{"slug": "exwm", "name": "EXWM", "category": "os", "category_name": "Operating systems and desktop", "description": "", "recommenders": 6, "commenters": 7, "warners": 0, "score": 5.156, "rising": -1.96, "first": "2025-11-05", "latest": "2026-08-28", "why": "You'll have to pry EXWM[0] from my cold, dead hands", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 6, "neutral": 1, "compare": 0, "warn": 0}, "spark": [3, 2, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "You'll have to pry EXWM[0] from my cold, dead hands", "kind": "", "icon": true, "domain": null, "github_repo": "github.com/emacs-exwm/exwm", "official_url": "https://github.com/emacs-exwm/exwm", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["EXWM"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 753197825, "item_id": 47074864, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47074864", "by": "oritron", "date": "2026-02-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Some people use Emacs /as a tiling window manager/", "excerpt": "Some people use Emacs /as a tiling window manager/ :) https://github.com/emacs-exwm/exwm", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "ShannonMax: A Library to Optimize Emacs Keybindings with Information Theory"}, {"id": 739066464, "item_id": 46191654, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46191654", "by": "0xcb0", "date": "2025-12-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "But overall happy!", "excerpt": "Active exwm user here: I've been using EXWM for one ~1,5-2 years now, and I've configured it pretty much the same way I would love to have the ideal desktop to look like. Minimal, clean, mostly 1 app to focus on, and only 6 virtual desktops I really use. I struggled quite a bit with the xinit ath the start, and I had to switch to other terminals to get back to any UI. But now I have a pretty consistently well-running", "context": "active EXWM user for 1.5-2 years", "use_case": "window manager inside Emacs", "switched_from": "", "story": "Emacs is my new window manager (2015)"}, {"id": 739054880, "item_id": 46190930, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46190930", "by": "timeforcomputer", "date": "2025-12-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "You can also use EXWM in Xephyr", "excerpt": "You can also use EXWM in Xephyr, so you can have an emacs window with its own controlled windows instead of replacing the whole DE/window-manager. I suppose this doesn't work with multiple frames though. I have been experimenting with xdotool windowmap/windowunmap and override_redirect (and maybe LD_PRELOAD?) to try get something like EXWM to work without creating another X server, by capturing windows. I'm doing thi", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Emacs is my new window manager (2015)"}, {"id": 733325248, "item_id": 45832828, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45832828", "by": "omnicognate", "date": "2025-11-06", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "For development work I haven't found this to be an issue.", "excerpt": "Re EXWM and: > Emacs is single threaded, therefore if anything in the system hangs, the whole system hangs For development work I haven't found this to be an issue. Generally when coding I use very few X apps - pretty much just a web browser and maybe occasionally a PDF preview or docs browser. I don't think I've ever had a problem with the single-threaded behaviour blocking window management there. (And as an aside,", "context": "", "use_case": "window management for development", "switched_from": "", "story": "How I am deeply integrating Emacs"}, {"id": 733212305, "item_id": 45825769, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45825769", "by": "MarsIronPI", "date": "2025-11-05", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "You'll have to pry EXWM[0] from my cold, dead hands", "excerpt": "For me at least, Emacs' pure GTK port isn't enough! You'll have to pry EXWM[0] from my cold, dead hands, so until Emacs can act as a Wayland compositor I'm staying on X. That and also Wayland still doesn't seem to support Hyper as an independent modifier. [0]: https://github.com/emacs-exwm/exwm", "context": "", "use_case": "Emacs X window manager", "switched_from": "", "story": "Gnome Mutter Now \"Completely Drops the Whole X11 Back End\""}]}], "caveats": [], "who": [{"by": "0xcb0", "context": "active EXWM user for 1.5-2 years", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46191654", "date": "2025-12-08"}], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["window manager", "window manager inside emacs", "window management for development", "emacs x window manager"], "compared": [{"slug": "gnu-emacs", "name": "GNU Emacs", "co": 4, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46161328", "title": "Emacs is my new window manager (2015)", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45832341", "title": "How I am deeply integrating Emacs", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49474786", "title": "Sovereign Tech Agency invests \u20ac500k in Flatpak", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47072603", "title": "ShannonMax: A Library to Optimize Emacs Keybindings with Information Theory", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45823162", "title": "Gnome Mutter Now \"Completely Drops the Whole X11 Back End\"", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"recommend": 3}, "2025-12": {"recommend": 2}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {}}, "quotes": [{"id": 791621776, "item_id": 49476361, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49476361", "by": "kodoman", "date": "2026-08-28", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I personally use X11 as I am on exwm and exwm does not support wayland", "excerpt": "Not using Wayland I am not 100% sure, I think Xephyr works in XWayland and I think their is a similar tool to Xephyr for setting up an embedded Wayland session (I would have thought this is even easier and more elegant in wayland but not sure). So could be even better. I personally use X11 as I am on exwm and exwm does not support wayland and no alternative to it does AFAIK (I think theirs a POC floating around somew", "context": "", "use_case": "window manager", "switched_from": "", "story": "Sovereign Tech Agency invests \u20ac500k in Flatpak"}, {"id": 753197825, "item_id": 47074864, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47074864", "by": "oritron", "date": "2026-02-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Some people use Emacs /as a tiling window manager/", "excerpt": "Some people use Emacs /as a tiling window manager/ :) https://github.com/emacs-exwm/exwm", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "ShannonMax: A Library to Optimize Emacs Keybindings with Information Theory"}, {"id": 739066464, "item_id": 46191654, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46191654", "by": "0xcb0", "date": "2025-12-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "But overall happy!", "excerpt": "Active exwm user here: I've been using EXWM for one ~1,5-2 years now, and I've configured it pretty much the same way I would love to have the ideal desktop to look like. Minimal, clean, mostly 1 app to focus on, and only 6 virtual desktops I really use. I struggled quite a bit with the xinit ath the start, and I had to switch to other terminals to get back to any UI. But now I have a pretty consistently well-running", "context": "active EXWM user for 1.5-2 years", "use_case": "window manager inside Emacs", "switched_from": "", "story": "Emacs is my new window manager (2015)"}, {"id": 739054880, "item_id": 46190930, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46190930", "by": "timeforcomputer", "date": "2025-12-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "You can also use EXWM in Xephyr", "excerpt": "You can also use EXWM in Xephyr, so you can have an emacs window with its own controlled windows instead of replacing the whole DE/window-manager. I suppose this doesn't work with multiple frames though. I have been experimenting with xdotool windowmap/windowunmap and override_redirect (and maybe LD_PRELOAD?) to try get something like EXWM to work without creating another X server, by capturing windows. I'm doing thi", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Emacs is my new window manager (2015)"}, {"id": 733415552, "item_id": 45838472, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45838472", "by": "stebalien", "date": "2025-11-06", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "", "excerpt": "If you want to try eshell, try combining it with EAT (eat-eshell-mode). > Maybe in my retirement I will end my career by helping to make emacs + EXWM multi threaded. I am guessing that is a daunting project, but it sure would be fulfilling. This isn't fixable with threads, unfortunately. The issue is that: 1. Emacs e.g., launches a process with call-process. This blocks EVERYTHING (including other threads). 2. That p", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "How I am deeply integrating Emacs"}, {"id": 733325248, "item_id": 45832828, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45832828", "by": "omnicognate", "date": "2025-11-06", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "For development work I haven't found this to be an issue.", "excerpt": "Re EXWM and: > Emacs is single threaded, therefore if anything in the system hangs, the whole system hangs For development work I haven't found this to be an issue. Generally when coding I use very few X apps - pretty much just a web browser and maybe occasionally a PDF preview or docs browser. I don't think I've ever had a problem with the single-threaded behaviour blocking window management there. (And as an aside,", "context": "", "use_case": "window management for development", "switched_from": "", "story": "How I am deeply integrating Emacs"}, {"id": 733212305, "item_id": 45825769, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45825769", "by": "MarsIronPI", "date": "2025-11-05", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "You'll have to pry EXWM[0] from my cold, dead hands", "excerpt": "For me at least, Emacs' pure GTK port isn't enough! You'll have to pry EXWM[0] from my cold, dead hands, so until Emacs can act as a Wayland compositor I'm staying on X. That and also Wayland still doesn't seem to support Hyper as an independent modifier. [0]: https://github.com/emacs-exwm/exwm", "context": "", "use_case": "Emacs X window manager", "switched_from": "", "story": "Gnome Mutter Now \"Completely Drops the Whole X11 Back End\""}]}