Ratpoison
Ranked 9 of 11 tiling window managers by recommenders
Ultralight keyboard-driven tiling window manager that people admire for its simplicity; caveat: the last official release was around 2017.
Ultralight keyboard-driven tiling window manager that people admire for its simplicity; caveat: the last official release was around 2017.
8 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 8
- criticize it
- 0
- approval share
- 100%
Recommended in 5 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not 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.
- Nobody criticizes itNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 5 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, elegant tiling design
“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.”
Comment from 3 Jan 2026 in “2026 will be my year of the Linux desktop” “Ratpoison was always my favourite tiling window manager.”
Comment from 8 Dec 2025 in “Emacs is my new window manager (2015)” Stable, rarely needs updating
“Simple enough to still work I'd bet, though the last official release was in 2017 or so.”
Comment from 8 Dec 2025 in “Emacs is my new window manager (2015)” “one of those pieces of software that you can release without it bitrotting”
Comment from 9 Dec 2025 in “Emacs is my new window manager (2015)”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Last official release in 2017
“Simple enough to still work I'd bet, though the last official release was in 2017 or so.”
Comment from 8 Dec 2025 in “Emacs is my new window manager (2015)”
Other tiling window managers people recommend
The four most recommended other tiling 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Niri | 125 | 17 | 88% | 13 | 6 mo16 owners | Approved |
| Sway | 81 | 23 | 78% | 12 | 4 yrs17 owners | Approved |
| AeroSpace | 77 | 12 | 87% | 12 | 4 mo10 owners | Approved |
| i3 window manager | 70 | 9 | 89% | 12 | — | Approved |
| RatpoisonThis page | 8 | 0 | 100% | 5 | — | — |
What people said
7 of the 8 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Learn emacs once and use ratpoison, readline and rlwrap everywhere.”
“It's got a bunch of features to manipulate the rat with the keyboard.”
“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.”
“Ultralight, great for kiosks and similar where you barely want a WM at all”
“one of those pieces of software that you can release without it bitrotting”
“Ratpoison was always my favourite tiling window manager.”
“Simple enough to still work I'd bet, though the last official release was in 2017 or so.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.