# X Window System

27 Hacker News commenters recommended X Window System and 26 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 11 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** People recommend it for its flexible window management, scriptability, and reliability, and it still works well for many users. Critics say its code is aging, poorly maintained, and weak on modern input like palm rejection.

## Why people recommend it

- Flexible window manager customization (5 comments): "bringing window managers, system trays, hotkeys bindings, and a whole bunch of other things not designed together but that could still work together" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48727556)) "What made the X architecture much more interesting is that it avoided coupling the window manger to the compositor." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46001549)) "X Window didn't do this by default and you could adjust window manager behavior however you liked" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46596731))
- Reliable, works out of the box (4 comments): "They all worked out of the box and were able to scale correctly once configured." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46492785)) "X, which is open source and still works fine for a lot of people." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47450510)) "X "just works" well enough for too many use cases" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46587542))
- Preferred over Wayland by users (3 comments): "Reverted to a functional, and productively familiar setup with X." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46381858)) "I still prefer it to Wayland for various reasons" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46937529)) "This is one of the main reasons I stick with X." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46513729))
- Network transparent client-server design (2 comments): "X windows was network transparent though not a well thought out design (see audio.)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48009071)) "something conceived from the start as a client/server display protocol" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46487165))

## What people warn about

- Unmaintained, poorly designed code (4 comments): "X code was so bad that paralelizing and making it thread-safe required so many locks that it ran slower!" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46059807)) "X is deprecated and unmaintained making making the GUI work there a constant struggle" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48001812)) "The major comitters and maintainers of X decided it was a lost cause and unfixable." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47448767))
- Weak keyboard and stylus input (3 comments): "If you configure Shift to switch layouts, you won't be able to use it as a modifier." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46023161)) "X doesn't support palm rejection so I can't use my stylus/touchscreen" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47449002)) "international keyboard support is pretty bad in both X and Wayland" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46001569))
- Chatty and slow over networks (2 comments): "It is absolutely an inferior and chatty protocol for any other application though" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46784943)) "X was never, ever, designed for high-latency networks." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49037669))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Wayland](https://hackerapproved.com/p/wayland.md): 272 recommend
- [X11 (X.Org)](https://hackerapproved.com/p/x11.md): 140 recommend
- [Xorg](https://hackerapproved.com/p/xorg.md): 40 recommend
- [XLibre](https://hackerapproved.com/p/xlibre.md): 31 recommend
- [Arcan](https://hackerapproved.com/p/arcan.md): 15 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "X Window System", https://hackerapproved.com/p/x-window-system/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).