# Noctalia Shell

23 Hacker News commenters recommended Noctalia Shell and 1 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 8 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Recommended as a polished Wayland desktop shell that works well out of the box. Caveats: some quirks, and slightly more RAM and CPU than Waybar.

## Why people recommend it

- Smooth, pleasant daily use (5 comments): "I'm running vanilla Arch with Niri and Noctalia, and it's a dream." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48350913)) "I'm continuously delighted by the lack of astonishing behavior" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48805152)) "I haven't had this much fun with computers in years." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47329451))
- Good performance and low RAM (4 comments): "makes it even more appealing if you care about the performance" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48897687)) "I switched to noctalia so I get all the performance benefits" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48895931)) "noctalia is already in the ballpark of a waybar-based setup" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48903866))
- Works well out of the box (3 comments): "instantly replaced a load of brittle and stupid hacks I was relying on, what an amazing out of the box experience" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46822554)) "It does have it's own quirks, but it is quite nice and works out of the box." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47908366)) "Noctalia seems a bit more refined out of the box." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46841996))
- Complete desktop with no dependencies (2 comments): "It's a complete, standalone shell with no Quickshell dependency." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49946009)) "it really feels like a complete desktop" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46820885))

## What people warn about

- Has some quirks (1 comments): "It does have it's own quirks, but it is quite nice and works out of the box." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47908366))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [KDE Plasma](https://hackerapproved.com/p/kde-plasma.md): 650 recommend
- [GNOME](https://hackerapproved.com/p/gnome.md): 340 recommend
- [Xfce](https://hackerapproved.com/p/xfce.md): 183 recommend
- [COSMIC desktop](https://hackerapproved.com/p/cosmic-desktop-environment.md): 75 recommend
- [Cinnamon desktop environment](https://hackerapproved.com/p/cinnamon.md): 57 recommend

## Cite as

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