What are the best Arch Linux based distributions?

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27

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452

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Here’s the Deal

The Best 2 of 24 OptionsWhy?

Best Arch Linux based distributions	Price	Default Desktop Environment	Based On
92 Anarchy Linux	-	Budgie, Cinnamon, Gnome, OpenBox, Xfce	Arch
91 Manjaro	-	XFCE, KDE, Gnome, Budgie, Cinnamon, Deepin, i3, LXDE/lxqt, and MATE	Arch Linux
85 Antergos	-	Cinnamon / GNOME 3 / KDE / MATE / Openbox / Xfce	Arch
-- Arch Linux	-	CLI	(independent)
-- Artix Linux	-	Lxqt	Arch

See Full List

Manjaro

Top Pro

Easy to install

Calamares installer and MHWD is the reason why this distribution is good for desktop user-friendliness! Audio codecs, latest packages, latest kernel and easy upgrade to the latest build makes it the best choice for new users. See More

Top Con

Daily manual updates

Since it is rolling release, it needs updates nearly every day, which (though are checked for automatically) must be manually downloaded, confirmed and installed. That may annoy or scare off many new users. See More

FascinatingBathala's Experience

It looks great, stable, fast, ideal for beginners. I recommend. See More

Specs

Default Desktop Environment:XFCE, KDE, Gnome, Budgie, Cinnamon, Deepin, i3, LXDE/lxqt, and MATE

Based On:Arch Linux

Release Schedule:Rolling Release

Init-System:Systemd

See All Specs

Top Pro

Based on Arch and user friendly

Manjaro is an Arch-based distribution with all the benefits of the Arch ecosystem and community but with the added benefit of being much more user-friendly than Arch. See More

Top Con

Can still be unstable

Here are the details of it. See More

Ajay Kumar Rawani's Experience

Awesome ! See More

Top Pro

Stable and consistently up to date

Manjaro receives regular updates, but more importantly these updates are stable. The updates are rolled out, which means you can easily update the software without needing to re-install. See More

Top Con

Based on Arch but uses its own repositories

Manjaro repositories are basically curated snapshots of the official Arch repositories with a number of Manjaro-specific packages and customisations added. This means updates, fixes and new releases are not always available to you when they become available in the Arch repositories. Having to wait a week or more for the repositories to be updated is not uncommon. Also, instructions from the otherwise incredibly useful Arch wiki might not apply fully to your Manjaro system. See More

CleverNinkasi's Experience

Easy to use and the update are sicure thanks to the Manjaro Linux stable repos See More

Top Pro

Arch User Repository access

Manjaro allows the user to access the Arch User Repository, a very large user-maintained repository of packages for Arch Linux and derivatives. See More

Top Con

The Manjaro unstable repository is slow to sync with the Arch stable repository

The Manjaro unstable repository syncs with the Arch stable repository and if any package has moved, it gets moved to stable. Manjaro gets package updates a bit than Arch. See More

CompetentLevana's Experience

Daily driver for the past year. Simple enough for newbies yet configurable enough for more advanced users. See More

Top Pro

Complete

Top Con

Very slow development for 32-bit hardwares

ArchLinux-32 community maintain their forums every day. They upload new ISO's every month. But Mannjaro-32 community upload new ISO's in every 6 month. And provide only an DE-mate. See More

Peter J. Mello's Experience

Manjaro certainly feels like a completely different approach to computing than anything else I've used in 25 years of using technology. It has a rich feature set and amazing stability, though very little effort is made to ease the process of onboarding. If you can persevere through feeling very lost with it for the first few weeks, as it becomes familiar it's very clear that it was all done that way for a reason: to deliver a premium experience and maximize your device's potential. See More

Top Pro

All major desktops and even less common ones like Budgie, LXQT, Deepin, I3 etc. can be directly installed from official repositories

Also available as independent variants. See More

Top Con

Developers failed to renew SSL certificate not once, but twice

https://manjaro.github.io/SSL-Certificate-Expired/ See More

ExceptionalLaima's Experience

Very stable and friendly. But, same php codes running fast in Peppermint 8, quite slow in Manjaro ... that is the only problem I get so far, the others are fantastic, especially I can find a lot of free tools in the "Add and Remove Software" such as XMind8. Dia, ProjectLibre, etc. See More

Top Pro

Friendly community

If you ask questions of users in their forums or on other platforms, they are willing to help you. Also according to the developers, they are open to new ideas in order to make the distro better. See More

Top Con

You can't change the default theme in certain applications

Although it is possible to change the default dark theme, this has no effect on Firefox, which appears to have the dark theme "hard coded". Hardened Linux pros may find a way to change this, but for the rest, it renders an otherwise nice distro a no-go. See More

ImmaculateTusholi's Experience

Beacuse I Use For Everytime On My Vmware See More

Top Pro

Support for multiple kernels

Manjaro has built-in support for multiple kernels as well as a way to easily install them. See More

Top Con

KDE problems for Manjaro

DiplomaticIlabrat's Experience

Recommand Manjaro , work better than other anny distro, specialy with Xfce and Budgie. No other linux 4ever . I use linux sience to 2003, and Ubuntu now it's not a king, the new king is Manjaro. Use manjaro from 3 years,never crash or some issue with ! See More

Top Pro

Easy to start

Top Con

Weekly manual updates

Since it is rolling release, it needs updates nearly every week, which (though are checked for automatically) must be manually downloaded, confirmed and installed. That may annoy or scare off many new users. See More

MaybeGreatReviewer's Experience

Manjaro can be easily customized and can use Arch repositories. Works well with KDE Plasma. See More

Top Pro

Improved stability due to a longer testing period for new packages

Packages from Arch's repositories are tested (about two weeks) longer for stability and compatibility issues. Patches are applied, when necessary, before being made available in the stable repositories. See More

Top Con

Bad Dependencies

This is similar to the mac0S experience in that you're not allowed to remove plank. See More

CaringSamshinHalmoni's Experience

Easy to use and rock solid. Easy installation as compared to antergos cnchi which fails most of the time. See More

Top Pro

Good documentation and forum

The Manjaro community is very helpful, and there are lots of tutorials. See More

Top Con

Nothing new

There is nothing new in Manjaro compared to any other Arch based distribution. See More

GraciousHuehuecoyotl's Experience

rock-solid stability with plenty of software to choose from See More

Top Pro

A rolling-release distribution

Manjaro uses a rolling release method for all updates, so once a system is installed, as long as the user regularly updates there is no need to re-install. See More

Top Con

Bad way of handling dependencies

Manjaro is based on Arch Linux. Arch Linux and its derivatives have a bad way of handling dependencies. To handle dependencies, it installs a whole another program which contains the required dependencies. See More

Verserk's Experience

Very simple to use, good OOTB experience with any of the default desktop environments. See More

Top Pro

Excellent graphical package manager (Paman)

Features include: providing notifications of available updates; mirror management; AUR support (with the option to suppress unnecessary confirmations during the install process); update settings (frequency, whether to check for updates from the AUR, packages to ignore updates for); and a history of packages installed, updated, or removed (from the official repositories - AUR packages are not currently tracked). See More

RespectfulLatona's Experience

The distro is fast and the environment has been polished to have a nice experience. But updates usually leaves the system KO and either you have to spend hours repairing or you have to reformat and reinstall much things. That usually not happens on stable distros See More

Top Pro

Stable

This distro is very stable with either Xfce and Budgie as the DE. See More

DignifiedWerethekau's Experience

Bad experience with Manjaro downloaded on 29/8/18. It installed quite well, but it would not connect to the internet. My computer is old, so it could be that. But it did not connect after repeated attempts to connect. I am not a novice! See More

Top Pro

Uses low memory

By using XFCE (or LXDE, Fluxbox, supported by community) as the default desktop on an install, Manjaro is able to have a low memory footprint. See More

MeticulousIoke's Experience

my os since 1 year See More

Top Pro

Steam comes installed by default

Top Pro

Manjaro provides its own distribution-specific tools such as the Manjaro Hardware Detection (mhwd) utility, and the Manjaro Settings Manager (msm)

Run automatically during the installation process, it allows for Manjaro to work fully on your system 'straight out of the box', without the need to manually identify and install the necessary drivers or to manually edit the appropriate configuration files. Also usable via the terminal after installation, the features of the mhwd command include: The choice of free (i.e. open-source) or non-free (i.e. proprietary) drivers Identification and listing (general or detailed) of your system's hardware Identification and listing (general or detailed) of installed drivers Listing of available drivers for installation (free and proprietary) Support of hybrid graphics cards (e.g. Nvidia Optimus) Easy removal and installation of drivers (selected automatically, or you can identify and choose your own) See More

Top Pro

Beautiful

Top Pro

Based on Arch but less prone to breaking

Manjaro repositories are basically curated snapshots of the official Arch repositories with a number of Manjaro-specific packages and customisations added. Updates, fixes and the like are delayed and only introduced from the Arch repositories once tested more thoroughly. This reduces the number of bugs that might otherwise have reached you - and potentially have rendered your Manjaro system broken beyond repair. See More

Top Pro

Deepin desktop environment is a worthy attraction

Top Pro

Different editions to select from + Manjaro community

You can choose between different Manjaro editions which have their own change in features, and there is also Manjaro community editions where the community can make their own changes. See More

Top Pro

Steam installed by default

Top Pro

Very good looking desktops

All desktops look good by default. See More

Top Pro

All major desktops and even less common ones like Budgie, Lumina, LXQT, Deepin, Enlightenment, etc. can be directly installed from official repositories

Also available as independent variants. See More

Top Pro

Manjaro provides its own distribution-specific tools such as the Manjaro Hardware Detection (mhwd) utility, and the Manjaro Settings Manager (msm).

Run automatically during the installation process, it allows for Manjaro to work fully on your system 'straight out of the box', without the need to manually identify and install the necessary drivers or to manually edit the appropriate configuration files. Also usable via the terminal after installation, the features of the mhwd command include: The choice of free (i.e. open-source) or non-free (i.e. proprietary) drivers Identification and listing (general or detailed) of your system's hardware Identification and listing (general or detailed) of installed drivers Listing of available drivers for installation (free and proprietary) Support of hybrid graphics cards (e.g. Nvidia Optimus) Easy removal and installation of drivers (selected automatically, or you can identify and choose your own) See More

Top Pro

Excellent graphical package manager (Pamac)

Features include: providing notifications of available updates; mirror management; AUR support (with the option to suppress unnecessary confirmations during the install process); update settings (frequency, whether to check for updates from the AUR, packages to ignore updates for); and a history of packages installed, updated, or removed (from the official repositories - AUR packages are not currently tracked). See More

See All

22 Other Options Considered

Antergos

Top Pro

Close to normal Arch

Very similar to Arch, but still user-friendly. See More

Top Con

The installer breaks often

The installer, cnchi breaks all the time. It's very buggy. See More

NobleRosmerta's Experience

This is by far the best Arch based system you will get because it give you what you need and nothing more. I use the minimal ISO and it takes about 1 hr to install from start to finish with a good internet connection. If you want Arch without the hassle this is the best period. See More

Specs

Default Desktop Environment:Cinnamon / GNOME 3 / KDE / MATE / Openbox / Xfce

Based On:Arch

Release Schedule:Rolling Release

Init-System:Systemd

See All Specs

Top Pro

Easy to install

Antergos is easier to install than Arch Linux. It offers a GUI over Arch's CLI-only installation, and it does some things for you automatically that eliminates the need for manually installing software like in Arch. See More

Top Con

Installation can easily go wrong - no separate /home partition by default

StrongUlanji's Experience

Easy and quick install, using Mate, Plasma, Gnome, and Openbox, before settling on Lxqt. All easy to install, use and remove. Responsive upgrades. A++ See More

Top Pro

Arch User Repository access

It can visit AUR to build packages. See More

Top Con

Rolling release problems

Rolling release is quite a pain sometimes. You might face some problem with a buggy application since you always get the latest version. This problem is a little bit solved by Manjaro distro where applications are tested but updates are slower than usual. See More

ExcellentJievaras's Experience

I have been using it for more than 1 year and is stable, user-friendly and fast See More

Top Pro

Rolling release model make is easy to keep apps on updated versions

Antergos is a rolling release distribution (as it's based on Arch Linux). Your entire system, from the base OS components to the applications that you install, will receive updates as they are released upstream—with only a minimal delay to ensure stability. See More

Top Con

Package popularity is not visible in Antergos repositories

Small issue, but would be nice to see package popularity in Antergos repos, just like it is visible for AUR. packages. Antergos with AUR gives access practically to all possible packages, so popularity could help in this sea of packages. See More

ShrewdBoreas's Experience

Easy to install without CLI. Runs solid as a rock. Little resources used. Excellent Repositories between Antergos & Arch's AUR. See More

Top Pro

Offers choice of desktop environment on installation

Ability to choose your preferred desktop environment on installation. See More

Top Con

May have swap problems if poorly configured

IntuitiveAirmid's Experience

Easy to install, great distro repository along with AUR's. Not hard to use at all, and is rock solid stable. See More

Top Pro

Surprisingly stable Linux desktop

From popular distros of rolling and standard releases, compared to Debian (stable) and Arch, Antergos stability rocks. Debian is stable, however, it's with old packages and Arch. The only thing that broke it, so far, was compiz-manjaro (C++ 0.9 branch) from AUR, but compiz in Antergos repositories is 0.8 and it is working flawlessly. See More

Top Con

Abstracts some core principles that are needed to maintain an Arch installation

CourageousAlamvusha's Experience

best distro See More

Top Pro

Very fast and stable system

Everything runs at the speed of light. Antergos is super responsive and programs/apps run effortlessly. See More

HelpfulThallo's Experience

easy install, very stable and with plenty of software to choose from. See More

Top Pro

Offers minimal ISO download

DependableTezcatlipoca's Experience

Perfect See More

Top Pro

Works on any environment

Straight from the official website. See More

SuaveEshmun's Experience

nearly two years as a primary OS See More

Top Pro

Nice theme across all environments

CharmingShullat's Experience

good See More

Top Pro

Excellent graphical package manager (Pamac)

Features include: providing notifications of available updates; mirror management; AUR support (with the option to suppress unnecessary confirmations during the install process); update settings (frequency, whether to check for updates from the AUR, packages to ignore updates for); and a history of packages installed, updated, or removed (from the official repositories - AUR packages are not currently tracked). See More

Top Pro

Rolling release model make it easy to keep apps on updated versions

Antergos is a rolling release distribution (as it's based on Arch Linux). Your entire system, from the base OS components to the applications that you install, will receive updates as they are released upstream—with only a minimal delay to ensure stability. See More

Top Pro

First Linux desktop that makes Windows look bad

Antergos has very nice default themes (KDE/Plasma and Gnome/GTK), which combined with Compiz 0.8, makes Windows looks sad. Antergos can even compete with Windows in regards to stability. See More

Top Pro

It comes with every essential utility pre-installed

See All

Arch Linux

Top Pro

A package for almost everything

If you need to install something, chances are someone in the Arch community has already made a package for it. This makes it incredibly easy for you to install and maintain all of the non-media content on your computer. See More

cosmo's Experience

If you want Arch Linux, your best bet is to use Arch Linux! Don't be intimidated by the manual installation, it's much easier than the rumors would have you believe. See More

Specs

Default Desktop Environment:CLI

Based On:(independent)

Release Schedule:Rolling

Init-System:Systemd

See All Specs

Top Pro

Cutting edge rolling release

Arch Linux follows a rolling release model, which allows users to stay on the most up-to-date versions of the software they are using. See More

DaringBelobog's Experience

Super, fastest and no hectic with less memory usage can make simple desktop environment having powerful and strong comparison with other Linux. See More

Top Pro

Excellent documentation

Arch's goal of simplicity means there's usually one preferred way to get things done - through organized and well documented configuration files. This focus, combined with the community's recognition that configuration files can be intimidating, has resulted in excellent documentation that's accessible to newcomers, and very instructive about how Linux actually works. The documentation is often so thorough that, when searching for solutions to problems while using other distributions, such as with video card drivers, oftentimes you'll find the most effective solution in the Arch Linux wiki or on the forums. See More

Top Pro

As slim or copious as you want it

Arch keeps its core repositories slim and free of unnecessary dependencies. At first installation only a bare system is set up. You can easily get the other applications through the package manager. The repositories are nearly as full as those of Ubuntu, while they are often more up to date. That way you don't have to waste time with software you don't need or want. See More

Top Pro

Helpful community

If searching through the wiki or the forums for any problems turns nothing, any question on the official forums, Arch subreddit or the IRC channel will be answered within minutes. There will probably be no hand-holding however, Arch users prefer to point anyone to a resource that may help them instead of trying to outright solve their problem in a forum thread. This is quite helpful for people who want to really learn how their system works but also for other people who may stumble in that thread considering how most problems don’t have a universal solution. See More

Top Pro

Helpful 3rd-party installers

There are extremely helpful 3rd-party installers such as Anarchy Linux (Formerly Arch Anywhere). See More

Top Pro

It is Linux at the core

This distro is barebones enough to make a new distro from. See More

Top Pro

Simplicity is absolutely the principal objective behind Arch development

The design approach of the development team focuses on elegance, code correctness, minimalism, and simplicity, and expects the user to be willing to make some effort to understand the system's operation. See More

Top Pro

Support for a large variety of hardware

From latest wacom pads to obscure wireless cards in laptops Arch's hw support has been and continues to be good. It has worked on laptops where other leading distro's like debian/ mint/ ubuntu failed to detect and work with all hardware. See More

Top Pro

Stripped down to the bone

Since its stripped down, it is fast and you don't have to deal with bloatware. See More

Top Pro

No restrictive handholding, pure control over everything

Arch is mainly aimed at experienced Linux users, there is no hand-holding and not much in a way of UI elements when trying to install or tweak settings. See More

Top Pro

Fast and simple package management

Pacman has performance advantages over apt-get and yum in both database operations (thanks to being written for speed) and download times (by virtue of using better mirrors than other distributions tend to select by default). There are also fewer default repositories to download from, and all package management is combined into one tool instead of being split into dpkg, apt-get, and apt-cache like on Debian distros. See More

Top Pro

Excellent package management with the AUR

The AUR is a repository with a very extensive catalogue of build/install scripts that are contributed by users. While these scripts are inherently less secure than conventional packages maintained by a distro's authors, it's still way easier to verify the security of install scripts than it would be to write them yourself. It's very usefull. See More

Top Pro

Helpful for understanding how Linux is installed

Arch does not come with an automatic installation process. The user is expected to walk through the installation steps published on the Arch wiki. This is very useful if, later, something happens to the installation as the user will be more familiar with the foundational steps required to get a full blown Arch installation working. See More

Top Pro

An opportunity to improve

The process of learning to setup and use Arch will improve your skills with Linux and computers in general. See More

Top Pro

Good overall system quality

QoL of Arch is generally good. You get something more consistent and doable in Arch then you would get with most other OSes. See More

Top Pro

Helpful for understanding how Linux is installed

Arch does not come with an automatic installation process. The user is expected to walk through the installation steps published on the Arch wiki. This is very useful if, later, something happens to the installation as the user will be more familiar with the foundational steps required to get a full blown Arch installation working. See More

See All

ArchLab Linux Minimo

Top Pro

Looks good out of the box

The distro uses Openbox by default. It's small, fast, and looks cool. It's similar to the BunsenLabs distro. See More

NeighborlyAmphiaraus's Experience

Fast, easy to use and looks good. See More

Specs

Default Desktop Environment:Openbox, Xfce, i3, Bspwm, Awesome

Based On:Arch

Top Pro

Not only Openbox

It comes out of the box configured to use with wm like i3, bspwm, awesome, xfce. See More

Hikky's Experience

The installation process is quite easy and looks great out of the box. See More

Top Pro

Installation similar to Anarchy

ArchLabs is using a very similar installer to that of Anarchy's, you can't change as much, but if polished Openbox and/or i3 are what you're after, ArchLabs might be for you. See More

See All

Reborn OS

Top Pro

Antergos with more desktops

Specs

Default Desktop Environment:KDE, GNOME, Deepin, Budgie, Cinnamon, Apricity, OpenBox, i3, Xfce, Pantheon

Based On:Arch

Release Schedule:Rolling

ArcoLinux

Top Pro

Easy to install

Unbelievably fast for ArcoLinux with XFCE, Openbox, I3. See More

Top Con

Small development team

ExpertMorta's Experience

This is a beautifully themed distribution and great fun to work with. See More

Specs

Default Desktop Environment:Openbox + Xfce + i3

Based On:Arch

Top Pro

Learning bash script

Fastest way to reload any Linux desktop is a script that will install all your favorite apps. Keep this file on a USB stick Update for any distro from Ubuntu, Fedora or even Arch Linux back to you favorite apps in minutes See More

Top Con

the lead dev is a twit

ChattyErebus's Experience

The best arch-baed: it fast and beautiful See More

Top Pro

Community support is great

Need to install Discord on cell phone and computer. Fastest way to receive help. Community is mostly European on Discord so getting help at midnight may be a challenge. See More

Top Con

A bit bloated

It is is a bit bloated to many web browsers, text editors out the box. A simple customize menu's for all 3 desktops would have been nice. See More

NeighborlyAmphiaraus's Experience

Bloated and slow See More

Top Pro

XFCE, Openbox and I3

Finished Product with almost every tool a experienced user will use. See More

See All

Kaos

Top Pro

Clean UI

Top Con

x86_64 support only

KaOs is strictly for 64bits only. No packages for other architectures in repositories. See More

Specs

Default Desktop Environment:KDE Plasma

Based On:Arch

Top Pro

Designated KDE distro

Top Con

Not Arch based

KaOS uses pacman but it is not ARCH based. Some AUR packages work, but not all, and pkgbuilds have to be modified for some, and depends have to be installed if not already and some are not in the KaOS repositories. So you have to know what you are doing. The developer does not support any apps that aren't in the KaOS repositories, so you are on your own when it comes to using the AUR. Newer versions often break AUR apps whether intentionally or not. Getting help is not a really good experience. It's a beautiful use of KDE though. See More

See All

Liri OS

Default Desktop Environment:Liri

Bridge Linux

Default Desktop Environment:Xfce, LXDE, Openbox, KDE Plasma, GNOME

Based On:Arch

theShell OS

Default Desktop Environment:theShell

Based On:Arch

Zen Installer

Default Desktop Environment:GNOME, KDE Plasma, Xfce, LXDE, LXQt, MATE, Budgie, Cinnamon, Deepin, Enlightenment, JWM, i3, Openbox, Enlightenment E16, Fluxbox, FVWM, IceWM, KWin, Mutter, GNU Screen, xcb-util-wm, Xcompmgr, Xfwm, Twm, Awesome, bbpager, Blackbox, bspwm, deepin-metacity, deepin-mutter, deepin-wm, herbstluftwm, i3-gaps, Keepass, Marco, Metacity, muffin, Notion, ObConf, PekWM, perl-anyevent-i3, PyPanel, python-smmap, python2-smmap, Qtile, ratpoison, spectrwm, Sway, vicious, wmctrl, wmname, xmonad

Based On:Arch

Feliz

Top Con

Not maintained anymore

Specs

Default Desktop Environment:Budgie, Cinnamon, Deepin Desktop Environment, Gnome, KDE Plasma, LXDE, LXQt, MATE, Xfce

Based On:Arch

ArchEX

Default Desktop Environment:Deepin Desktop Environment + LXDE + LXQt + Openbox

Based On:Arch

ArcoLinuxD

Release Schedule:Rolling

VeltOS

Add Video or Image

Revenge OS

Default Desktop Environment:Openbox, Xfce, Mate, Gnome, KDE Plasma, i3

Based On:Arch

ArcoLinuxB

Default Desktop Environment:Xfce, Openbox, i3, GNOME, Deepin Desktop Environment, Cinnamon, Budgie, bspwm, awesome, MATE, KDE Plasma

Based On:Arch

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