# Smithay

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

7 people recommended Smithay in Hacker News comments, 2 had mixed feelings and 2 criticized it, November 2025 to October 2026. It was recommended in 3 of 12 months, in 6 threads. It does not meet the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Rust library for building Wayland compositors, recommended as a base and for its features and design. Critics note few contributed patches have been merged.

Summary written by Claude from 11 comments.

## Why people recommend it

- Base for Wayland compositors (5 comments in the sample): "I decided to base xfwl4 on smithay's example compositor, and not write one completely from scratch." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46789858)) "there are incredibly good libraries for making Wayland servers (wlroots, smithay, more" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46495869)) "wlroot and smithay are good examples of what extensions are used in the real world." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47482828))
- Good features and smart design (2 comments in the sample): "decide the smithay is the best fit both for features and language choice" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46783081)) "smart design from folks working on Smithay" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46822017))

## What people warn about

- Few patches merged upstream (1 comment in the sample): "Of all the aforementioned patches only two are in Smithay." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49369591))

## What people recommend instead

- [wlroots](https://hackerapproved.com/p/wlroots/): 14 recommend, 4 mixed, 5 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, "Smithay", https://hackerapproved.com/p/smithay/ (7 recommend, 2 mixed, 2 criticize; Hacker News comments, November 2025 to October 2026).

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