Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

wf-shell VS Polybar

Compare wf-shell VS Polybar and see what are their differences

wf-shell logo 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.

Polybar logo Polybar

Status bar for Unix-like systems.
Not present
  • Polybar Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-08-26

wf-shell features and specs

  • Wayland Compositor
    WF-Shell is built to function seamlessly with the Wayfire compositor, providing a fully integrated Wayland experience that offers smoother graphics and better performance compared to X11-based alternatives.
  • Customizable
    WF-Shell allows users to extensively customize their desktop environment through various plugins and configuration options, which can be tailored to meet different user preferences and needs.
  • Lightweight
    Designed to be resource-efficient, WF-Shell minimizes the consumption of system resources, making it suitable for low-end hardware and offering a fast and responsive user experience.
  • Modern Design
    It provides a modern and visually appealing desktop environment with features like dynamic window effects and animations powered by Wayfire's 3D capabilities.

Possible disadvantages of wf-shell

  • Limited Application Support
    As a relatively new system centered around Wayland, some applications might not be fully compatible or may require workarounds compared to traditional X11 environments.
  • Smaller Community
    WF-Shell, being part of a smaller ecosystem, may have less community support and fewer resources available compared to more established desktop environments, making troubleshooting potentially more challenging.
  • Learning Curve
    Users coming from more traditional desktop environments might find the learning curve steep, as they need to adapt to new concepts and tools inherent to a Wayland-based system.
  • Plugin Dependency
    While its customization is a strength, WF-Shell's reliance on plugins for additional features might lead to stability issues or increased complexity when managing configurations.

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.

wf-shell videos

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Polybar videos

[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 wf-shell and Polybar)
App Launcher
58 58%
42% 42
Productivity
40 40%
60% 60
Note Taking
41 41%
59% 59
LMS
30 30%
70% 70

User comments

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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.

wf-shell mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of wf-shell yet. Tracking of wf-shell 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
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing wf-shell and Polybar, you can also consider the following products

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

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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.

Awesome ChatGPT Prompts - Game Genie for ChatGPT