What is the best Linux Display Manager?

Question

19

Options
Considered

789

User
Recs.

4 mins

Last
Updated

Here’s the Deal

The Best 1 of 16 OptionsWhy?

Best Linux Display Manager	Price	License	Programming Language
91 SLiM	-	-	-
88 LightDM	-	-	-
82 CDM	-	-	-
79 XDM	-	-	-
76 SDDM	-	-	-

See Full List

15 Other Options Considered

LightDM

Top Pro

Beautiful interface

Some greeters such as the Unity Greeter look absolutely beautiful on LightDM. See More

Top Con

Not really lightweight

How lightweight it is depends on the used greeter, but they all require much more dependencies than other lightweight greeters like XDM or SLiM. See More

Capuccino 's Experience

It lives up to its name - It's Light, and it's nice to look at. Birthed from the Unity efforts of Canonical - it's probably the most memorable part of Unity. See More

Top Pro

Best balance.

Best interoperability, best balance between functionality and bloat, simplicity and candy, not distribution or GUI-tied. See More

Top Con

Poor/missing documentation

igeek's Experience

LightDM is customizable and featureful. See More

Top Con

Feature creep

the most people don't need (or even know) all features of LightDM. See More

RealisticThor's Experience

Best interoperability, best balance between functionality and bloat, simplicity and candy, not distribution or GUI-tied. See More

Top Con

Arco Linux Issues

Could not make it work with arco linux... no matter how hard I tried. See More

PioneeringHegemone's Experience

seems easy enough that a new user should be able to figure out how to use it. See More

Top Con

No Wayland compatibility

This means no wayland session can be launched at all using LightDM. See More

JIMz z's Experience

for ubuntu 19.10, works on macbookpro A1286 without any config. the default gdm3 doesn't. See More

Reinier Alvarez's Experience

lo mejor See More

JollyPhylonoe's Experience

It's a lightweight, secure and seamless display manager. See More

GDSkills 168's Experience

Quite good. See More

CommunicativeOrthosie's Experience

Can be a real pain in the ass if went somehow broken etc. One missing or corrupted file and you're sitting ducks. See More

See All

XDM

Top Pro

Lightweight and fast

It's a lot more lightweight than the most common GTK or QT based login managers. See More

Top Con

By deault you can't choose desktop environments

by default you can't choose your sessions/desktops, however there are plenty of tutorials on the web to add a selection. See More

UnderstandingSvetovid's Experience

The most portable since X Window, one can tune XDM config files to allow WM selection and provide system buttons such as Reboot, Power off, Rescue, Screen resolutions and lock timeout But also theming and background pictures. xmessage, xclock, xset, xsetroot and shell scripts are the XDM companion software. See More

Top Pro

Allows several seats

Top Pro

Matured Software

XDM is not new, it has been in development since the 80s and is a very stable reliable DM. See More

Top Pro

Flexibility

Very customizable and portable, although with not as advanced effects. See More

See All

SDDM

Top Pro

Supports both X11 and Wayland

Top Con

Does not support expired passwords

You can not force users to change passwords on login. See More

RealisticThor's Experience

It works, but is wholly QML and this KDE specific See More

Top Pro

SDDM can start each DE

Unlike GDM which is stubborn in many ways, SDDM can start both Wayland and X11 sessions and any matter of valid session type, even if it's something obscure like Windowmaker. See More

Top Con

It does not support some essential funtionality, like XDMCP

Top Pro

SDDM can provide full eyecandy

SDDM themes can include animated videos/gifs, background music/sounds, and any combination of the various QML animations. See More

Top Con

No Bluetooth support on the Loginscreen

Top Pro

Recommended for Plasma 5 and LXQT

QML-based display manager. Successor to KDE4's KDM. See More

Top Con

Heavy

It's not very lightweight. See More

Top Pro

Security

It doesn't support XDMCP. See More

Top Con

Customizing is hard

Customizing this login manager is hard since you need to know QML very well. See More

Top Con

A bit bloated

It requires Qt which is a huge dependency compared to other login managers. See More

See All

GDM

Top Con

Tied to Gnome

You basically have to use Gnome or one of its forks to use it properly. See More

Top Pro

It just works

GDM is dull, but it just works, and it is highly stable. It's easy to switch between environments, and it integrates really well with Fedora or other Gnome Distros. See More

RealisticThor's Experience

It's Gnome specific, and as always, Gnome or Gnome-tied developers see this as a pro. See More

Top Con

Depends on GTK and its dependencies

Top Pro

Always signs the GNOME keyring

Works with any desktop. Some display managers such as SDDM don't open the GNOME keyring at login. See More

Yang Junhai's Experience

just works See More

Top Con

Really hard to customize

You'll have to recompile Gnome's resource files in order just to change the login background. See More

Top Pro

Not so difficult to customize

You just have to know which files to edit and you can do quite a lot. See More

DaringAmaethon's Experience

NIce See More

Top Con

Ugly UI

ToughIusaaset's Experience

niiiiiiiiceeeeeee See More

See All

ly

Top Pro

Simple in use

Top Con

CLI-based

Very simple and minimalistic graphical interface. See More

AmbitiousSilenus's Experience

Previously was using sddm, but tried this and noticed that the screen suddenly felt a lot snappier. It has been updated more recently which may help! See More

Top Pro

Very quick and responsive

XDream8's Experience

I tried almost all display manager but its the best. See More

Top Pro

Minimal

KnowledgeableNiamh's Experience

its a really cool project, it auto-saves your username so you don't have to worry about putting in your username each time you login, its also very minimal which means it goes hand in hand with arch and i3 See More

Top Pro

CLI Based

It's so much lightweight because CLI Based. See More

Top Pro

Supports both X11 and Wayland

See All

LXDM

Top Pro

Fast and fluent

Top Con

Depends on GTK and its dependencies

ResoluteOccopirmus's Experience

the best no con See More

Top Pro

Works well on USB

A full install of arch on live USB works well on many computers with no text issues with LXDM. See More

VivaciousTemazcalteci's Experience

super fast and fluent See More

See All

KDE

Top Pro

Adheres to standards

Standards adherence allows for interoperability and shared technology for X Window System desktops, with similar Wayland support being worked on. Applications not written with Plasma in mind work very well in Plasma as a result. The development team has also been instrumental in standard creation and adoption such as NETWM, X11 clipboard, icon themes, mimetype handling, application menu standardization, system tray protocols and notifications and more. See More

Top Con

Poorly named app menu with too many apps starting with "K"

This is better in KDE Neon with minimalist apps, which indeed in itself points out the problem. See More

Top Pro

The search with the Windows Key is as awesome

Top Pro

Active development

Top Pro

KDE is an evolution on the classic desktop model

KDE 4 is a great evolution on the classic Win95/Gnome/XFCE approach. It's moving in innovative directions while respecting the classic metaphors. See More

Top Pro

Open source

Top Pro

Integrated components

Plasma Desktop generally comes packaged with a full set of applications to get users started, including a file manager (Dolphin), advanced file manager and browser (Konqueror), image and document viewers (Gwenview, Okular), the Calligra office suite, CD and DVD authoring (K3b) and dozens more. The desktop can be installed and used without these applications, but they add significant value for many people. See More

Top Pro

Has a file manager that provides a good balance between power and simplicity

Included file manager provides several icon, list and detail views to choose from along with features such as tabs, bookmarks, tagging, previews and metadata, network file access, bluetooth file transfers to/from devices and excellent removable storage integration while remaining fast and easy to use. See More

Top Pro

Integrated advanced search

Plasma Desktop comes with an integration search system that makes it easy to find local files, emails, contacts, events and more. The file manager supports tagging and rating files as well as full-content searching and the KRunner command window and the Milou desktop widget makes searching for files, emails, applications and other content by name, subject, category, tag, fulltext, etc. very simple. It does this with essentially no noticeable interference with day-to-day usage of the computer, thanks to the scheduling built into the backend system (Baloo). See More

Top Pro

Looks beautiful

The design of the three built-in desktop themes; Air, Breeze, and Oxygen, are very beautiful to some. See More

Top Pro

Highly customisable

There are many customization options and possibilities to tweak the desktop, including widgets. See More

See All

KDE Plasma

License:GPL, LGPL, MIT, X11, BSD

Programming Language:mostly C++

Widget Toolkit:Qt

Available on:*nix

Brzdm

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SLiM

Top Pro

Very lightweight

SLiM doesn't have much dependencies. It just needs an X-Server and libpng(for png image support) or libjpeg(for jpg image support). See More

Top Con

Currently unmaintained

SLiM is currently unmaintained, however its considered feature complete and there exist enough active forks to keep it alive. See More

Harry's Experience

Extremely lightweight and only use configurations and images (simple). See More

Top Pro

Includes a Lockscreen

SLiM also includes a graphical Lockscreen that uses the theme from the login manager. See More

Top Con

No restart or shutdown buttons

There are no buttons since it is keyboard-based, hover you can still type commands into to login field to open a terminal or to rebbot/shutdown/suspend the system. See More

HappyNanaya's Experience

low memory, Simple Design. This Desktop Manager is very light that than lightdm. See More

Top Pro

No Systemd

It does not need systemd or logind See More

Top Con

Insecure

Any root user, including via a usb live distro, can enable autologin from any users listed in the home folder See More

OrganizedXantico's Experience

On Ubuntu 18.10. kernel 4.18.0-12-generic, GNOME Shell 3.30.1 - X11, since a Dec 9 update, login kept hanging on "Started bpfilter" -- I think a possible conflict between systemd and bpfilter (I think managed by the kernel.) The following suggested fixes had no effect on my system: (1) Removing nVidia drivers (my laptop uses Intel graphics, no nVida drivers installed, so this recommendation didn't apply,) (2) reverting to previous kernel 4.18.0-11-generic, (3) disabling Wayland in gdm3, (4) switching to LightDM display manager (identical hang.) I tried SLiM because it claimed not to require systemd, and it now enables normal login for me. Debian-branded, but allows changing the login background to something generic. Thanks, SLiM. This is probably a temporary recourse only, with Ubuntu's continuing development, so I've kept GDM3 and LightDM installed, in case a future system update fixes this issue. See More

Top Pro

Keyboard controlled

This display manager doesn't need a mouse. See More

Top Con

Needs strong bases to create dependencies

The dependency container schema of Slim is one of the biggest PROS and CONS of the framework. It is true that this schema brings so much flexibility to add anything, but another thing that is true is that you need to have strong bases of patterns, and an extensive knowledge of your libraries to convert it into a Slim dependency. See More

PrivateOmoikane's Experience

Last release was in 2013!! And its not compatible with systemd. See More

Top Pro

SLiM is fully themable

SLiM is fully themeable with PNG and JPEG images, Configuration is done in a simple text file See More

Top Con

Text issues

With both Noueau and proprietary NVidia drivers have text displaying issues with Quadro M2000 and other Quadro series cards at 1900x1600 resolution - text is not visible. See More

Top Pro

Well organized and thorough documentation

Slim's documentation is well organized and detailed, every concept is thoroughly explained and it is very helpful for both advanced users and beginners. See More

Top Pro

Open source

The Slim Framework is open source and is released under the MIT public license See More

Top Pro

A good starting point

Slim is minimal and that is a good thing if you want to start from there. It can be easily extended and even supports popular packages that are used in Laravel (like Illuminate\Database (eloquent)) for example. See More

Top Pro

Maintained Forks

there are plenty of maintained forks available some dropped even consolekit for systemd/logind. https://github.com/iwamatsu/slim/network https://github.com/data-modul/slim/network See More

Top Pro

Auto login

SLiM can auto login by defining default user. See More

Top Pro

Extremely lightweight

I think it's even lighter than startx from xorg-xinit. See More

Top Pro

Flexible configuration

Some message configurations can be defined within the theme. See More

See All

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The Best 1 of 16 OptionsWhy?

My Recommendation for SLiM

My Recommendation for SLiM

Very lightweight

Currently unmaintained

Includes a Lockscreen

No restart or shutdown buttons

No Systemd

Insecure

Keyboard controlled

Needs strong bases to create dependencies

SLiM is fully themable

Text issues

Well organized and thorough documentation

Open source

A good starting point

Maintained Forks

Auto login

Extremely lightweight

Flexible configuration

15 Other Options Considered

My Recommendation for LightDM

My Recommendation for LightDM

Beautiful interface

Not really lightweight

Best balance.

Poor/missing documentation

Feature creep

Arco Linux Issues

No Wayland compatibility

My Recommendation for CDM

My Recommendation for CDM

Has almost no dependencies

Bad availability in distros

Supports virtually any DE/WM

Curses-like interface

Very lightweight

My Recommendation for XDM

My Recommendation for XDM

Lightweight and fast

By deault you can't choose desktop environments

Allows several seats

Matured Software

Flexibility

My Recommendation for SDDM

My Recommendation for SDDM

Supports both X11 and Wayland

Does not support expired passwords

SDDM can start each DE

It does not support some essential funtionality, like XDMCP

SDDM can provide full eyecandy

No Bluetooth support on the Loginscreen

Recommended for Plasma 5 and LXQT

Heavy

Security

Customizing is hard

A bit bloated

My Recommendation for Console TDM

My Recommendation for Console TDM

Very lightweight

No customization

Very old

My Recommendation for GDM

My Recommendation for GDM

Tied to Gnome

It just works

Depends on GTK and its dependencies

Always signs the GNOME keyring

Really hard to customize

Not so difficult to customize

Ugly UI

My Recommendation for ly

My Recommendation for ly

Simple in use

CLI-based

Very quick and responsive

Minimal

CLI Based

Supports both X11 and Wayland

My Recommendation for LXDM