Jay is a Wayland compositor.
This is free and open source software.
Key Features
- Configurable by a declarative TOML file or a shared library that gets injected into the compositor.
- i3 look and feel. Colors, sizes, and fonts can be customized.
- Stable. Jay also aims to be forward and backward compatible for existing setups, allowing you to upgrade or downgrade the compositor without having to adjust your configuration.
- CLI – can be used to configure the compositor at runtime.
- Multi-monitor support – can be used with multiple monitors with hot-plug and hot-unplug support. When a monitor is unplugged, all workspaces are automatically moved one of the remaining monitors. When the monitor is plugged in again, these workspaces are restored.
- Multi-GPU support – can be used with multiple GPUs and monitors connected to different GPUs. One GPU is always used for rendering the desktop. You can change this GPU at runtime.
- Supports screen sharing via xdg-desktop-portal. There are three supported modes:
- Window capture.
- Output capture.
- Workspace capture which is like output capture except that only one workspace will be shown.
- Screen locking.
- Supports the zwlr_layer_shell_v1 protocol used by notification daemons.
- Per-monitor fractional scaling support.
- Can use either OpenGL or Vulkan for rendering. Vulkan offers better performance and memory usage but OpenGL is still provided for older hardware.
- Supports explicit sync for compatibility with NVIDIA hardware.
- Supports clipboard managers via zwlr_data_control_manager_v1.
- Splits protocols into unprivileged and privileged protocols. By default, applications only have access to unprivileged protocols. You can explicitly opt into giving applications access to privileged protocols via the Jay CLI or shortcuts.
- Supports leasing VR headsets to applications.
- Supports adaptive sync with configurable cursor refresh rates.
- Supports tearing presentation for games.
- Uses frame scheduling to achieve input latency as low as 1.5 ms.
Website: github.com/mahkoh/jay
Support:
Developer: mahkoh
License: GNU General Public License v3.0

Jay is written in Rust. Learn Rust with our recommended free books and free tutorials
Related Software
| Tiling Wayland Compositors | |
|---|---|
| Sway | i3-compatible tiling Wayland compositor and a replacement for i3 |
| niri | Scrollable-tiling Wayland compositor |
| Hyprland | Dynamic tiling Wayland compositor based on wlroots |
| Qtile | Full-featured, hackable tiling window manager |
| Swayfx | Sway with eye candy |
| river | Compositor with flexible runtime configuration. |
| MangoWC | Lightweight yet a good set of features |
| dwl | dwm for Wayland |
| fht-compositor | Dynamic tiling Wayland compositor |
| newm-atha | Wayland compositor written with laptops and touchpads in mind |
| Cagebreak | Seeks inspiration from Ratpoison |
| Mahogany | Modeled after StumpWM |
| Jay | Wayland compositor written in Rust |
| Vivarium | Dynamic tiling Wayland compositor using wlroots |
| polonium | Tiling window manager for KWin |
| Volare | Tabbed, tiling Wayland compositor |
| japokwm | wlroots and dwl based tiling wayland compositor |
| velox | Simple window manager based on swc |
| stagen | wlroots-based Wayland compositor |
| newm | Written with laptops and touchpads in mind |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
Explore our comprehensive directory of recommended free and open source software. Our carefully curated collection spans every major software category.This directory is part of our ongoing series of informative articles for Linux enthusiasts. It features hundreds of detailed reviews, along with open source alternatives to proprietary solutions from major corporations such as Google, Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, IBM, Cisco, Oracle, and Autodesk. You’ll also find interesting projects to try, hardware coverage, free programming books and tutorials, and much more. Discovered a useful open source Linux program that we haven’t covered yet? Let us know by completing this form. |

