niri is a scrollable-tiling Wayland compositor.
Windows are arranged in columns on an infinite strip going to the right. Opening a new window never causes existing windows to resize.
Every monitor has its own separate window strip. Windows can never “overflow” onto an adjacent monitor.
Workspaces are dynamic and arranged vertically. Every monitor has an independent set of workspaces, and there’s always one empty workspace present all the way down.
The workspace arrangement is preserved across disconnecting and connecting monitors where it makes sense. When a monitor disconnects, its workspaces will move to another monitor, but upon reconnection they will move back to the original monitor.
This is free and open source software.
Key Features
- Scrollable tiling.
- Dynamic workspaces like in GNOME.
- Built-in screenshot UI.
- Monitor and window screencasting through xdg-desktop-portal-gnome.
- You can block out sensitive windows from screencasts.
- Touchpad and mouse gestures.
- Configurable layout: gaps, borders, struts, window sizes.
- Gradient borders with Oklab and Oklch support.
- Animations with support for custom shaders.
- Live-reloading config.
Website: github.com/niri-wm/niri
Support:
Developer: Ivan Molodetskikh
License: GNU General Public License v3.0
niri 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.
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