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XLibre

Ranked 4 of 9 display servers by recommenders

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.

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.

68 people gave an opinion

recommend it
31
criticize it
37
approval share
46%
Each figure is one person. RecommendsCriticizes

Recommended in 8 of 13 months

  1. November 2025: recommended
  2. December 2025: recommended
  3. January 2026: recommended
  4. February 2026: recommended
  5. March 2026: recommended
  6. April 2026: not recommended
  7. May 2026: not recommended
  8. June 2026: recommended
  9. July 2026: recommended
  10. August 2026: recommended
  11. September 2026: not recommended
  12. October 2026: not recommended
  13. November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)

Why it doesn’t carry the badge

  • 31 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
  • 0.8 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
  • Recommended in 8 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

  • Keeps X11 working as Wayland spreads

    “It is, by design, meant to be a drop in replacement that will perpetuate X11 as Wayland starts to become the default.”

    Comment from 11 Jun 2026 in “Yserver: Modern X11 Server Written in Rust with the Help of Claude Code”

    “Luckily there is XLibre if the xorg developers can't develop X any more.”

    Comment from 20 Aug 2026 in “Xorg-Server 26.0.99.901”

    “XLibre exists simply because you can't just "force X11 to die"”

    Comment from 20 Mar 2026 in “Wayland set the Linux Desktop back by 10 years”
  • Adds namespaces, HDR, independent scaling

    “Xlibre brought XNamespaces -- as well as HDR and seat management.”

    Comment from 20 Aug 2026 in “XWayland 26.1-rc1 Released Two Years After the Last Release”

    “Namespaces. It's been done already. Look into XLibre.”

    Comment from 22 Jan 2026 in “200 MB RAM FreeBSD Desktop”

    “independent screen scaling which xlibre now supports”

    Comment from 19 Aug 2026 in “XWayland 26.1-rc1 Released Two Years After the Last Release”
  • Works well in daily use

    “I wouldn't trust the reason given by the people who have said that they're trying to kill Xorg”

    Comment from 20 Mar 2026 in “Wayland set the Linux Desktop back by 10 years”

    “it is probably the best tool for what you want to achieve”

    Comment from 21 Jan 2026 in “200 MB RAM FreeBSD Desktop”

    “life is way better since I upgraded to Xlibre & Cinnamon”

    Comment from 3 Jun 2026 in “Preparing for KDE Plasma's Last X11-Supported Release”
  • Cleans up and fixes Xorg

    “most of the contributions to xlibre have been cleaning up stuff thats been obviously wrong in xorg”

    Comment from 24 Jun 2026 in “Vulnerability Reports are not Special Anymore”

    “actually works, and have many fixes that Xorg refused to implement”

    Comment from 10 Feb 2026 in “Git with WD-40 Applied”

What people warn about

Each mark is one comment

  • Patches rejected over code quality

    “after getting all his patches rejected because they cause tests to fail, doesn't compile, etc.”

    Comment from 20 Mar 2026 in “Wayland set the Linux Desktop back by 10 years”

    “from what I've heard of Xlibre I'm not super impressed by the code quality”

    Comment from 3 Dec 2025 in “Xlibre is a fork of the Xorg Xserver with lots of code cleanups”

    “They were ejected because they submitted some seriously broken patches”

    Comment from 1 Dec 2025 in “Xlibre is a fork of the Xorg Xserver with lots of code cleanups”
  • Maintainer controversies and toxic community

    “Xlibre is run by a conspiracy theorist, who broke Xorg by having multiple bugs in his Merge Requests”

    Comment from 15 Jul 2026 in “Measuring Input Latency on Linux: X11 vs. Wayland, VRR, and DXVK”

    “in which the project founder is accused of being somewhat reckless in making changes”

    Comment from 20 Aug 2026 in “XWayland 26.1-rc1 Released Two Years After the Last Release”

    “Why is it always people like this who run projects that should be good?”

    Comment from 22 May 2026 in “Show HN: Freenet, a peer-to-peer platform for decentralized apps”
  • Breaking changes and broken features

    “Once you enable XLibre namespaces filtering it breaks screensharing, global hotkeys. Obviously. It is breaking change.”

    Comment from 23 Jan 2026 in “200 MB RAM FreeBSD Desktop”

    “it's certainly something to bear in mind if you intend to run xlibre though”

    Comment from 3 Nov 2025 in “X.org Security Advisory: multiple security issues X.Org X server and Xwayland”

    “Recently even Artix had to drop XLibre support for causing too many issues”

    Comment from 6 Sep 2026 in “AMD Based FreeBSD Desktop Reloaded”
  • Few contributors may not sustain it

    “The XLibre project is a noble idea, but a few contributors can't maintain an entire ecosystem on their own”

    Comment from 15 Mar 2026 in “Separating the Wayland Compositor and Window Manager”

    “They don't have what it takes to continue X11 alive once X.Org pulls the plug.”

    Comment from 3 Nov 2025 in “X.org Security Advisory: multiple security issues X.Org X server and Xwayland”

Other display servers people recommend

The four most recommended other display servers, 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.

XLibre compared with 4 alternatives
ProductRecommendCriticizeApprovalMonthsOwnedBadge
Wayland27240540%123 yrs32 owners—
X11 (X.Org)14010258%1220 yrs9 owners—
Xorg403653%1122 yrs3 owners—
XLibreThis page313746%8——
X Window System272651%11——
See all 9 display servers, ranked

What people said

40 of the 82 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.

“Recently even Artix had to drop XLibre support for causing too many issues”

CriticizesComment from 6 Sep 2026 in “AMD Based FreeBSD Desktop Reloaded”

“Luckily there is XLibre if the xorg developers can't develop X any more.”

RecommendsComment from 20 Aug 2026 in “Xorg-Server 26.0.99.901”

“in which the project founder is accused of being somewhat reckless in making changes”

CriticizesComment from 20 Aug 2026 in “XWayland 26.1-rc1 Released Two Years After the Last Release”

“Xlibre brought XNamespaces -- as well as HDR and seat management.”

RecommendsComment from 20 Aug 2026 in “XWayland 26.1-rc1 Released Two Years After the Last Release”

“XLibre and Phoenix might have ended up working out if they'd been started 10-15 years ago”

MixedComment from 20 Aug 2026 in “XWayland 26.1-rc1 Released Two Years After the Last Release”

“independent screen scaling which xlibre now supports”

RecommendsComment from 19 Aug 2026 in “XWayland 26.1-rc1 Released Two Years After the Last Release”

“he was banned from the X.org project due to poor code quality and practices”

CriticizesComment from 19 Aug 2026 in “XWayland 26.1-rc1 Released Two Years After the Last Release”

“With X11 seeing renewed, independent work”

RecommendsComment from 19 Aug 2026 in “XWayland 26.1-rc1 Released Two Years After the Last Release”

“Xlibre is run by a conspiracy theorist, who broke Xorg by having multiple bugs in his Merge Requests”

CriticizesComment from 15 Jul 2026 in “Measuring Input Latency on Linux: X11 vs. Wayland, VRR, and DXVK”

“actively developed and maintained X11 protocol display server”

RecommendsComment from 14 Jul 2026 in “Measuring Input Latency on Linux: X11 vs. Wayland, VRR, and DXVK”

“most of the contributions to xlibre have been cleaning up stuff thats been obviously wrong in xorg”

RecommendsComment from 24 Jun 2026 in “Vulnerability Reports are not Special Anymore”

“the continued dedication to a GUI interface I have used since before I ever came to this country”

RecommendsComment from 20 Jun 2026 in “XLibre XServer 25.2.0 Released”

“It is, by design, meant to be a drop in replacement that will perpetuate X11 as Wayland starts to become the default.”

RecommendsComment from 11 Jun 2026 in “Yserver: Modern X11 Server Written in Rust with the Help of Claude Code”

“git master of this project feels very snappy”

RecommendsComment from 11 Jun 2026 in “Linux latency measurements and compositor tuning”

“life is way better since I upgraded to Xlibre & Cinnamon”

RecommendsComment from 3 Jun 2026 in “Preparing for KDE Plasma's Last X11-Supported Release”

“Why is it always people like this who run projects that should be good?”

CriticizesComment from 22 May 2026 in “Show HN: Freenet, a peer-to-peer platform for decentralized apps”

“after getting all his patches rejected because they cause tests to fail, doesn't compile, etc.”

CriticizesComment from 20 Mar 2026 in “Wayland set the Linux Desktop back by 10 years”

“I wouldn't trust the reason given by the people who have said that they're trying to kill Xorg”

RecommendsComment from 20 Mar 2026 in “Wayland set the Linux Desktop back by 10 years”

“XLibre exists simply because you can't just "force X11 to die"”

RecommendsComment from 20 Mar 2026 in “Wayland set the Linux Desktop back by 10 years”

“It's a joke at best. At worst it'll foster an utterly toxic community.”

CriticizesComment from 16 Mar 2026 in “Separating the Wayland Compositor and Window Manager”

“The XLibre project is a noble idea, but a few contributors can't maintain an entire ecosystem on their own”

MixedComment from 15 Mar 2026 in “Separating the Wayland Compositor and Window Manager”

“actually works, and have many fixes that Xorg refused to implement”

RecommendsComment from 10 Feb 2026 in “Git with WD-40 Applied”

“all their patches were reverted in upstream X11 due to quality issues”

CriticizesComment from 28 Jan 2026 in “Xfwl4 – The Roadmap for a Xfce Wayland Compositor”

“Once you enable XLibre namespaces filtering it breaks screensharing, global hotkeys. Obviously. It is breaking change.”

CriticizesComment from 23 Jan 2026 in “200 MB RAM FreeBSD Desktop”

“Namespaces. It's been done already. Look into XLibre.”

RecommendsComment from 22 Jan 2026 in “200 MB RAM FreeBSD Desktop”

“a project that wants to maintain X11”

RecommendsComment from 21 Jan 2026 in “200 MB RAM FreeBSD Desktop”

“it is indeed better than Xorg”

RecommendsComment from 21 Jan 2026 in “200 MB RAM FreeBSD Desktop”

“it is probably the best tool for what you want to achieve”

RecommendsComment from 21 Jan 2026 in “200 MB RAM FreeBSD Desktop”

“a project that is stable, full-featured, and with a proven track record”

RecommendsComment from 26 Dec 2025 in “Phoenix: A modern X server written from scratch in Zig”

“Just got a major release as well with tons of new contributors and fixes/additions”

RecommendsComment from 25 Dec 2025 in “Phoenix: A modern X server written from scratch in Zig”

“XLibre[0] is available, ready for use and very active.”

RecommendsComment from 25 Dec 2025 in “Phoenix: A modern X server written from scratch in Zig”

“All are now features of XLibre.”

RecommendsComment from 25 Dec 2025 in “Phoenix: A modern X server written from scratch in Zig”

“from what I've heard of Xlibre I'm not super impressed by the code quality”

CriticizesComment from 3 Dec 2025 in “Xlibre is a fork of the Xorg Xserver with lots of code cleanups”

“whining about DEI and reusing the trump campaign slogan for your fork”

CriticizesComment from 1 Dec 2025 in “Xlibre is a fork of the Xorg Xserver with lots of code cleanups”

“I was the witness of all their tantrums breaking things all over xorg”

CriticizesComment from 1 Dec 2025 in “Xlibre is a fork of the Xorg Xserver with lots of code cleanups”

“They were ejected because they submitted some seriously broken patches”

CriticizesComment from 1 Dec 2025 in “Xlibre is a fork of the Xorg Xserver with lots of code cleanups”

“Ironic to promote a far right dev, and demonizing folks who are sick of his shit.”

RecommendsComment from 5 Nov 2025 in “Gnome Mutter Now "Completely Drops the Whole X11 Back End"”

“I expect there to be much faster changes and much more breaking things”

CriticizesComment from 4 Nov 2025 in “X.org Security Advisory: multiple security issues X.Org X server and Xwayland”

“it's certainly something to bear in mind if you intend to run xlibre though”

CriticizesComment from 3 Nov 2025 in “X.org Security Advisory: multiple security issues X.Org X server and Xwayland”

“They don't have what it takes to continue X11 alive once X.Org pulls the plug.”

CriticizesComment from 3 Nov 2025 in “X.org Security Advisory: multiple security issues X.Org X server and Xwayland”

Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.