# KWin

Hacker Approved page: https://hackerapproved.com/p/kwin/

7 people recommended KWin in Hacker News comments, 2 had mixed feelings and 8 criticized it, November 2025 to October 2026. It was recommended in 5 of 12 months, in 7 threads. It does not meet the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** More people criticize it than recommend it. Free KDE Plasma window manager that people find polished, easy to use and grow fond of. Critics most often report high CPU use, bugs and crashes.

Summary written by Claude from the comments below.

## What people warn about

- High CPU use (2 comments in the sample): "on Kwin it uses substantial cpu when scrolling and even lags a bit at high resolutions" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48910398)) "kwin taking up what seems like way too much CPU at idle" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46201272))
- Buggy window management (2 comments in the sample): "kwin_wayland is what is broken, probably. Why they broke it when porting it from X11 I don't know." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49368824)) "kwin_wayland's window management is very buggy" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49368446))
- Crashes and freezes (2 comments in the sample): "I had a day 1 crashloop with KWin on the 2nd desktop" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48057153)) "KWin's compositor causes random freezes" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45804307))

## Why people recommend it

- Easy to use, grows on you (2 comments in the sample): "KWin, Dolphin, Plasma panels have unmatched ease whih grows on you" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49049421)) "It's been nice using kwin as my window manager" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46106110))

## Other window managers people recommend

- [Rectangle for macOS](https://hackerapproved.com/p/rectangle/): 60 recommend, 7 mixed, 3 criticize
- [Hyprland](https://hackerapproved.com/p/hyprland/): 51 recommend, 24 mixed, 32 criticize
- [Enlightenment window manager](https://hackerapproved.com/p/enlightenment/): 35 recommend, 11 mixed, 11 criticize
- [AwesomeWM](https://hackerapproved.com/p/awesomewm/): 23 recommend, 2 mixed, 2 criticize

## The badge

A product earns the Hacker Approved badge when at least 10 people recommend it, recommenders outnumber critics at least 2 to 1 (mixed feelings count toward neither side), it was recommended in at least 4 of the 12 months and in at least 5 different threads, and no single thread supplies more than half of the people who recommend it. Health and money products are never badged.

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "KWin", https://hackerapproved.com/p/kwin/ (7 recommend, 2 mixed, 8 criticize; Hacker News comments, November 2025 to October 2026).

Counts updated 2 Nov 2026, with data through October 31, 2026.