wlroots
Hacker ApprovedWayland compositor library in Developer tools
Free library that people use to build Wayland compositors, saving them from solving low-level problems themselves. Critics say its API changes often and its behaviour can be buggy.
Free library that people use to build Wayland compositors, saving them from solving low-level problems themselves. Critics say its API changes often and its behaviour can be buggy.
26 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 19
- criticize it
- 7
- approval share
- 73%
Recommended in 5 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: 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: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 19 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 2.7 recommenders for every criticNeeds 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
Handles hard low-level work for you
“It would have been much easier and cost-effective to use wlroots, which has a solid base and has ironed out a lot of problems.”
Comment from 27 Jan 2026 in “Xfwl4 – The Roadmap for a Xfce Wayland Compositor” “First we got wlroots as a library that did most of the heavy lifting”
Comment from 16 Mar 2026 in “Separating the Wayland Compositor and Window Manager” “You’re not supposed to be solving these issues yourself.”
Comment from 22 Mar 2026 in “I Hate: Programming Wayland Applications” Solid, well-tested base library
“It would have been much easier and cost-effective to use wlroots, which has a solid base and has ironed out a lot of problems.”
Comment from 27 Jan 2026 in “Xfwl4 – The Roadmap for a Xfce Wayland Compositor” “there are incredibly good libraries for making Wayland servers (wlroots, smithay, more)”
Comment from 5 Jan 2026 in “Can I start using Wayland in 2026?” “a high-quality end-user library (wlroots) for writing compositors”
Comment from 16 Nov 2025 in “I don’t need a Steam Machine” Community-run, no big corporate sponsors
“wlroots are also real community projects with no big corporate sponsors”
Comment from 30 Nov 2025 in “CachyOS: Fast and Customizable Linux Distribution” “if it wasn't for the wlroots people not much would have happened”
Comment from 21 Nov 2025 in “Exploring the Fragmentation of Wayland, an xdotool adventure” Basis for many desktop options
“I like how we're getting more desktop options now thanks to wlroots.”
Comment from 15 Oct 2026 in “Wayland desktop for Linux with skeuomorphic design” “But as a more flexible choice, there is wlroots.”
Comment from 26 Dec 2025 in “Asahi Linux with Sway on the MacBook Air M2” “Like you can build on top of wlroots just fine.”
Comment from 2 Nov 2025 in “X.org Security Advisory: multiple security issues X.Org X server and Xwayland”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Volatile API forces retooling on updates
“It's also a moving target and you'll probably have to retool when wlroots updates.”
Comment from 20 Mar 2026 in “Wayland set the Linux Desktop back by 10 years” “the wlroots API is so volatile atm”
Comment from 25 Dec 2025 in “Phoenix: A modern X server written from scratch in Zig” Same bugs fixed separately by each compositor
“Every single one of them has to fix the same set of bugs in different ways even if they share a wm library like wlroots”
Comment from 5 Jan 2026 in “Can I start using Wayland in 2026?” “wlroots came pretty late so there was a lot of code duplication”
Comment from 20 Mar 2026 in “Wayland set the Linux Desktop back by 10 years” Bugs and random behaviour in dependents
“2026 and you will still run into plenty of issues with random behaviour, especially if you run anything based on wlroots”
Comment from 4 Jan 2026 in “Can I start using Wayland in 2026?” “The wayland specific things such as wlroots, but also other things, just flat out suck.”
Comment from 4 Jan 2026 in “Can I start using Wayland in 2026?”
What people recommend instead
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| wlrootsThis page | 19 | 7 | 73% | 5 | — | Approved |
| Smithay | 9 | 2 | 82% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
28 of the 29 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“wl-roots is probably closer to my "Wayhill" idea but it kind of caters to more terminal-driven stuff”
“I like how we're getting more desktop options now thanks to wlroots.”
“it does use wlroots after all, so there's a limit”
“wlroot and smithay are good examples of what extensions are used in the real world.”
“they should have googled `wlroots` before their commenting”
“You’re not supposed to be solving these issues yourself.”
“wlroots came pretty late so there was a lot of code duplication”
“That helps, but you still have to”
“It's also a moving target and you'll probably have to retool when wlroots updates.”
“First we got wlroots as a library that did most of the heavy lifting”
“even though wlroots has good support for keyboard layouts”
“You can do that already with libraries such as wlroots or Smithay”
“any boost I'd get from using wlroots over smithay would be more than negated by debugging memory management and ownership issues”
“It would have been much easier and cost-effective to use wlroots, which has a solid base and has ironed out a lot of problems.”
“Every single one of them has to fix the same set of bugs in different ways even if they share a wm library like wlroots”
“there are incredibly good libraries for making Wayland servers (wlroots, smithay, more)”
“The wayland specific things such as wlroots, but also other things, just flat out suck.”
“2026 and you will still run into plenty of issues with random behaviour, especially if you run anything based on wlroots”
“But as a more flexible choice, there is wlroots.”
“the wlroots API is so volatile atm”
“wlroots seemingly isn't. This is a significant issue when it comes to relying on most 3rd party libraries.”
“I said build on top of wlroots, not DWL.”
“So build on top of wlroots or something.”
“wlroots are also real community projects with no big corporate sponsors”
“if it wasn't for the wlroots people not much would have happened”
“a high-quality end-user library (wlroots) for writing compositors”
“even with reusing e.g. wlroots”
“Like you can build on top of wlroots just fine.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.