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slstatus VS Polybar

Compare slstatus VS Polybar and see what are their differences

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Contents:
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  2. » Videos
  3. » Reviews
  4. » Alternatives

slstatus logo slstatus

slstatus is a status monitor for window managers that use WM_NAME or stdin to fill the status bar.

Polybar logo Polybar

Status bar for Unix-like systems.
  • slstatus Landing page
    Landing page //
    2025-06-30
  • Polybar Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-08-26

slstatus features and specs

  • Lightweight
    slstatus is designed to be minimalistic and lightweight, which makes it efficient in terms of resource usage. It's ideal for users who want a simple status monitor without unnecessary bloat.
  • Customizable
    Users can customize slstatus to display various system information. It allows for a good degree of flexibility in how the status bar appears.
  • Integration with dwm
    slstatus is part of the Suckless Tools suite and integrates well with dwm (Dynamic Window Manager), making it a preferred choice for users in the Suckless ecosystem looking for seamless compatibility.
  • Open Source
    As an open-source tool, slstatus allows users to view, modify, and contribute to its source code. This transparency is valued by users who prefer open-source solutions.

Possible disadvantages of slstatus

  • Limited Features
    Compared to more feature-rich status monitors, slstatus has a limited set of features. Users looking for advanced functionality might find it lacking.
  • Manual Configuration
    Configuration of slstatus requires editing the source code and recompiling, which can be inconvenient and time-consuming, especially for users not familiar with programming.
  • Unix-specific
    slstatus is primarily designed for Unix-like operating systems and may not be suitable for users on other platforms.

Polybar features and specs

  • Highly Customizable
    Polybar offers extensive customization options allowing users to tailor the status bar to their preferences, including color schemes, fonts, modules, and scripts.
  • Lightweight
    Polybar is designed to be lightweight, ensuring it consumes minimal system resources while providing a functional user interface enhancement.
  • Modular Design
    With its modular system, Polybar allows users to enable or disable certain modules according to their needs, offering flexibility and ease of use.
  • Script Support
    Users can integrate scripts into Polybar for displaying custom information, which adds to its extensibility and adaptability to various use cases.
  • Active Community
    There is an active community and extensive documentation that can provide support, resources, and inspiration for customization ideas.

Possible disadvantages of Polybar

  • Steep Learning Curve
    For new users, especially those not familiar with configuration files and scripting, setting up Polybar can be initially challenging.
  • Limited to X11
    Polybar currently does not support Wayland, limiting its use to X11 window systems unless additional third-party workarounds are applied.
  • Manual Configuration
    Polybar requires manual editing of configuration files, which might not be user-friendly for those more accustomed to GUI-based customization.
  • Dependency Management
    Users may need to manage and install dependencies manually, which can be cumbersome if not documented or managed by package distributions.
  • Potential for Overhead
    Although lightweight, highly customizing Polybar with numerous scripts and modules can introduce overhead and require additional performance tuning.

slstatus videos

+ Add

More dwm and slstatus customization

More videos:

  • Review - artixlinux compile on boot dwm slstatus dmenu

Polybar videos

+ Add

[8e] | Polybar on i3

More videos:

  • Review - Polybar III: Using Polybar with Multiple Window Managers
  • Review - My Dotfiles - HLWM Polybar Arch

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to slstatus and Polybar)

slstatus

Polybar

App Launcher
51 51%
App Launcher
49% 49
Productivity
34 34%
Productivity
66% 66
Note Taking
34 34%
Note Taking
66% 66
LMS
30 30%
LMS
70% 70

User comments

Share your experience with using slstatus and Polybar. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Polybar seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 24 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.

slstatus mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of slstatus yet. Tracking of slstatus recommendations started around Jun 2025.

Polybar mentions (24)

  • Is there a way I can tell which exit node I am using from CLI in Linux?
    I'd like to just be able to write a short shell script to check if an exit node is in use, and then pipe that output into polybar which I use anyway. The problem is that I can't find an option in the tailscale Linux CLI client that will show me whether I'm using an exit node or not. Is there a way to do this? Source: almost 2 years ago
  • Are there any tools to analyse/modify colours directly from a bash script?
    I am on Arch Linux and I am using pywal to generate a colour palette from my wallpaper, which I then use throughout my system. In particular, I have a bash script which grabs these colours and uses them for polybar. The problem is that sometimes these colours do not have enough contrast, and the bar is hard to read. Is there any tool that would allow me to check the readability of my colours, and modify them... Source: over 2 years ago
  • How do you deal with volume >100% and ramp-weights?
    Maybe check out the canonical page instead: https://github.com/polybar/polybar. Source: over 2 years ago
  • Top Bar
    A common one is polybar, but there are quite a few so they can't be hard to tell just from how it looks. Source: over 2 years ago
  • Top Bar
    That is a status bar, often used with tiling window managers. A popular one would be https://github.com/polybar/polybar. Source: over 2 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing slstatus and Polybar, you can also consider the following products

Yambar - Modular status panel for X11 and Wayland, inspired by polybar.

wf-shell - wf-shell is a repository which contains the various components needed to built a fully functional DE based around wayfire. Currently it has only a GTK-based panel and background client.

tint2 - git clone https://gitlab. com/o9000/tint2. git cd tint2 git checkout 16. 1 mkdir build cd build cmake ..

Waybar - Highly customizable Wayland bar for Sway and Wlroots based compositors. :v: :tada: - GitHub - Alexays/Waybar: Highly customizable Wayland bar for Sway and Wlroots based compositors.

nwg-panel - Nwg-panel is a GTK3-based panel for sway and Hyprland Wayland compositors. The panel is equipped with a graphical configuration program that frees the user from the need to manually edit configuration files.

ironbar - Customisable Wayland gtk bar written in Rust.

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