Sway
Tiling Wayland compositor and window manager designed as a drop-in replacement for i3.
Liked as a Wayland tiling window manager that i3 users can switch to with little config effort123, and for managing terminals and other apps with tabs, splits and workspaces.456 Complaints are few and scattered: one user finds the config too limited for scratchpad tweaks7, and another notes that extra Wayland tools needed permission setup.8
Why people recommend it
Easy i3 migration · 3
Former i3 users report moving their config and habits to Sway with little effort.
“Migrating my i3 config to sway hardly took any effort.”
“moved from i3 to sway, etc.”
Show 1 more
“I installed Sway and was pleasantly surprised.”
Tabs and workspaces · 3
Commenters use its tabs, splits and workspaces to organize terminals, editors and browsers.
“I use Sway and happily manage my terminal windows using its tabs and splits.”
“I use Sway to manage things like tabs”
Show 1 more
I used tmux for about a decade and wrote quite a bit of automation around it, including tmux_super_fingers. But eventually I got frustrated with project sessions being limited to terminal windows. In particular, the browser tabs belonging to those projects were all mixed up in a single browser window. So I wrote hop[1], which uses sway workspaces instead of tmux sessions. Terminals, editors, browsers, or any other wi
Long-term daily use · 3
Several commenters have relied on Sway as their everyday desktop for years.
“I've been using sway for years”
“it explains why I use the Sway tiling window manager today”
Show 1 more
“I rely on tmux, sway, and AeroSpace for my daily life”
Scriptable setup · 3
Users customize it heavily and glue small tools together with scripts around it.
“I'm fairly happy with my obscenely over-customized NixOS Sway desktop”
“I use sway so just made a bash script”
Show 1 more
I used tmux for about a decade and wrote quite a bit of automation around it, including tmux_super_fingers. But eventually I got frustrated with project sessions being limited to terminal windows. In particular, the browser tabs belonging to those projects were all mixed up in a single browser window. So I wrote hop[1], which uses sway workspaces instead of tmux sessions. Terminals, editors, browsers, or any other wi
Sensible defaults · 1
One user found the default setup in the Fedora Sway Spin very sensible.
“I have been using i3/sway for a long time.”
Lightweight · 1
One user reports it running very responsively on a Pinephone Pro.
“On the PPP, SXMO with sway WM/composer, foot terminal, and wvkbd as a keyboard is very responsive, too.”
Caveats and dissent
Limited config · 1
One user says the config vocabulary is too limited for some scratchpad behavior they want.
“There are things that I want to do with my sway scratchpad in sway that are just not possible because the config vocab is so limited.”
Extra tool setup · 1
Some functions need external Wayland tools, such as ydotool, which required permission setup.
“I already knew that the moment I went for Sway instead of Gnome or KDE.”
Unfamiliar workflow · 1
An AwesomeWM user found it not bad but too unlike what they were used to.
“I tried Sway for a bit and while it's not bad by any means it's a bit too unlike what I'm used to.”
Config reload · 1
Reloading the config takes a keybind, unlike Niri, which reloads on save.
“Sway requires a keybind, but no restart.”
Often compared with
3 moved from i3 to Sway
3 moved from Sway to niri
1 moved from Sway to HyprlandXMonad3 comments mention both
1 moved from XMonad to Swayi3wm1 comment mention both
1 moved from i3wm to Sway
Who recommends it in their own words
Threads where it came up
- Hyprland 0.55 announced the switch to Lua for its config files 3 mentions
- Leaving Linux 2 mentions
- Preparing for KDE Plasma's Last X11-Supported Release 2 mentions
- Moving Back to a Tiling WM – XMonad 2 mentions
- Show HN: I replaced tmux with sway workspaces 1 mention
- Mitos editor is a fork of Helix 1 mention
Also written as sway. Data: sway.json. Quotes are verbatim; the verdict and theme labels are written by a model from these comments, and every clause links to its sources.
All comments 29
I used tmux for about a decade and wrote quite a bit of automation around it, including tmux_super_fingers. But eventually I got frustrated with project sessions being limited to terminal windows. In particular, the browser tabs belonging to those projects were all mixed up in a single browser window. So I wrote hop[1], which uses sway workspaces instead of tmux sessions. Terminals, editors, browsers, or any other wi
“I use i3 or Sway, so I already have macros that do just this”
“Some time ago I switched to wayland/sway/foot”
“I use swaywm with i3bar”
“I have been using i3/sway for a long time.”
“I use it as my desktop environment.”
“much as I love the Sway desktop”
“I'm fairly happy with my obscenely over-customized NixOS Sway desktop”
“I use Sway to manage things like tabs”
“I use sway so just made a bash script”
“On the PPP, SXMO with sway WM/composer, foot terminal, and wvkbd as a keyboard is very responsive, too.”
“I rely on tmux, sway, and AeroSpace for my daily life”
“I use Sway and happily manage my terminal windows using its tabs and splits.”
“I used to use Sway”
“There are things that I want to do with my sway scratchpad in sway that are just not possible because the config vocab is so limited.”
“I use Sway personally, which is very configurable”
“My "TV/Steam" runs a tiling window manager (Sway) and is controlled by a keyboard instead of a remote”
“I installed Sway and was pleasantly surprised.”
“I tried Sway for a bit and while it's not bad by any means it's a bit too unlike what I'm used to.”
“I've been using less emacs windows and more i3/sway windows”
“Being a i3wm(now sway) user”
“I've been using sway for years”
“moved from i3 to sway, etc.”
“WMs like Niri and Sway (which I used before)”
“it explains why I use the Sway tiling window manager today”
“Migrating my i3 config to sway hardly took any effort.”
“I already knew that the moment I went for Sway instead of Gnome or KDE.”
“so I switched to sway for Wayland (such as it is it fixed the issue)”
“Sway requires a keybind, but no restart.”