# TWM

9 Hacker News commenters recommended TWM and 0 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 7 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** A lightweight, uncluttered X11 window manager that people recommend for running well on old or low-memory machines and for its clean, flat look.

## Why people recommend it

- Clean, flat, uncluttered look (3 comments): "TWM is less cluttered and less features is actually more here" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46352649)) "the general flat clean look that came with eg TWM and co." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49050845)) "Yep, I like TWM on design too" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46353298))
- Runs well on low-end hardware (2 comments): "it lead to a really performant desktop on the single-core ~400mhz machines we had in our computer lab" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49901593)) "I'm using 1GB with TWM, DIllo, TUI tools, XTerm, MuPDF and the like." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46152388))
- Thin desktop for Linux (2 comments): "If you like that general esthetic, you can try that today in your GNU/Linux distro." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48316264)) "I recommend everyone to switch not only to linux but TWM (thin X11 desktop)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45796515))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Hyprland](https://hackerapproved.com/p/hyprland.md): 82 recommend
- [Enlightenment window manager](https://hackerapproved.com/p/enlightenment.md): 51 recommend
- [FVWM](https://hackerapproved.com/p/fvwm.md): 28 recommend
- [dwm](https://hackerapproved.com/p/dwm.md): 22 recommend
- [Window Maker](https://hackerapproved.com/p/windowmaker.md): 21 recommend

## Cite as

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