# Enlightenment window manager

51 Hacker News commenters recommended Enlightenment window manager and 19 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 8 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Free Linux window manager praised for its nostalgic look, light footprint and virtual desktops; critics cite crashes and a rough fit with modern workflows.

## Why people recommend it

- Lightweight, low resource use (3 comments): "E is now a super-lightweight system compared with the mainstream environments that plauge our RAM chips today." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47776427)) "it's better at a lot of things because it's fairly low-spec and doesn't require a terabyte of ram" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47777974)) "the core of the window manager doesn't have any kind of bloat or slowness" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47784824))
- Attractive visuals with nostalgic appeal (6 comments): "The era 20 years ago (e.g. Enlightenment) was way more fun than the bland monotonic design we have these days" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50104659)) "It had really fancy visuals that worked on fairly slow hardware." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50327381)) "Transparent eterms and tasteful backgrounds everywhere." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47775527))
- Hard to replace for longtime users (2 comments): "None of the other alternatives interest me, and I've tried them all." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47781791)) "Nothing else I've used has hit the same seamless ease." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50330037))

## What people warn about

- Crashes and instability (3 comments): "early versions weren't a model of stability, but that wasn't nearly as important as an X server or a Wayland compositor not crashing" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47783519)) "The novelty wore off in a week with Enlightenment's constant crashing" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50105308)) "I can't believe this crash ridden peice of WM Still exist" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50326951))
- Not lightweight; resource usage concerns (2 comments): "it was definitely not lightweight compared to many of the alternatives" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47782662)) "I loved using the environment but would regularly harangue him for being glib on resource usage." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47775442))
- Effects distract during daily use (2 comments): "after about 10 minutes the burning windows felt like they were getting in the way" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50106734)) "it always stopped to be good looking when it wasn't a screenshot anymore but a running process on my machine" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47777636))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Hyprland](https://hackerapproved.com/p/hyprland.md): 82 recommend
- [FVWM](https://hackerapproved.com/p/fvwm.md): 28 recommend
- [dwm](https://hackerapproved.com/p/dwm.md): 22 recommend
- [Window Maker](https://hackerapproved.com/p/windowmaker.md): 21 recommend
- [Compiz](https://hackerapproved.com/p/compiz.md): 15 recommend

## Cite as

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