When comparing Xfce vs Cinnamon, the Slant community recommends Xfce for most people. In the question“What are the best desktop environments for Arch Linux?” Xfce is ranked 1st while Cinnamon is ranked 8th. The most important reason people chose Xfce is:
Xfce can be installed on several UNIX platforms. It is known to compile on Linux, NetBSD, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris, Cygwin and MacOS X, on x86, PPC, Sparc, and Alpha.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Works on a wide variety of platforms
Xfce can be installed on several UNIX platforms. It is known to compile on Linux, NetBSD, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris, Cygwin and MacOS X, on x86, PPC, Sparc, and Alpha.
Pro A true UNIX Desktop Environment
Xfce adheres to the UNIX philosophy, which means it strives for being modular, minimal and expandable. This makes it very much customizable. You can make it as minimal as you want and as heavyweight as you want depending on the features and modules/plugins you use.
Pro Highly customizable
Xfce offers plenty of settings, and even things like theming XFWM is a simple task (it's just a handful of images.)
Many possible permutations of window colors, borders, fonts, etc. Compositing can make it look downright sexy.
Pro Low system resource consumption
Not just helpful for older computers where few system resources are available, but also simply for those who want to get the most out of their systems.
Pro Rock solid stability
Xfce will never be the cause of your crash.
Pro Does what it's meant to do easily and efficiently
XFCE is a desktop environment first and foremost, it does not waste time being overly flashy or by being bloated with features.
Pro Designed for productivity
It loads and executes applications fast, while conserving system resources.
Pro Low resource usage combined with flexible configuration
Pro Adheres to standards
A priority of Xfce is adherence to standards, specifically those defined at freedesktop.org allowing for interoperability and shared technology for X Window System desktops. This interoperability is particularly significant for users looking to, e.g., run alternative window managers.
Pro Window manager (XFWM) is a compositing WM by default
By having a compositing WM as the default WM makes way for a lot of visual tweaks and tricks that can and do make Xfce look great. You can adjust the transparency, shadows, borders, etc. and many other advanced tweaks are also available.
Pro Excellent panel management and selection of panel applets
Xfce provides excellent management of panels and a rich selection of panel applets.
Pro Easily Customizable as compared to other DEs
Pro Best for newcomers
Any one new to Linux feels comfortable using it.
Pro Well defined Session Manager
Pro Easy to export or import configurations
Pro HiDPI support
After release 4.14 Xfce supports HiDPI.
Pro Modularity and Ease of use
Don't like the default window manager? Just slap in bspwm.
A full DE that is both user-friendly and very configurable. Has no equal.
Pro Has a convenient launcher and a Genmon plugin
Pro 4.14 has beautiful and functional notifications
Pro Manages multiple displays with choice of monitor for desktop icons
Pro Designed for traditional desktops
Intended for large-screen, non-touch devices that extend traditional concepts with functionality and good looking aesthetic.
Pro Fast, elegant and stable interface
Cinnamon uses a traditional desktop userflow that most computer users are familiar with.
Pro Lots of downloadable free themes
Plenty of themes, ready and free to be downloaded and applied with just a couple of clicks in a few seconds, with the file sizes mostly around 0.5 - 1MB.
Pro Very easy to customize
It's very easy to customize using the built in theme and applet tools. It automatically installs themes and desktop/panel applets for you, so you mostly won't have to go search online for them.
Pro The keyboard shortcut design is very friendly to users with Windows background
Your win+E, win+D etc are still working after migrating to Cinnamon from Windows.
Pro Nice themes and extensions
Very easy to make this desktop your own both in terms of looks and functionality.
Pro Very well supported
Has a great community and is very well supported through Linux Mint website.
Pro Stable DE
Pro Actively developed with useful new features in each release
E.g vertical panels are now there.
Pro Traditional desktop with the recent features
Cinnamon is a modern desktop that has the latest features, but at the same time it sticks to its way as a classic desktop and ignores trends/hypes like client side decorations or popover menus.
Pro You can easily get it to look like Windows
You can get it to closely look and behave like Windows with considerable ease. This is a good thing for those switching from Windows, because it gives them a familiar environment, cutting down on the learning curve a bit. Among the popular DE's this is the one that gets you closest with great ease.
Pro Best for users coming from Windows
Will look familiar to windows users making the transition easier.
Pro Vertical panel already available
Pro Cinnamon provides control of icon placement on multiple monitors
Cinnamon provides control of the placement of desktop icons on multiple monitor setups. This feature has been buggy, but in my testing of Linux Mint 19, this feature appeared to be stable. Thus, Cinnamon joins KDE and Windows in enabling this capability. For example, in a setup with 2 or 3 monitors, you can put the desktop icons on the right-hand monitor. With other DEs, the icons always move to the left-hand monitor.
Pro Can run apps meant for any other desktop environment
Cinnamon can run any app meant for any other DE, meaning the user can have apps for XFCE and KDE simultaneously and they will run as smoothly as if they're being run in the corresponding DE.
Pro Pretty design
Pro Uses X11
It uses the traditional and well supported xorg server.
Pro You can easily get it to look like a Mac
Pro Works well with cairo dock on bottom and cinnamenu on top
Pro Supports Widgets
You can place widgets on the desktop like a calculator or the weather.
Pro Addon manager integrated
It includes an addon manager for themes, widgets or plugins so you don't have to manually download them and place them in the theme directories.
Pro Titlebars
It does not use GNOME's Client Side decorations.
Pro You can disable overlay scrollbars
Cinnamon has a GUI option for that.
Pro Conservative look
Looks like Windows XP, Vista/7.
Pro Lots of configuration options
Both Gnome and Cinnamon got the same looking configuration panel. There are 40 sub-panels in Linux Mint Cinnamon's, whenever there a far less with Ubuntu Gnome 3's.
Windows, notification, smart corners, windows overlay, connection windows... you can have those in Gnome, but that requires compiz and other stuff.
Cons
Con Does not support HiDPI
Xfwm for example does not support scaling.
Con Terrible project infrastructure
The whole project is split across various sites so contributing is really hard. You also need to register on every site separately.
Con Now with Client Side decorations
Recent development versions introduce GNOME-ClientSideDecorations for some Xfce applications. Like on GNOME this breaks the overall consistency of the desktop. Eg: GNOME and some Xfce applicaions will use GNOME based interfaces like CSD's and popovers while the most other will use normal titlebars and popupmenus. This also makes it almost impossible to use Xfce >=4.15 components on traditional Window Managers like: Openbox, Fluxbox or IceWM.
Con Missing some basic functionality for a desktop environment
Xfce is missing essential functionality like a file-archiver, polkit-client or even a bluetooth or wifi managers, so you have to find alternatives for those applications (eg: by stealing them from MATE or GNOME, which adds additional dependencies that will bloat Xfce and makes it easily even heavier than GNOME).
Con Lacks modern design and effects
No support for transparency, effects in opening or closing a file browser, or other effects like cube or cylinder, unlike, say, KDE.
Con Looks dated
It just looks like a 20 year old desktop in its stock form. However, it is possible for you to to give it a more elegant look using themes, icons and other customizations.
Con Looks ugly out of the box
Out of the box, Xfce is the one of the ugliest if not the ugliest DE out there. It definitely can become the most beautiful and gorgeous DE after a bit of tinkering and theming, but the default theme is not that good.
Con Uses many custom GTK widgets
Xfce is using many custom-made GTK widgets(like an custom pathbar, GtkDialog headers, Xfceiconview and more), while this makes it different to other GTK desktops it also breaks certain GTK styles that don't have workarounds for those widgets.
Con Configuration is stored in a database
All configuration is stored in xfconf or dconf which is like the WIndows Registry very hard to edit with simple tools.
Con Screen tearing issues
The built-in compositor for Xfce does not handle VSync, meaning that it does not address screen tearing for those with Intel integrated graphics. A third party solution will have to be used for those that do want VSync such as using Nvidia proprietary drivers to handle VSync or installing a third party compositor such as Compton.
Con Breaks standards
Sine 4.16 the developers ignore standards like the freedesktop icon naming scheme. Instead they now follow GNOME with rDNS icon naming breaking dozens of icon themes.
eg: gnome-calculator.svg becomes org.gnome.Calculator.png
rDNS naming also uses uppercase letters in filenames which is a bad idea on unix systems.
Con Sessions cannot be disabled
There is a known bug where sessions keep getting saved involuntarily. So even when you try to clean your saved session it will be reproduced the next time you login.
Con Not a full DE
With a pure Xfce environment you cannot do as much as with Gnome or KDE.
Con Xfwm theming is limited
For example, unlike metacity/marco/miffin it does not support different styles for window types.
Con GConf
It's the same Windows Registry clone as GNOME.
Con It doesn't support fn button for laptops
You can easily enable it, but it's not on out-of-the-box -> read comment.
Con There is no Thunderbolt GUI
Con Not good for different users' locales on one system
When you have users with different personal locales, XfcE has problems using the right locale for the right user.
Con Has become a GNOME2/MATE clone
It has lost its way since 4.4 and is now just another GNOME2-like desktop.
Con Will become more interconnected an less modular
Isn't as modular anymore as it was 10 years ago. In the future (4.16) they will also introduce GTK Client Side Decorations to all setting dialogs so you will have some problems with using a different Window manager or when using xfce components outside of Xfce/GNOME.
Con Out-dated
Development are often too slow and unable provide necessary functionalities.
Con One pixel wide window borders
The non-configurable, one pixel wide window borders make resizing difficult. Work-arounds exist but those are clunky at best.
Con Lack of useful tools
Con Openbox doesn't support Wayland
Con Officially is no Longer the Champion of Lightweight Memory Usage
According to multiple credible sources in the Linux world and the KDE developers, XFCE now uses more memory than Plasma 5.17, due to Plasma bringing better and faster updates. Even the XFCE folks admit XFCE is somewhat getting out of hand.
I suppose this was tested on a minimal install of Plasma, without the entire KDE ecosystem. So if you are concerned with memory usage and use a "build-it-yourself" distribution like Arch, avoid XFCE and install Plasma by itself.
Con Poor support
It can take years for the devs to answer to bug reports.
Con No sound effects
Xfce does not support freedesktop sound themes.
Con Focuses on artwork/eyecandy instead of usability
Sine 4.14 there was a shift to focus more on artwork than usability.
Con Not modular anymore
Until 4.10 xfce was the modular desktop and you could xfce apps and components outside of xfce, but nowadays all components are interconnected.
Con Too lightweight
Feels too lightweight and doesn't have enough packages and applications.
Con Cumbersome main menu
Main menu takes a lot of space and is cumbersome to navigate.
Con Shell-style ≠ widget-style
The Cinnamon-shell is unable the use the current GTK style for its interface thus making it hard to get a consistent user interface.
Con Not Standalone
It still uses many GNOME applications to make it a complete Desktop Environment.
Con Conservative design and UX choices
Tries to be too much like traditional Windows (XP, Vista, 7).
Con Uses GTK
Nowadays, GTK is designed with GNOME, and only GNOME, in mind. Non-GNOME applications which attempt to utilize it suffer as a result.
Con Uses xorg and no Wayland Support
Con Needs more choices for useful panel applets
Cinnamon still lacks some useful choices for panel applets. For excellent management of panels and a rich choice of useful panel applets, I rely on Xfce.
Con Sound Settings not automatic
On Windows, for example, you can unplug a speaker and it will switch back to the laptop-speaker. In Cinnamon, you have to do it manually.
Con Few themes
Rather than using actual GTK theming, Cinnamon appears to vye for its own strange infrastructure that isn't compatible across any other desktop.
Con No traditional menu available
There is no mouse driven cascade menu, the only menus you'll get are big fat XP-like menus with scrollbars! Any X11 window manager has a better menu available than cinnamon.
Con Sometimes freezes
It can sometimes freeze which is really annoying.
Con Crashes
Despite Cinnamon being on its stable third version it still crashes occasionally, ranging from plugins all the way to drivers.
Con Bloated, and yet missing Gnome and Plasma's many features
Con Conservative management without more creativity
It is almost the same management like in 20-years old GNOME 2 environment. Although some elements are new.