When comparing i3 vs Cinnamon, the Slant community recommends i3 for most people. In the question“What is the best edition of Manjaro Linux?” i3 is ranked 3rd while Cinnamon is ranked 4th. The most important reason people chose i3 is:
One of the biggest attractions of i3 is that it can be configured just about any way the user likes. Ranging from custom keyboard shortcuts to placement of opened apps, it is up to the user as to how they would like their window manager to behave.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Fully configurable (including tiling)
One of the biggest attractions of i3 is that it can be configured just about any way the user likes. Ranging from custom keyboard shortcuts to placement of opened apps, it is up to the user as to how they would like their window manager to behave.
Pro Windows can be turned into Tabs
i3 permits tabbing through windows by turning on Tab mode with $mod+w.
This shortcut can be changed in config file.
Pro Easily switch to and manage floating windows
i3 can allow for the user to manage floating windows. Floating mode can be toggled by pressing $mod+Shift+Space. This way the user can take advantage of tiling as well as floating windows, all in the same session.
Pro Excellent documentation
Every feature is thoroughly documented (including examples), and documentation is kept up-to-date. For questions that are not answered by the i3 user guide, because they concern tools outside of i3 for example, there is the community question & answer site.
Pro Can stack
i3 allows for stacking of windows in its environment.
Pro Fast, especially on weaker hardware
Tiling means there are no fancy compositing or window effects to take up system resources.
Pro Never have to take hands off keyboard
Keyboard shortcut based navigation can seem daunting at first, but one quickly gets used to it. It enables the user to never have to take their hands off the keyboard, meaning that they can use their computer quickly and efficiently.
Pro No window borders
Screen area is not wasted by window decorations. This allows programs to use the entire screen.
NOTE: Default config has window title bar enabled so there is a little screen space lose on the top of the screen.
Pro Simple to use
Configuration is nearly automatic and simple, which can be really helpful to beginners.
Pro RandR support
RandR provides more information about your outputs and connected screens than Xinerama does. To be specific, the code which handled on-the-fly screen reconfiguration (meaning without restarting the X server) was a very messy heuristic approach and most of the time did not work correctly — that is just not possible with the limited information that Xinerama offers (just a list of screen resolutions and no identifiers for the screens or any additional information). Xinerama simply was not designed for dynamic configuration.
Pro Easily readable plain-text configuration
i3 has plain-text configuration, meaning that no lua or haskell is needed. This makes it rather easy to recommend i3 to other people without worrying whether or not they have the knowledge to configure it as it can be read by anyone without prior knowledge.
Pro VIM Style key bindings
You can configure i3 so that your keys for moving windows is similar to vim, for example, M-j to move the window down.
Pro Terminal bell can be used to notify of completed actions
Terminal-bell gets passed through and marks the workspace visibly.
Pro Sane development process
i3 uses test driven development with an extensive test suite to prevent bugs from ever happening again. All external contributions require a thorough code review to guarantee a certain level of quality.
Pro Can be reloaded quickly and configured without a client restart
Just two hot keys: Shift+Super+C to reload the config and Shift+Super+R to restart (which takes less than one second). Restarts pick up new versions of i3 or the updated config file, so you can upgrade to a newer version or quickly see the changes to i3 without quitting your X session.
Pro Layouts can be saved and reused
Pro Configuration allows for multi-monitor support
User can assign specific workspaces to specific displays as well as apps to workspaces. This makes possible opening set of most used apps with 1 shortcut always on the same screens.
Pro Great choice for keyboard users
The user keeps their hands in one spot (most of the time). One will find that the mouse is used less and less, making navigation quicker over time.
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 Missing "include" possibility in config
While pretty good and easy to use for common tasks, the configuration language is missing the include
directive common in other languages. You can use a workaround - a shell script to config parts on demand. It would be best if this were built-in however.
Con Poor floating window support
Sometimes this is necessary, even when the Dev rejects feature requests. Firefox child windows (option dialog) is an example.
Con Not as configurable as other WMs
Unlike XMonad or Awesome, i3 can't be configured in a turing complete language, so it is much harder to alter its core functionality to do exactly what the user wants.
Con Manual tiling
The layout isn't automatic. The user must move panels manually and may indeed end up spending time on that rather than on working with the application.
Con No shortcut to switch between two recently used applications/windows
You can easily switch between two workspaces but not two windows (which are not adjacent to each other). The functionality simply isn't there and the dev refuses to include it as a part of i3 core. This can get annoying when you have multiple windows in the same workspace. There is a manual workaround though.
Con Steep learning curve
Has a steep learning curve for beginners.
Con Cannot share workspaces between monitors
You have to pick and choose which workspaces go where, which effectively halves the number of workspaces you have. The developer refuses to allow this feature.
Con It has some issues with transparency
Using transparent windows can cause them to crash.
Con The plain-text configuration may not be suitable for beginners
i3 is configured through a plaintext configuration file. While it's very powerful and easy to learn, it may not be entirely user-friendly for those who have never edited a text configuration.
Con A program running on Discrete GPU may have problem rendering
That is a common issue with laptops which renders some programs in discrete GPU but passes the frames through integrated GPU to display. This makes it pain to play games on laptops using discrete GPU.
Con Documentation is online
Can't access it offline unless you download the page.
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.