# XLibre 31 Hacker News commenters recommended XLibre and 37 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 8 of 13 months. **Verdict:** Drop-in X11 display server fork that keeps X11 going, with fixes Xorg refused and features like namespaces and HDR. Critics cite maintainer disputes and breakage from its patches. ## Why people recommend it - Keeps X11 working as Wayland spreads (6 comments): "It is, by design, meant to be a drop in replacement that will perpetuate X11 as Wayland starts to become the default." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48492400)) "Luckily there is XLibre if the xorg developers can't develop X any more." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49378781)) "XLibre exists simply because you can't just "force X11 to die"" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47450838)) - Adds namespaces, HDR, independent scaling (4 comments): "Xlibre brought XNamespaces -- as well as HDR and seat management." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49371955)) "Namespaces. It's been done already. Look into XLibre." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46718404)) "independent screen scaling which xlibre now supports" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49367755)) - Works well in daily use (6 comments): "I wouldn't trust the reason given by the people who have said that they're trying to kill Xorg" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47451133)) "it is probably the best tool for what you want to achieve" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46703739)) "life is way better since I upgraded to Xlibre & Cinnamon" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48379549)) - Cleans up and fixes Xorg (2 comments): "most of the contributions to xlibre have been cleaning up stuff thats been obviously wrong in xorg" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48663894)) "actually works, and have many fixes that Xorg refused to implement" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46967316)) ## What people warn about - Patches rejected over code quality (6 comments): "after getting all his patches rejected because they cause tests to fail, doesn't compile, etc." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47451324)) "from what I've heard of Xlibre I'm not super impressed by the code quality" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46137527)) "They were ejected because they submitted some seriously broken patches" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46105997)) - Maintainer controversies and toxic community (5 comments): "Xlibre is run by a conspiracy theorist, who broke Xorg by having multiple bugs in his Merge Requests" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48919459)) "in which the project founder is accused of being somewhat reckless in making changes" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49375083)) "Why is it always people like this who run projects that should be good?" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48232801)) - Breaking changes and broken features (4 comments): "Once you enable XLibre namespaces filtering it breaks screensharing, global hotkeys. Obviously. It is breaking change." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46730583)) "it's certainly something to bear in mind if you intend to run xlibre though" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45796180)) "Recently even Artix had to drop XLibre support for causing too many issues" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49591378)) - Few contributors may not sustain it (2 comments): "The XLibre project is a noble idea, but a few contributors can't maintain an entire ecosystem on their own" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47392003)) "They don't have what it takes to continue X11 alive once X.Org pulls the plug." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45795328)) ## 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 - [X Window System](https://hackerapproved.com/p/x-window-system.md): 27 recommend - [Arcan](https://hackerapproved.com/p/arcan.md): 15 recommend ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "XLibre", https://hackerapproved.com/p/xlibre/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).