JWM VS bspwm

JWM

Also known as Joe's Window Manager. Created in 2003, one of the default window manager for Puppy Linux, and actively updated by Joe, its creator.

bspwm

A tiling window manager based on binary space partitioning

Landing page //
2019-12-21

Landing page //
2023-09-14

Obscure Window Manager Project - JWM

bspwm videos

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Switching To Bspwm - Initial Thoughts

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to JWM and bspwm)

bspwm

Linux

25 25%

Linux

75% 75

Window Manager

20 20%

Window Manager

80% 80

Utilities

20 20%

Utilities

80% 80

Open Source

100 100%

Open Source

0% 0

User comments

Share your experience with using JWM and bspwm. For example, how are they different and which one is better?

Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare JWM and bspwm

JWM Reviews

Top 13 Best Tiling Window Managers For Linux In 2022

JWM (Joe’s Window Manager) is a lightweight open-source C-based window manager for the X11 Window System that is designed to run smoothly on older, less powerful computers. It simply needs the Xlib library to run, but it can also use other libraries like libXext for shape extensions, Cairo and libRSVG for icons and backdrops, libjpeg and libpng for JPEG and PNG backgrounds...

Source: www.hubtech.org

13 Best Tiling Window Managers for Linux

JWM (Joe’s Window Manager) is an open-source C-based lightweight window manager for the X11 Window System optimized to work smoothly on older, less powerful computer systems. It requires only the Xlib library to run but is capable of working with a host of other libraries including libXext for shape extension, Cairo and libRSVG for icons and backgrounds, libjpeg and libpng...

Source: www.tecmint.com

bspwm Reviews

Top 13 Best Tiling Window Managers For Linux In 2022

Support for multiple windows, limited support for EWMH, automatic mode for automatically determining the location of app tiles, and configuration and control via messages are among the characteristics of bspwm.

Source: www.hubtech.org

13 Best Tiling Window Managers for Linux

bspwm’s features include support for multiple windows, partial support for EWMH, automatic mode for automatically setting the position of app tiles, and it is configured and controlled through messages, among others.

Source: www.tecmint.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, bspwm should be more popular than JWM. It has been mentiond 20 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

JWM mentions (3)

Desktop Environments preferred by various distributions, over time
More data than I expected, OpenBSD also preferred jwm for a short time. Source: over 1 year ago
Windows or debian for a potato laptop
Absolutely yes - I had a very, really old toshiba satellite A50 from 2006 or so, I just can't remember the year, maybe older, but it is really old (it still is somewhere around here, although I've never used it anymore) running debian 32 bits with jwm (I prefer this over openbox or other minimalist DE - this is something where you should take some time trying, to see which it's best for you and for that machine). Source: over 2 years ago
debian 32bit w/openbox on a 17 yr old intel pentium 4 single core cpu....linux is amazing
Last time I tried Debian on a computer with only 512MB, I ended up with JWM as the window manager. Source: almost 3 years ago

bspwm mentions (20)

What WM should I use?
Use BSPWM. It supports right clicks by default and its modular. You might want to look for status bars that work with it, slstatus does not work. Good luck, supremacist! Source: about 1 year ago
What are some OpenSource apps that are the best of their kind?
I had not heard of bspwm but I am a fan of telling WMs. Looking at the documentation now, I really like the pragmatic approach lol https://github.com/baskerville/bspwm. Source: about 1 year ago
Got some questions before moving to linux...
I am not familiar with that distro at all, so no idea. KDE Plasma is fine, I use it myself (with BSPWM as my window manager, but that's irrelevant). Source: about 1 year ago
MacBook Setup - OS Ventura 13.1 - Samsung QLed 43” - VM: yabai - Terminal: Hyper
There's a paradigm shift required for a lot of people to start using automatic tiling window managers. Yabai is basically a bspwm port for MacOS and it follows the rules of binary space partitioning. In fact, bspwm has a great diagram on its github readme that illustrates how it works. This will limit the number of windows you can have on any given desktop. To overcome this limitation you use multiple desktops. A... Source: over 1 year ago
How much better is neoVim? Is it really that much better than VsCode?
It’s night and day. I also combine a heavily customized NeoVim config (https://github.com/tomit4/notes/tree/main/nvim) with a tiling window manager (https://github.com/baskerville/bspwm), the espanso text expander (https://espanso.org/), Vimium in the browser (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/), and a 40% ortholinear keyboard(https://drop.com/buy/planck-mechanical-keyboard). Source: over 1 year ago

What are some alternatives?

When comparing JWM and bspwm, you can also consider the following products

i3 - A dynamic tiling window manager designed for X11, inspired by wmii, and written in C.

Openbox - Openbox is a highly configurable, next generation window manager with extensive standards support.

dwm - dwm is a dynamic window manager for X. It manages windows in tiled, monocle and floating layouts. All of the layouts can be applied dynamically, optimising the environment for the application in use and the task performed.

IceWM - icewm home page . Bug Tracking. If you have a patch, a bug report or a feature request to submit, please do so at the icewm project page at SourceForge.

qtile - Qtile is a full-featured, hackable tiling window manager written in Python.

Fluxbox - Fluxbox is a window manager for X that was based on the Blackbox 0.61.1 code.