Wayback
Shares rank 20 of 27 compatibility layers by recommenders
Runs X11 window managers and desktops on top of Wayland, keeping X11 desktops supported; people see it as a better investment than an X11 fork.
Runs X11 window managers and desktops on top of Wayland, keeping X11 desktops supported; people see it as a better investment than an X11 fork.
6 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 6
- criticize it
- 0
- approval share
- 100%
Recommended in 3 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: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 6 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- Nobody criticizes itNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 3 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not 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
Keeps X11 desktops supported
“For those who actually care about X11 DEs being kept supported, there's”
Comment from 1 Dec 2025 in “Xlibre is a fork of the Xorg Xserver with lots of code cleanups” “there's always https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/wayback/wayback for that”
Comment from 27 Dec 2025 in “QNX Self-Hosted Developer Desktop” No compatibility break with X11
“It is a different X11 server implementation that uses Wayland under the hood, and is enough to run your WM.”
Comment from 26 Nov 2025 in “KDE Plasma 6.8 Will Go Wayland-Exclusive in Dropping X11 Session Support” “Best of both worlds, no compat break.”
Comment from 1 Jan 2026 in “Phoenix: A modern X server written from scratch in Zig”
Other compatibility layers people recommend
The four most recommended other compatibility layers, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Proton by Valve | 451 | 189 | 70% | 13 | 2 yrs31 owners | Approved |
| Wine | 329 | 88 | 79% | 13 | 10 yrs11 owners | Approved |
| Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) | 159 | 101 | 61% | 12 | 3 yrs9 owners | — |
| WSL2 (Windows Subsystem for Linux) | 115 | 55 | 68% | 12 | — | Approved |
| WaybackThis page | 6 | 0 | 100% | 3 | — | — |
What people said
All 6 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Best of both worlds, no compat break.”
“there's always https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/wayback/wayback for that”
“Wayback's designed to actually work”
“wayback is probably a more fruitful investment than an x11 fork”
“For those who actually care about X11 DEs being kept supported, there's”
“It is a different X11 server implementation that uses Wayland under the hood, and is enough to run your WM.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.