labwc
Shares rank 19 of 30 window managers by recommenders
Lightweight Wayland window manager that works with Openbox themes and suits minimal setups. Critics say keyboard window management is broken and the taskbar and OSD are rough.
Lightweight Wayland window manager that works with Openbox themes and suits minimal setups. Critics say keyboard window management is broken and the taskbar and OSD are rough.
11 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 8
- criticize it
- 3
- approval share
- 73%
Recommended in 7 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 8 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 2.7 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 7 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
Openbox themes work
“labwc affords the flexibility to define decorations as Openbox themes”
Comment from 9 Nov 2025 in “WriterdeckOS” “super cool that it's compatible with openbox themes”
Comment from 30 Nov 2025 in “CachyOS: Fast and Customizable Linux Distribution” Wayland take on Openbox
“Now switched to cachyos + labwc (Wayland version of open box).”
Comment from 24 May 2026 in “Your Dotfiles Are Not a Distro” “That's why I stuck to openbox/labwc.”
Comment from 20 Sep 2026 in “KDE turns 30 and someone's brought an AI-native desktop proposal”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Keyboard window management broken
“It works but keyboard-driven window management is broken”
Comment from 12 Jan 2026 in “XFCE Is Great”
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 |
| labwcThis page | 8 | 3 | 73% | 7 | — | — |
What people said
12 of the 13 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“LabWC is definitely not modern”
“I'd just would have choose LabWC instead QT stuff”
“That's why I stuck to openbox/labwc.”
“labwc is competitive with xfce and openbox”
“it was really a struggle to get like OSD or an actual good non-janky taskbar”
“there is progress, still not fully usable, so still no Wayland for me”
“Now switched to cachyos + labwc (Wayland version of open box).”
“It works but keyboard-driven window management is broken”
“labwc (floating) depending on the current task”
“super cool that it's compatible with openbox themes”
“labwc affords the flexibility to define decorations as Openbox themes”
“The labwc GUI can be very minimal.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.