch to Lua for its config files”
- Comment from 11 Jun 2026 in “Ask HN: What software feels exceptionally polished?”
Stable for years with no bitrot
“In 10 years of using dwm I've not been aware of any bitrot that affects me.”
Comment from 30 Nov 2025 in “CachyOS: Fast and Customizable Linux Distribution” “dwm as supplied continues to work perfectly without modification”
Comment from 2 Dec 2025 in “CachyOS: Fast and Customizable Linux Distribution” “I use dwm. There is no bitrot.”
Comment from 30 Nov 2025 in “CachyOS: Fast and Customizable Linux Distribution” - Comment from 25 Dec 2025 in “Phoenix: A modern X server written from scratch in Zig”
Fast boots, light, quick to compile
“Bit the bullet, installed arch and dwm. I remember my initial impressions on how fast the boot went, how silent the hdd is”
Comment from 28 Aug 2026 in “Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra” “with a neat window manager (dwm) a clean boot was using just 300MB”
Comment from 10 Aug 2026 in “Windows 11's built-in Weather app wastes more than 1 GB of RAM” “it compiles in two seconds and has minimal dependencies”
Comment from 20 Jul 2026 in “Hyprland 0.55 announced the switch to Lua for its config files”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Config means editing and recompiling C source
“Requiring a C compiler, source code and header files to change your keybindings is just a different kind of bloat”
Comment from 20 Jul 2026 in “Hyprland 0.55 announced the switch to Lua for its config files” “all that fancy neovim/dwm/... ecosystem tend to be "we provide you a great framework to create your own things"”
Comment from 8 Mar 2026 in “Helix: A post-modern text editor”
Other window managers people recommend
The four most recommended other window managers, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hyprland | 82 | 33 | 71% | 12 | 1 mo4 owners | Approved |
| Rectangle for macOS | 67 | 3 | 96% | 11 | 1 yr3 owners | Approved |
| Enlightenment window manager | 51 | 19 | 73% | 8 | — | Approved |
| FVWM | 28 | 4 | 88% | 8 | 25 yrs7 owners | Approved |
| dwmThis page | 22 | 3 | 88% | 11 | 10 yrs3 owners | Approved |
What people said
28 of the 32 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“It seems to be able to handle tiled and floating windows with no problem.”
“Bit the bullet, installed arch and dwm. I remember my initial impressions on how fast the boot went, how silent the hdd is”
“with a neat window manager (dwm) a clean boot was using just 300MB”
“I find the dwm approach refreshing.”
“Requiring a C compiler, source code and header files to change your keybindings is just a different kind of bloat”
“it compiles in two seconds and has minimal dependencies”
“Top notch polish, true minimalism”
“99% of the time I run dwm + emacs”
“newer toolkits like GTK, Tk, wxWidgets, DWM, Cocoa, etc are great at today”
“made so many modifications to st, dwm and such it feels like home”
“Ive personally always enjoyed more minimal window mangers like DWM and BSPWM on X11”
“Closer to Engelbart and just generally all around better.”
“all that fancy neovim/dwm/... ecosystem tend to be "we provide you a great framework to create your own things"”
“You can still do that. Build a config for openbox or dwm.”
“I even tried to make a package for dwm and st”
“personally I like the simplicity of DWM”
“emulate the impeccable DWM”
“the Zukitre themes blend really well with minimal window managers as CWM, i3, DWM and the like”
“Tiling window managers like ion, ratpoison, dwm, et. al, and the simple and elegant tooling that accompany them are a wonderful example of UI innovation.”
“I'm using DWM on X and I love that I have no title bars.”
“dwm doesn't have this problem”
“I, for one, am a happy user of DWM.”
“dwm as supplied continues to work perfectly without modification”
“Zero out of the three patches I downloaded from the website applied successfully.”
“In 10 years of using dwm I've not been aware of any bitrot that affects me.”
“I use dwm. There is no bitrot.”
“After installing dwm years ago, I've more or less stopped thinking about window managers as an open problem to be solved.”
“The best part about choosing a simple WM is you never have to think about it again.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.