{"slug": "smithay", "name": "Smithay", "category": "dev-libs", "category_name": "Libraries and frameworks", "description": "", "recommenders": 4, "commenters": 6, "warners": 2, "score": 1.121, "rising": -1.31, "first": "2025-12-24", "latest": "2026-03-22", "why": "", "why_is_quote": false, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 4, "neutral": 0, "compare": 0, "warn": 2}, "spark": [0, 1, 2, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "", "kind": "", "icon": true, "domain": null, "github_repo": "github.com/smithay/smithay", "official_url": "https://github.com/Smithay/smithay", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["Smithay", "smithay"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 759692432, "item_id": 47480777, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47480777", "by": "OtomotO", "date": "2026-03-22", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "That and studying smithay code.", "excerpt": "I found https://wayland.app/protocols/ very helpful so far. That and studying smithay code.", "context": "", "use_case": "learning Wayland internals", "switched_from": "", "story": "MAUI Is Coming to Linux"}, {"id": 749152432, "item_id": 46822027, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46822027", "by": "porkloin", "date": "2026-01-30", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "which is a good thing IMHO", "excerpt": "The majority of the projects in this comment chain don't actually independently implement a compositor in Rust - which is a good thing IMHO. They all spawn from a common core written in rust that is associated with the cosmic project: https://github.com/Smithay/smithay/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "The Dank Case for Scrolling Window Managers"}, {"id": 749152275, "item_id": 46822017, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46822017", "by": "porkloin", "date": "2026-01-30", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "smart design from folks working on Smithay", "excerpt": "Currently using Niri and DMS via https://github.com/zirconium-dev/zirconium which is fedora bootc atomic + niri + dms. After taking a year or so away from tiling WMs where I was using KDE for a bit, I'm enjoying it quite a lot. Super impressed by the \"out of the box\" experience given that it took a ton of sweat and tears to get these types of setups 10+ years ago when I posting stupid screenshots of my awesomewm and ", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "The Dank Case for Scrolling Window Managers"}, {"id": 748657792, "item_id": 46791112, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46791112", "by": "dlcarrier", "date": "2026-01-27", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "smithay has great documentation.", "excerpt": "This bullet point from the reason to chose one library over another is a prime example of what I love about XFCE: \u2022 smithay has great documentation. Not only are they considering it, but they're expressly calling it out. I'm convinced that the publication of the Agile Manifesto was an exercise in Cunningham's Law, and to that end the XFCE team has produced something great by doing the opposite.", "context": "", "use_case": "Wayland compositor library", "switched_from": "", "story": "Xfwl4 \u2013 The Roadmap for a Xfce Wayland Compositor"}, {"id": 742111857, "item_id": 46381991, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46381991", "by": "LeFantome", "date": "2025-12-24", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Or Smithay if you like Rust.", "excerpt": "Well, you are not really forced to write a compositor these days as there are libraries that do all the heavy lifting for you. Check out Louvre for example. Or Smithay if you like Rust. And if you want a bit more depth, there is wlroots of course (or the hyprland version). It is not really any harder than writing an X11 WM.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Phoenix: A modern X server written from scratch in Zig"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 750219537, "item_id": 46888721, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46888721", "by": "yencabulator", "date": "2026-02-04", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "I wish Smithay was actually in Rust and not a wrapper for the C libraries", "excerpt": "I wish Smithay was actually in Rust and not a wrapper for the C libraries, though. Playing with client-side Wayland programming, wayrs is a lot nicer to deal with than the C library wrappers. https://github.com/MaxVerevkin/wayrs", "context": "", "use_case": "Wayland compositor library", "switched_from": "", "story": "The Dank Case for Scrolling Window Managers"}, {"id": 745211138, "item_id": 46575696, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46575696", "by": "nickjj", "date": "2026-01-11", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "The compositor memory leak is affecting a lot of people", "excerpt": "> It would be fair to mention that this is happening for you with a decade old GPU using an EOL driver, which sucks, but is unlikely to be a common experience. The drivers are still getting maintained by NVIDIA until August 2026. They also got classified as \"legacy\" on paper 1 day before I installed them. The compositor memory leak is affecting a lot of people. Since COSMIC and niri both use the same one (smithay), t", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "I dumped Windows 11 for Linux, and you should too"}]}], "who": [], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["wayland compositor library", "learning wayland internals"], "compared": [{"slug": "niri", "name": "niri", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46820468", "title": "The Dank Case for Scrolling Window Managers", "mentions": 3}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46380075", "title": "Phoenix: A modern X server written from scratch in Zig", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47478687", "title": "MAUI Is Coming to Linux", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46779645", "title": "Xfwl4 \u2013 The Roadmap for a Xfce Wayland Compositor", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46574707", "title": "I dumped Windows 11 for Linux, and you should too", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-01": {"warn": 1, "recommend": 2}, "2026-02": {"warn": 1}, "2026-03": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {}}, "versions": [], "version_unnamed": 0, "family_ref": null, "runs_on": null, "lines": [], "quotes": [{"id": 759692432, "item_id": 47480777, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47480777", "by": "OtomotO", "date": "2026-03-22", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "That and studying smithay code.", "excerpt": "I found https://wayland.app/protocols/ very helpful so far. That and studying smithay code.", "context": "", "use_case": "learning Wayland internals", "switched_from": "", "story": "MAUI Is Coming to Linux"}, {"id": 750219537, "item_id": 46888721, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46888721", "by": "yencabulator", "date": "2026-02-04", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "I wish Smithay was actually in Rust and not a wrapper for the C libraries", "excerpt": "I wish Smithay was actually in Rust and not a wrapper for the C libraries, though. Playing with client-side Wayland programming, wayrs is a lot nicer to deal with than the C library wrappers. https://github.com/MaxVerevkin/wayrs", "context": "", "use_case": "Wayland compositor library", "switched_from": "", "story": "The Dank Case for Scrolling Window Managers"}, {"id": 749152432, "item_id": 46822027, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46822027", "by": "porkloin", "date": "2026-01-30", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "which is a good thing IMHO", "excerpt": "The majority of the projects in this comment chain don't actually independently implement a compositor in Rust - which is a good thing IMHO. They all spawn from a common core written in rust that is associated with the cosmic project: https://github.com/Smithay/smithay/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "The Dank Case for Scrolling Window Managers"}, {"id": 749152275, "item_id": 46822017, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46822017", "by": "porkloin", "date": "2026-01-30", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "smart design from folks working on Smithay", "excerpt": "Currently using Niri and DMS via https://github.com/zirconium-dev/zirconium which is fedora bootc atomic + niri + dms. After taking a year or so away from tiling WMs where I was using KDE for a bit, I'm enjoying it quite a lot. Super impressed by the \"out of the box\" experience given that it took a ton of sweat and tears to get these types of setups 10+ years ago when I posting stupid screenshots of my awesomewm and ", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "The Dank Case for Scrolling Window Managers"}, {"id": 748657792, "item_id": 46791112, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46791112", "by": "dlcarrier", "date": "2026-01-27", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "smithay has great documentation.", "excerpt": "This bullet point from the reason to chose one library over another is a prime example of what I love about XFCE: \u2022 smithay has great documentation. Not only are they considering it, but they're expressly calling it out. I'm convinced that the publication of the Agile Manifesto was an exercise in Cunningham's Law, and to that end the XFCE team has produced something great by doing the opposite.", "context": "", "use_case": "Wayland compositor library", "switched_from": "", "story": "Xfwl4 \u2013 The Roadmap for a Xfce Wayland Compositor"}, {"id": 745211138, "item_id": 46575696, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46575696", "by": "nickjj", "date": "2026-01-11", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "The compositor memory leak is affecting a lot of people", "excerpt": "> It would be fair to mention that this is happening for you with a decade old GPU using an EOL driver, which sucks, but is unlikely to be a common experience. The drivers are still getting maintained by NVIDIA until August 2026. They also got classified as \"legacy\" on paper 1 day before I installed them. The compositor memory leak is affecting a lot of people. Since COSMIC and niri both use the same one (smithay), t", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "I dumped Windows 11 for Linux, and you should too"}, {"id": 742141266, "item_id": 46383829, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46383829", "by": "LeFantome", "date": "2025-12-25", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "", "excerpt": "https://github.com/CuarzoSoftware/Louvre", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Phoenix: A modern X server written from scratch in Zig"}, {"id": 742111857, "item_id": 46381991, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46381991", "by": "LeFantome", "date": "2025-12-24", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Or Smithay if you like Rust.", "excerpt": "Well, you are not really forced to write a compositor these days as there are libraries that do all the heavy lifting for you. Check out Louvre for example. Or Smithay if you like Rust. And if you want a bit more depth, there is wlroots of course (or the hyprland version). It is not really any harder than writing an X11 WM.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Phoenix: A modern X server written from scratch in Zig"}]}