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Unity8 VS Wayfire

Compare Unity8 VS Wayfire and see what are their differences

Unity8 logo Unity8

Mir compositor with Wayland apps support.

Wayfire logo Wayfire

Wayland compositor with 3d effects.
  • Unity8 Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-08-18
  • Wayfire Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-08-19

Unity8 features and specs

  • Convergence
    Unity8 is designed with convergence in mind, allowing a seamless experience across multiple device types like desktops, tablets, and phones.
  • Modern Interface
    The interface is modern and visually appealing, providing a fresh alternative to other desktop environments.
  • Community-Driven
    As part of the UBports project, Unity8 benefits from a community-driven development approach, making it responsive to user feedback.
  • Customization
    Users can customize the interface according to personal preferences, improving user experience and productivity.
  • Lightweight
    Unity8 is relatively lightweight compared to other desktop environments, which can help improve system performance on older hardware.

Possible disadvantages of Unity8

  • Limited Software Support
    Due to its niche status, Unity8 may not have as extensive software support as more mainstream environments like GNOME or KDE.
  • Development Pace
    As a community-driven project, the pace of development can be slower compared to commercially-backed alternatives.
  • Stability Issues
    Being under constant development, users may experience occasional stability issues or bugs.
  • Learning Curve
    Users who are accustomed to more traditional desktop environments might face a learning curve when transitioning to Unity8.
  • Limited Market Adoption
    Unity8 has limited adoption in the broader market, which can affect the availability of third-party applications and extensions.

Wayfire features and specs

  • Customizability
    Wayfire offers a high degree of customizability with plugins, allowing users to modify and extend the functionality of the window manager to fit their personal workflow and preferences.
  • Modern Compositor
    Being based on Wayland, Wayfire benefits from modern graphical capabilities and is well-suited for contemporary hardware, with support for efficient rendering and better security features compared to X-based systems.
  • Dynamic Effects
    Wayfire includes a variety of built-in effects and animations, providing users with an aesthetically pleasing environment that can be tailored or disabled as needed.
  • Lightweight
    Wayfire is designed to be lightweight, offering fast performance with minimal resource usage which can improve speed and responsiveness, especially on older hardware.
  • Active Development
    It is actively maintained with continuous updates and improvements, ensuring that users have access to the latest features and security patches.

Possible disadvantages of Wayfire

  • Wayland-Specific
    As a Wayland compositor, it might not yet support all X11 applications natively, possibly requiring compatibility layers like XWayland, which can introduce complexity or limitations.
  • Limited Support
    Compared to more mainstream window managers, there may be less community and documentation support for troubleshooting and user assistance.
  • Plugin Dependency
    While plugins provide flexibility, the heavy reliance on them can lead to compatibility issues or instability if not managed properly, especially for users who want a simple setup.
  • Learning Curve
    New users may encounter a learning curve, especially if they are unfamiliar with Wayland or the plugin-based architecture, requiring time to fully leverage its capabilities.
  • Desktop Environment Integration
    Wayfire's integration with specific desktop environments may be less seamless compared to other managers designed with broader DE support, limiting its appeal for users who prefer tight DE integration.

Unity8 videos

Unity8 Desktop Greeter Preview (Split Greeter)

Wayfire videos

GNOME 3.36: macOS-like apps with KAWAII BLUR ..on Wayfire :p

More videos:

  • Review - Wayfire: Wayfire config manager + wf-panel
  • Review - Micro Review 2/2 Rayban Wayfire

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Unity8 and Wayfire)
Linux
26 26%
74% 74
Operating Systems
100 100%
0% 0
Window Manager
24 24%
76% 76
Utilities
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

Share your experience with using Unity8 and Wayfire. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
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Social recommendations and mentions

Wayfire might be a bit more popular than Unity8. We know about 2 links to it since March 2021 and only 2 links to Unity8. 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.

Unity8 mentions (2)

  • What happened to lomiri
    Https://lomiri.com links to https://github.com/ubports/unity8 and this repository is accessible. Source: over 2 years ago
  • Any GNOME-like DEs without all the GNOME bs?
    Unity. Yes, it's still around (now going by "unity8" and maintained and developed by UBports now instead of Canonical but it's still the same DE we all know and hate er love). Obv not my cup of tea so I'm not very knowledgeable about it so could be way off but who knows, maybe we'll get a Unity lover here and they can chime in. github. Source: over 3 years ago

Wayfire mentions (2)

  • Cant change the system GTK theme/icons
    So im trying to change my GTK theme/icons (on Wayfire) I tryed changing them using LXAppearance and it "changes" in LXappearance until I close it then they goes back to default (no other application changes themes/icons). Source: almost 4 years ago
  • [Wayfire] System locks up when trying to build wf-shell
    Im trying to build/install Wayfire (on Debian Testing, using Openbox) using wf-install and I cant seem to get past building wf-shell (i have also tried building using wf-shell instructions, same result),. Source: almost 4 years ago

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Unity8 and Wayfire, you can also consider the following products

GNOME - An easy and elegant way to use your computer, GNOME is designed to put you in control and get things done.

Hyprland - Hyprland is a dynamic tiling Wayland compositor that doesn't sacrifice on its looks. - GitHub - vaxerski/Hyprland: Hyprland is a dynamic tiling Wayland compositor that doesn't sacrifice on ...

Arcan - Game engine and multimedia framework and display server.

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

UKUI - UKUI is a lightweight desktop environment based on pluggable framework for Linux and other Unix-like Distributions.

Sway - Sway is a drop-in replacement for the i3 window manager, but for Wayland instead of X11.