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%
Recommended in 8 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- 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” - Comment from 19 Aug 2026 in “XWayland 26.1-rc1 Released Two Years After the Last Release”
- Comment from 21 Jan 2026 in “200 MB RAM FreeBSD Desktop”
- Comment from 14 Jul 2026 in “Measuring Input Latency on Linux: X11 vs. Wayland, VRR, and DXVK”
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” - Comment from 25 Dec 2025 in “Phoenix: A modern X server written from scratch in Zig”
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” - Comment from 25 Dec 2025 in “Phoenix: A modern X server written from scratch in Zig”
- Comment from 11 Jun 2026 in “Linux latency measurements and compositor tuning”
- Comment from 21 Jan 2026 in “200 MB RAM FreeBSD Desktop”
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” - Comment from 28 Jan 2026 in “Xfwl4 – The Roadmap for a Xfce Wayland Compositor”
- Comment from 1 Dec 2025 in “Xlibre is a fork of the Xorg Xserver with lots of code cleanups”
- Comment from 19 Aug 2026 in “XWayland 26.1-rc1 Released Two Years After the Last Release”
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” - Comment from 16 Mar 2026 in “Separating the Wayland Compositor and Window Manager”
- Comment from 1 Dec 2025 in “Xlibre is a fork of the Xorg Xserver with lots of code cleanups”
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” - Comment from 4 Nov 2025 in “X.org Security Advisory: multiple security issues X.Org X server and Xwayland”
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.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wayland | 272 | 405 | 40% | 12 | 3 yrs32 owners | — |
| X11 (X.Org) | 140 | 102 | 58% | 12 | 20 yrs9 owners | — |
| Xorg | 40 | 36 | 53% | 11 | 22 yrs3 owners | — |
| XLibreThis page | 31 | 37 | 46% | 8 | — | — |
| X Window System | 27 | 26 | 51% | 11 | — | — |
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”
“Luckily there is XLibre if the xorg developers can't develop X any more.”
“in which the project founder is accused of being somewhat reckless in making changes”
“Xlibre brought XNamespaces -- as well as HDR and seat management.”
“XLibre and Phoenix might have ended up working out if they'd been started 10-15 years ago”
“independent screen scaling which xlibre now supports”
“he was banned from the X.org project due to poor code quality and practices”
“With X11 seeing renewed, independent work”
“Xlibre is run by a conspiracy theorist, who broke Xorg by having multiple bugs in his Merge Requests”
“actively developed and maintained X11 protocol display server”
“most of the contributions to xlibre have been cleaning up stuff thats been obviously wrong in xorg”
“the continued dedication to a GUI interface I have used since before I ever came to this country”
“It is, by design, meant to be a drop in replacement that will perpetuate X11 as Wayland starts to become the default.”
“git master of this project feels very snappy”
“life is way better since I upgraded to Xlibre & Cinnamon”
“Why is it always people like this who run projects that should be good?”
“after getting all his patches rejected because they cause tests to fail, doesn't compile, etc.”
“I wouldn't trust the reason given by the people who have said that they're trying to kill Xorg”
“XLibre exists simply because you can't just "force X11 to die"”
“It's a joke at best. At worst it'll foster an utterly toxic community.”
“The XLibre project is a noble idea, but a few contributors can't maintain an entire ecosystem on their own”
“actually works, and have many fixes that Xorg refused to implement”
“all their patches were reverted in upstream X11 due to quality issues”
“Once you enable XLibre namespaces filtering it breaks screensharing, global hotkeys. Obviously. It is breaking change.”
“Namespaces. It's been done already. Look into XLibre.”
“a project that wants to maintain X11”
“it is indeed better than Xorg”
“it is probably the best tool for what you want to achieve”
“a project that is stable, full-featured, and with a proven track record”
“Just got a major release as well with tons of new contributors and fixes/additions”
“XLibre[0] is available, ready for use and very active.”
“All are now features of XLibre.”
“from what I've heard of Xlibre I'm not super impressed by the code quality”
“whining about DEI and reusing the trump campaign slogan for your fork”
“I was the witness of all their tantrums breaking things all over xorg”
“They were ejected because they submitted some seriously broken patches”
“Ironic to promote a far right dev, and demonizing folks who are sick of his shit.”
“I expect there to be much faster changes and much more breaking things”
“it's certainly something to bear in mind if you intend to run xlibre though”
“They don't have what it takes to continue X11 alive once X.Org pulls the plug.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.